Early Modern Thought Research Cluster
About the ResearchThis research cluster provides a focus for research on all aspects of early modern thought. The early modern period spans from the mid-16th century to the late 18th century. Areas of special expertise within the cluster include the history, literature, philosophy, music and art of the early modern period. The cluster fosters interdisciplinary research across these disciplines and includes both early career researchers as well as senior researchers who are leaders in their field. Key areas for investigation within the cluster include: the origins of Empiricism; the philosophy of David Hume; distributed memory (Marsden funded research); philosophy and eighteenth-century literature; musical memory and music in Shakespeare’s plays; Hobbes as poet and Latinist; Locke on toleration. CoordinatorResearchers
Research ProjectsExperimental philosophy and the origins of Empiricism (Marsden Funded Project)(Peter Anstey and Richard Serjeantson (Trinity College, Cambridge)) This project will present the case for a wholesale revision of the way in which 17th- and 18th-century philosophy has traditionally been understood. The distinction between Rationalism and Empiricism has long provided the standard terms of reference by which early modern philosophers and their theories are classified. Yet this distinction was developed by neo-Kantian philosophers in the 19th century. This project will test the hypothesis that the salient (though not the only) terms of reference by which philosophy was understood in this period was the distinction between Experimental and Speculative philosophy. It will argue that these terms of reference provide a richer and more nuanced way of partitioning early modern natural philosophy and moral philosophy. Furthermore, it will demonstrate that the Rationalism-Empiricism distinction should be reinterpreted in the light of the Experimental-Speculative distinction. This will mark a significant advance in our understanding of early modern philosophy and will provide an enhanced framework within which to generate new historical knowledge. Visit the Early Modern Experimental Philosophy blog Extended memory (Marsden Funded Project)(Evelyn Tribble & John Sutton (Macquarie)) This project brings together recent research in philosophy and cognitive science with literary and cultural history to explore the relationship between mind and world in early modern England. A concept central to work in the fields of Distributed Cognition/Extended Mind is that thought is not merely intracranial, but depends instead upon cognitively rich environments that minimize the demands of complex tasks upon individuals. This model, which developed to account for contemporary cognitive practices, can equally illuminate historical and literary questions about historical cognition, or the relationship of individual agency and social practice in the early modern period. This investigation will not only advance understanding of memory in this period, but also will refine and strengthen current theories of Distributed Cognition/ Extended Mind by testing them against specific historical case studies. Women, philosophy and literature in the early modern periodJocelyn Harris and Peter Anstey are editing a special issue for Intellectual History Review on 'Women, philosophy and literature in the early modern period' which is the proceedings from the Otago/Sydney Early Modern Seminar of 2009. Contributors are: Jacqui Broad, Jennifer Clement, Karen Green, Jocelyn Harris, Charles Pigden, Liam Semler, Jane Spencer and Sophie Tomlinson. It will appear in 2012.
Philosophy and literature in the 18th century(Jocelyn Harris) The relationship between philosophy and early modern literature are being empirically explored through the example of the novelist Samuel Richardson, who developed the ideas of the political philosopher Mary Astell into his popular and influential masterpiece, Clarissa. Continuities from Locke to Astell to Richardson to Woolf provide a striking case history of literature continuing to interact with early modern philosophy. Hobbes as poet and Latinist(John Hale) John aims to complete an edition of Hobbes’s Latin verse autobiography and to write a study of his Latin early poem on the seven wonders of the Peak District, in Derbyshire. These form part of a fuller study of Hobbes as Poet and Latinist, and essays comparing Hobbes with Milton, as materialists writing in Latin. Locke on toleration(Vicki Spencer) This project questions whether Locke in his mature work understood toleration as it is commonly viewed today as ‘putting up’ with others’ views, actions or ways of life by investigating the role of virtue in his A Letter Concerning Toleration. His often neglected but spirited argument against the validity of zealots, suggests that tolerance cannot exist side by side with contempt. It also challenges the dominant readings of his Letter as simply providing either a pragmatic defence of toleration based on moral scepticism or a rationalist defence, both of which are recognised as weak. John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity(Tim Cooper) This project examines the complex causes of the strained relationship between two leading English Puritans: John Owen (1616–1683) and Richard Baxter (1615–1693). It also explores the impact of their poor relationship on Restoration Nonconformity: Did that strain prevent any possible healing between the two sides of what was already a divided movement? In this way it will shed light on how this movement developed in a way that looks beyond merely theological factors and differences to ones located in personality and experience, particularly experience of the English Civil War.
