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This chapter argues that the standard conception of Spinoza as a fellow-travelling mechanical philosopher and proto-scientific naturalist is misleading. It argues, first, that Spinoza’s account of the proper method for the study of nature presented in the Theological-Political Treatise (TTP) points away from the one commonly associated with the mechanical philosophy. Moreover, throughout his works Spinoza’s views on the very possibility of knowledge of nature are decidedly sceptical (as specified below). Third, in the seventeenth-century debates over proper methods in the sciences, Spinoza sided with those that criticized the aspirations of those (the physico-mathematicians, Galileo, Huygens, Wallis, Wren, etc) who thought the application of mathematics to nature was the way to make progress. In particular, he offers grounds for doubting their confidence in the significance of measurement as well as their piece-meal methodology (see section 2). Along the way, this chapter offers a new interpretation of common notions in the context of treating Spinoza’s account of motion (see section 3)
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Keywords | Spinoza Criticism of Mathematical Natural Philosophy |
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Reprint years | 2012 |
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On the Origins and Foundations of Laplacian Determinism.Marij van Strien - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 45:24-31.
Essence, Experiment, and Under-Determination in the Spinoza-Boyle Correspondence.Stephen Harrop - forthcoming - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.
Constraining (Mathematical) Imagination by Experience: Nieuwentijt and van Musschenbroek on the Abuses of Mathematics.Steffen Ducheyne - 2019 - Synthese 196 (9):3595-3613.
Hobbes on the Order of Sciences: A Partial Defense of the Mathematization Thesis.Zvi Biener - 2016 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 54 (3):312-332.
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