Reading Descartes: A Reassessment of the Shaping and Transmission of Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century

Project Information

READESCARTES

Grant agreement ID: 892794

DOI

10.3030/892794

Project closed

EC signature date 2 March 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 28 February 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 183 473,28

EU contribution

€ 183 473,28

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - READESCARTES (Reading Descartes: A Reassessment of the Shaping and Transmission of Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century)

Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2023-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The objective of READESCARTES (March 2021–February 2023) is to provide the first in-depth study of the handwritten commentaries on the treatises of René Descartes (1696–1650). This study is important because such sources had a crucial role in shaping the intellectual revolution occurring in Europe during the seventeenth century, informing intellectual dynamics with longstanding impact, and determining the birth of philosophical and scientific modernity. In fact, we still do not have a complete grasp of why his ideas were so important to this revolution, precisely because we do not know how Descartes’s texts were closely read, thereby generating new world-views across Europe, and how genetic epistemic processes actually worked in the seventeenth century. The key to understand this process of reading and knowledge-building is the analysis of a kind of sources up to now neglected by historians, namely the handwritten academic commentaries on Descartes’s treatises (Principia philosophiae, Discours de la méthode and Meditationes de prima philosophia), dictated by professors to students. Their study is urgent and timely. It is urgent, because we cannot have a clear grasp of the history of European philosophical and scientific culture if we do not look at how the texts of one of its crucial protagonists were read. It is timely, because it benefits from new directions of investigation and methodologies in the history of early modern philosophy, science and intellectual history. Through READESCARTES, a selection of these sources is explored by an integration of avant-garde approaches: (a) the study of early modern reading and note-taking practices, (b) a transnational approach to the history of thought, and (c) the application of digital humanities instruments aimed at the textual mapping of large amounts of texts. These approaches are essential to READESCARTES’s more specific objectives of (1) searching uncatalogued handwritten sources, (2) textually reconstructing and mapping them, and (3) analysing their use and dissemination.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The research activity of READESCARTES concerns commentaries and lectures or university dictata (in handwritten and printed form) by authors directly inspired by Cartesian thought, esp. Johannes de Raey and Johannes Clauberg, and related authors like Henricus Regius, Christopher Wittich, Burchard de Volder, and Johannes Swammerdam, as well as related sources like treatises, research papers, correspondences, and disputations. First (months 1–3), it is conducted an assessment and localization of handwritten commentaries and lectures on Cartesian treatises, by an integration of intellectual-historical and archival methodologies, namely by (1) a consultation the testaments and the auction catalogues of professors, students and book collectors, (2) a systematic survey on the references to Cartesian commentaries in printed books, in their different editions, and (3) a consultation of library and archive catalogues. Hence (months 4–12), a selection of handwritten primary sources is transcribed and critically edited, and their structure and textual agreements with each other and with printed sources is mapped with the crucial help of digital means, combining (1) a standard philological approach with (2) techniques in the digital humanities, viz. the use of optical text recognition softwares and sources (Adobe, Google, Transkribus) and by a flexible re-use of anti-plagiarism softwares (compilatio.net Turnitin). Eventually (months 13–24) it is analysed how Cartesian thought was interpreted and how this generated new knowledge, by assessing (1) the foremost issues dealt with in Cartesian commentaries: in particular, the discussion of the ideas of motion, place, and space; (2) the new views commentaries offered: in particular, the developments of the idea of force in Cartesian-inspired natural philosophies. Finally, the project assesses (3) the relations between commentaries and printed texts: this shows how Cartesian commentaries offered a much richer discussion of such issue than printed texts, and demonstrates the crucial role of handwritten sources – in particular, didactic ones – in the genesis of knowledge in the seventeenth century. The research results of READESCARTES are disseminated by 5 conference talks, 4 workshops, and by a series of 14 talks organized by the PI; moreover, by a monograph, 7 research articles, one collective volume edited by the PI, and one popularising article.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

From an historical standpoint, READESCARTES sheds light on unpublished manuscript sources, which have been the object of scanty attention so far. It ascertains how sources were primary means of developing ideas in the seventeenth century, being thus crucial in shaping the intellectual revolution occurring in Europe in the early modern age. The project thus reassesses our views on one of the most important phases of transition in European and world culture, by reconstructing how ideas were shaped, taught and disseminated across political, confessional and national boundaries. From a methodological standpoint, the project does so by an innovative interdisciplinary approach never previously employed by historians, encompassing archival research, philological research, digital humanities, history of philosophy and science, and intellectual history. In particular, the project goes beyond the current state of the art because (a) it focuses on the study of early modern reading and note-taking practices, (b) it assumes a transnational approach to the history of thought, and (c) it applies digital humanities tools aimed at the textual mapping of large amounts of texts. So, the project does not simply expand our knowledge and fills in gaps along traditional lines, but it uses an interdisciplinary approach for generating new knowledge that questions borders across disciplines and reassesses received views.

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