The Idea of Peace in the Age of Crusades (Marsden project)(Takashi Shogimen) The European Middles Ages is widely known as the age of Crusades; it was a time of violence against Muslims and heretics. But it was also the period when Christianity, which provided the holistic framework for public and private life, preached peace as the ultimate goal of human life. No attempt has been made to examine comprehensively the idea of peace in medieval political and ecclesiastical writings. Rarely have the origins of modern pacifism and of international law been traced back beyond Erasmus and Grotius respectively. This is a significant lacuna in our understanding, since early modern ideas of war and peace and the subsequent development of international law did not emerge in a vacuum; they can be seen as intellectual responses to medieval scholastic traditions in the new era of 'the voyages of discovery'. This research project aims to highlight the rise of a pacifist impulse among late medieval political thinkers. This study explores the interplay between the Augustinian theology of peace and other intellectual traditions including Aristotelian political science, canon law and military science, thereby offering new insight into the complexity and diversity of the late medieval academic quest for peace.
The Dissemination of Ockham's Theory of Heresy, 1350-1550(Takashi Shogimen) The English Franciscan William of Ockham (c.1285-1347) was one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in late medieval Europe. Recent scholarship has shown his profound impact on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of language in the late Middle Ages and beyond. Less well known is Ockham's polemical career: following a dispute between the papacy and his Order, Ockham abandoned his academic career and devoted himself to anti-papal polemics. At the heart of Ockham's polemical output was a systematic treatise of heresy: Part I of the Dialogus (The Dialogue). Modern scholarship on medieval intellectual history has overlooked the theological and legal conceptions of heresy and Ockham's revolutionary reconceptualization of them, let alone the impact that Ockham's new theory had on later generations of theologians and canonists. This research project examines how Ockham's writings on heresy were assimilated by theologians and canonists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries including Robert Holcot, Juan de Torquemada, Juan de Segovia, Jacques Almain and Franciscus de Vitoria, thereby highlighting a hitherto unexplored tradition of discourses on heresy in late medieval and early modern periods.
Otago/Sydney Early Modern Seminar2010The Otago/Sydney Early Modern Seminar was held at the University of Sydney from 6–7 September on the theme 'The rise of Empiricism'. 2009The seminar was held at the University of Otago from 3–4 September 2009 on the theme Women, Philosophy and Literature. 2007The seminar held on 18 October 2007 was on the theme ‘Empirical explanation in the age of Locke’. For more information, visit the archive on: http://www.otago.ac.nz/humanities/research/clusters/modernthought/seminar.html Researcher Profiles Prof Peter Anstey is Professor of Early Modern Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy. His research interests lie in early modern philosophy of science and history of science. He is currently working on a Marsden-funded project on 'Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism'. Prof Andrew Bradstock (Howard Paterson Chair in Theology and Public Issues at Otago since 2009) has a long-standing interest in the 'radicals' of the Civil War years and the Interregnum. He has published widely on the leader and main theorist of the Digger movement, Gerrard Winstanley (the subject of his PhD research), and in 1999 organised an international conference to mark the 350th anniversary of the Diggers' occupation of St George's Hill in Surrey. Andrew's latest book, 'Radical Religion in Cromwell's England: A concise history from the Englsih Civil War to the end of the Commonwealth' will be published by I B Tauris later this year. Dr Tim Cooper is a Senior Lecturer in Church History in the Department of Theology and Religion. Tim's research interests include Richard Baxter; John Owen; The Puritans; Radical religion in seventeenth-century England and Intellectual history. Dr Greg Dawes lectures in the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Theology and Religion. Greg's earlier work, published in his book The Historical Jesus Question, had to do with the rise of a critical and historical attitude to the Bible in seventeenth-century Europe and its consequences for later Christian thought. His present interests have to do with the complex relations between religion, science, and magic in the early modern period. In particular, he is working on a comparative study of Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei. Dr John Hale is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of English. He is a Milton scholar and continues to research John Milton’s Latin writings, especially Milton’s theological works. He is currently editing and translating Milton’s De Doctrina Christiana for Oxford University Press and is researching Thomas Hobbes’s Latin poetry. John Hale has been awarded the James Holly Hanford Award