CFP for the issue no. 3/2013 – Descartes’ Scientific and Philosophical Disputes with his Contemporaries

CFP December Issue of Studia UBB. Philosophia: “Descartes’ Scientific and Philosophical Disputes with his Contemporaries”

 

“…I beg all who have any objections to take the trouble to send them…” – Descartes’ eagerness to defend his views, motivated more or less rhetorically in the name of “the search after truth”, engaged him in various heated controversies from 1637 (when the Discourse on method appeared, containing the above quoted request) to the end of his life. Apart from the famous “Objections and Replies” to the Meditations (1641), the Cartesian correspondence presents a large number of equally interesting disputes, both scientific and philosophical; the letters often resemble to a battle field in which an attentive observer will distinguish various “war strategies” like Trojan horses, conceptual traps, misquotes and the like. Sometimes the aim was to disqualify the opponent not only as a bad thinker, but also as a hidden dangerous atheist. As a matter of fact, in the late 1640s, Descartes situation between the French Catholics, the experimentally minded philosophers like Gassendi and the Orthodox Calvinist Dutch theologians became very heated, with no prospect of escape from this tight circle; his decision to accept Queen Christina’s invitation to Stockholm appears to be rather a run away.

The present issue will be dedicated to these confrontations, aiming to show, on the whole, the historical and conceptual relevance of contemporary reactions to Cartesianism for an assessment of both the novelty and the consistence of Descartes’ project.

Papers in can be submitted in English, French or German. Articles cannot be longer than 75.000 characters (including spaces and footnotes); reviews no longer than 25.000 characters. Deadline for submission is 15 September 2013. Papers should follow the guidelines for the authors (http://www.studia.ubbcluj.ro/download/instr/philosophia.pdf), being prepared for a blind review. They have to be sent both to the editor, Ion Copoeru: copoeru@hotmail.com, and the guest editor, Vlad Alexandrescu: valexandrescu@gmail.com.