Bucharest-Princeton Seminar 2011
We are happy to announce the 11th edition of the annual Bucharest-Princeton Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy to be held in Bran, July 2-7, 2011. The Seminar gathers together scholars interested in various aspects of early modern thought. Its aim is to create a stimulating environment for discussing papers and ideas. Traditionally, the seminar has two components: morning workshops and afternoon discussions of work-in-progress. The languages of the seminar are English and French.
Theme of this year: Collaborative aspects of early modern thought: philosophical correspondence and the Republic of Letters
July 2
9.30 Departure to Bran from Hotel Flowers, Plantelor str. 2, Bucharest (lunch on the way in Brașov)
17.00 Arrival in Bran (Vila Andra)
19.00 Dinner
July 3
9.30-10.30 Conference: Igor Agostini (Lecce): La correspondence Descartes-Elisabeth et la traduction Picot des Principes de la philosophie (1647)
10.30-10.45 Coffee break
10.45-13.00 Reading group (I): The Descartes-Henry More Correspondence. Convenors: Igor Agostini, Vlad Alexandrescu, Sarah Hutton
Texts: Descartes Correspondance avec Arnauld et Morus, texte latin et traduction, éd. Geneviève Lewis, Paris, Vrin, 1953, p. 94-187; english translation of Descartes’ letters in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. III, translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, A. Kenny, CUP, 1991, p. 360-367, 371-375, 380-382.
Link to the English file (only Descartes’ letters)| Link to the Latin-French file (all the selected letters)
13.00-15.00 Lunch break
16.00-16.35 Alexandra Anisie (Cluj): On susbtance in Bruno’s Concerning the Cause, Principle, and the One
16.35-16.50 Coffee break
16.50-17.25 Katherine Dunlop (Brown): Gassendi on the Ontological Status of Spatial Dimensions
17.25-18.00 Michael Funk-Deckard (Lenoir-Rhyne): The act of admiration: wondrous women in early modern philosophy
19.00 Dinner
July 4
9.30-10.30 Conference: Sarah Hutton (Aberystwyth University): The correspondence of seventeenth-century women philosophers: Anne Conway and Damaris Cudworth Masham
10.30-10.45 Coffee break
10.45-13.00 Reading group (II): The Leibniz-des Bosses Correspondence, Convenors: Daniel Garber, Lucian Petrescu, Vlad Alexandrescu
Texts: G.W. Leibniz, The Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence, latin texts and english translations, intoroduction by Brandon C. Look and Donald Rutherford, Yale University Press, 2007:
Leibniz to des Bosses, 15th February 1712, p. 220-235
Des Bosses to Leibniz, 20th July 1715, p. 340-347
Leibniz to Des Bosses, 19th August 1715, p. 347-357
Leibniz an des Bosses, 29th May 1716, p. 365-378
Link to file (Latin and English)
Monadologie, 1714, ed. A. Robinet, Paris, P.U.F., 2e éd., 1986
Link to the French text | Link to the English translation
13.00-15.00 Lunch break
16.00-16.35: Barnaby Hutchins (Ghent), Subvisible mechanical systems in Descartes’ late physiology
16.35-16.50 Coffee break
16.50-17.25 Alexander Xavier Douglas (Birkbeck): Dutch Cartesianism and the Separation Idea
17.25-18.00 Lucian Petrescu (Ghent): Salt, silver, oxygen. Real Qualities in Descartes’ and Fromondus’ Meteors.
19.00 Dinner
July 5
9.30-10.05 Radu Toderici (Cluj): “Communication d’imagination”: Pascal, Malebranche and the Social Transmission of Knowledge
10.05-10.40: Anton Matytsin (Pennsylvania): The Specter of Skepticism and Sources of Certainty in the Early Enlightenment Interest: philosophical and historical skepticism in the early 18th century
10.40-11.00 Coffee break
11.00-13.00 Reading group (III): The Newton-Hooke Correspondence, Convenors: Katherine Dunlop, Dana Jalobeanu, Grigore Vida
Texts: Newton's letter, Hooke's, Linus' and Pardies' letters
13.00-15.00 Lunch break
16.00-16.35 Kristin Primus (Princeton): Immanent Causation in Spinoza’s Ethics
16.35-16.50 Coffee break
16.50 -17.25 Filip Buyse (Paris I): The Gunpowder Reaction: A Controversy between Boyle and Spinoza
17.25-18.00 Jo Van Cauter (Ghent): The betrayal of Christ: Jesus as statesman (Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus)
19.00 Dinner
July 6
9.30-10.30: Sorana Corneanu (Bucharest), Koen Vermeir (CNRS, Paris): The magician’s imagination in Francis Bacon
10.30-10.45 Coffee break
10.45-11.20 Doina Rusu (Bucharest): Baconian natural histories in the correspondence and in The Instauratio magna
11.20-11.55 Madalina Giurgea, Laura Georgescu (Bucharest): Bacon and Descartes : The Creative Role of Experiments
11.55-12.30: Dana Jalobeanu (Bucharest): Francis Bacon's Senecan natural history of the heavens or the case of 'missing' natural history
12.30-13.00: Raphaele Garrod (Cambridge): Whales, Starfishes and the John Dory in Pierre Viret's Instruction Chrétienne (1564): From Natural Theology to Natural History?
13.00-15.00 Lunch
16.00-16.35 James Lancaster (London): Natural history of religion: a new form of natural history?
16.35-16.50 Coffee break
16.50-17.25 Mihnea Dobre (Bucharest): Jaques Rohault and Samuel Clarke
17.25-18.00 Grigore Vida (Bucharest): The Changing Fate of Newton’s Cosmology and the Interaction between Theology and Natural Science
19.00 Dinner
July 7
9.30 Departure to Bucharest
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Organized by the Research Centre for the Foundations of Modern Thought (FME), University of Bucharest and the Philosophy Department, Princeton University.
Artwork for the poster (c) Thomas Albdorf, 2010