for a most distinguished book on John Milton published in 2007 for Milton and the Manuscript of De Doctrina Christiana. Prof Jocelyn Harris is Emeritus Professor in the Department of English. Having investigated Richardson's appropriation of Locke's philosophical and educational writing in Samuel Richardson (CUP, 1987) and his construction of Lovelace as a Hobbist in Clarissa ("Protean Lovelace," Eighteenth-Century Fiction 2:4 (1990), 327-46), Harris has now completed her enquiry into his connections with Mary Astell. Her discoveries about Austen's use of Locke in Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen's Art of Memory, CUP, 1989, repr. 2003) and a plenary address for the Jane Austen Society of North America annual meeting in Vancouver (October 2007) about Austen's dramatisation of Wollstonecraft's Vindication in Emma have been the stimulus to develop the argument that Austen's whole oeuvre is based on Lockean epistemology. A chapter on Jane Austen's relation to the tradition appeared in The Cambridge Companion to English Novelists, ed. Adrian Poole (2009); a chapter on Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park is about to appear in the revised Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, ed. Juliet McMaster and Edward Copeland; and "Jane Austen and Celebrity Culture: Shakespeare, Dorothy Jordan and Elizabeth Bennet" has been accepted for a special issue on Shakespeare and Jane Austen of Shakespeare (UK). She will chair a panel on "Jane Austen and Celebrity Culture" at the annual meeting of the Eighteenth-Century Studies Association of America in Vancouver (March 2011), as well as contributing to a panel discussion on a new abridged Clarissa. Dr. Carla Lam is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics. Carla received her PhD in political theory from Carleton University in 2004. She then lectured at Queen’s and Carleton Universities in Canada before arriving in New Zealand in July 2008. Her research interests include: political theory and feminism, especially in the radical and materialist traditions. In terms of early modern thought her work focuses on Hobbes. Carla’s central research themes are: sexuality and reproduction, embodiment, ethics, and the biology/society debate especially as manifested through the history of political ideas. Her current projects include a book on the politics of reproduction in the 21st century, which includes a chapter on Hobbes and early modern forms of political and gender discourse; and an edited collection on contemporary relationships between feminism(s) and academia.
Prof Alan Musgrave has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Otago since 1970. He has long-standing interests in early modern thought, both scientific and philosophical. A current interest is contemporary essentialist views, and their relation to Locke's distinction between real and nominal essences. Dr Charles Pigden is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. He has published on a wide range of subjects from the analytic/synthetic distinction through conspiracy theories to the existence (or otherwise) of abstract objects. His interest in early modern thought centres on the work of David Hume (though he also has a keen interest in Hobbes, Hutcheson, Mandeville, Price and Reid). Though Charles finds history fun, he is primarily interested in the philosophers of the past for what we can get out of them, and he works at the intersection between early modern thought and contemporary analytic philosophy. Dr Takashi Shogimen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History. He specialises in the political thought of late medieval Europe. His recent book offers a fresh reappraisal of the political thought of William of Ockham (c.1285-1347), a Franciscan theologian and philosopher. He has currently been exploring a cross-cultural approach to the history of political thought. Dr Vicki Spencer is a Senior Lecturer in political theory in the Department of Politics. Previously she was a Lecturer at the University of Adelaide. Her main area of research has been the late eighteenth-century German philosopher, Johann Gottfried Herder. She has a particular interest in his theories of language and culture, and their links with nationalism, contemporary liberal-communitarian thought, pluralism and multiculturalism. Her most recent project focuses on the concepts of tolerance and humility in early modern and contemporary thought. Prof Evelyn (Lyn) Tribble holds the Donald Collie Chair of English. In addition to her work on Shakespeare, Lyn is researching the application of recent developments in cognitive science, such as the notions of distributed memory and extended mind, to specific early modern case studies in domains such as literature and natural philosophy. Dr Alberto Vanzo is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Philosophy. His area of specialization is early modern philosophy, especially Kant's philosophy. He is currently working on the Marsden project on experimental philosophy and the origins of empiricism. In particular, he is studying eighteenth century German experimental philosophy and the origin of the notion of empiricism in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. Postgraduate ResearchRecently completed and current research by Masters and PhD students linked to the research cluster: PhD
Masters
Recent Publications (2008-2011)BooksPeter Anstey, John Locke and Natural Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 Andrew Bradstock, Radical Religion in Cromwell's England: A Concise History from the English Civil War to the End of the Commonwealth, I. B. Tauris: London, 2010 Sue Court, Sigismondo d’India, Fifth book of madrigals arranged for Viol Consort, California, PRB Productions, USA B047 (Baroque Music Series), 2011 Sue Court, Marco da Gagliano: La Flora, A-R Editions Music of the Renaissance, USA, Madison, 2011 Sue Court, Foundations for College Music Theory, Lighthouse Press, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2011 Alan Musgrave, Secular Sermons: Essays on Science and Philosophy, Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2009 Edited Books and Special Journal IssuesPeter Anstey, ed. (with Dana Jalobeanu), Vanishing Matter and the Laws of Motion: Descartes and Beyond, New York: Routledge, 2011 Jocelyn Harris and Shef Rogers, eds, Rewriting the Long Eighteenth Century, Selected Papers from the Thirteenth David Nichol Smith Seminar, Eighteenth-Century Life 32:2 (Spring 2008), 160 pp. Charles Pidgen, ed., Hume on Is and Ought, Houndmillls: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 Charles Pigden, ed., Hume on Motivation and Virtue, Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 Takashi Shogimen and Cary J. Nederman, eds. Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2008 Book ChaptersPeter Anstey, 'John Locke and Helmontian medicine', in The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge: Embodied Empiricism in Early Modern Science, eds Charles Wolfe and Ofer Gal, Dordrecht: Springer, 2010, pp. 93–117 Andrew Bradstock, ‘Bunyan and the Bible’, in R Lemon, E Mason, J Roberts & C Rowland [eds], The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in Literature, Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 Takashi Shogimen, ‘Imagining the Body Politic: Metaphor and Political Language in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan’, in Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia, eds. Takashi Shogimen and Cary J. Nederman (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), pp. 279-300 Vicki Spencer, ‘Viewing Islam through Enlightenment Eyes’ in Takashi Shogimen and Cary Nederman eds., Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia, Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2008, pp. 109–134 Refereed Journal ArticlesPeter Anstey (with John Burrows) ‘John Locke, Thomas Sydenham, and the authorship of two medical essays’, electronic British Library Journal, 2009, pp. 1–42 Tim Cooper. “John Owen Unleashed. Almost”. Conversations in Religion and Theology 6:2 (November, 2008): 226-42 Tim Cooper. “Why Did Richard Baxter and John Owen Diverge? The Impact of the First Civil War”. Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61:3 (2010): 496-516 John Hale, 'Milton's Titles' in Early Modern Literary Studies 13 John Hale, 'Notes on the Value and Function's of Titles', in Cuadernos de Literatura Inglesa y Norteamericana 12. 1–2 (2009), pp. 23–34 John Hale, 'The Problems and Opportunities of Editing De Doctrina Christiana', in Milton Quarterly 44. 1 (2010), pp. 38–46 Takashi Shogimen, 'The Best Medicine? Medical Education, Practice and Metaphor in John of Salisbury's Takashi Shogimen, 'European Ideas of Peace in the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries', The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms 7 (2010), pp. 871-885. Takashi Shogimen, 'Treating the Body Politic: The Medical Metaphor of Political Rule in Late Medieval Europe and Tokugawa Japan', The Review of Politics, 70 (2008), pp. 77-104 Evelyn Tribble, "Listening to Prospero's Books," Shakespeare Survey 61 (2008), pp. 61–70 Alberto Vanzo, "Kant on the Nominal Definition of Truth'', Kant-Studien, 101 (2010), 147–166. Alberto Vanzo (with Antonio M. Nunziante), "Representing Subjects, Mind-dependent Objects. Kant, Leibniz, and the Amphiboly", British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 17 (2009), 133-151 (available for Informaworld subscribers at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608780802548390) International collaborationsProject: Francis Bacon and the reconfiguration of natural history ARC NEER Research Cluster on Notebooks and note taking in early modern Europe School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney Project: Otago/Sydney Early Modern Seminar Trinity College Cambridge EventsOtago/Sydney Early Modern Seminar 2011The seminar for 2011 is on the theme Experimental philosophy and the origins of empiricismand will be held at St Margaret's College from 18–19 April. View the conference programme. Otago/Sydney Early Modern Seminar 2010The seminar for 2010 was held at the University of Sydney from 6–7 September 2010 on the theme The rise of Empiricism. The seminar held on 3 September 2009 was on the theme Women, philosophy and literature in the early modern period. For more information, visit the archive on: http://www.otago.ac.nz/humanities/research/clusters/modernthought/seminar.html The proceedings from this conference are forthcoming in a special issue of Intellectual History Review. Links
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