Houyhnhnm Land Moving

Houyhnhnm Land is moving to the following address:

http://www.branemrys.org/

Change your links, visit the site, and tell me what you think!

Brandon Watson

On-line Resources on Margaret Cavendish (1623?-1673)

General Overview:

There are a few on-line resources beyond the elementary level for Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish. I confess that this surprised me, but, in retrospect, it shouldn't have. Cavendish is of interest on three fronts: philosophy, literature, and history of science, and the juncture of the three interests leads to a slight preponderance on-line of Cavendish over (e.g.) other women philosophers in this period.

Little Bits:

Cavendish portraits at the National Portrait Gallery

Margaret Lucas Cavendish: a timeline of her life

Margaret Cavendish: a fairly good introductory page

Somewhat More Substantive:

"The Construction of Female Relationships in the Works of Margaret Cavendish" (Lora Davies): an essay on the lack of female friendships in Cavendish's literary works

Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish: a good website with a brief biography, links to on-line works, and essays on her literary works.

Margaret Cavendish Society Resources Page

Margaret Cavendish Bibliography

Producing Petty Gods: Margaret Cavendish's Critique of Experimental Science (Eve Keller)

Margaret Cavendish issue of Early Modern Literary Studies

Substantive:

Margaret Cavendish and Scientific Discourse in Seventeenth-Century England (Alisa Curtis Bolander): PDF, a Master's thesis.

Margaret Cavendish issue of Women's Writing : The most interesting article for philosophical purposes is In Dialogue with Thomas Hobbes: Margaret Cavendish’s natural philosophy (Sarah Hutton): PDF. The abstract:

It is well documented that Margaret Cavendish came into close contact with many of the great thinkers of mid-seventeenth-century Europe. When read in the context of the work of Thomas Hobbes, in particular his De Corpore of 1655, Cavendish’s own natural philosophy may be better understood not merely as a product of, but also as a valid contribution to, this wider intellectual context. Understanding her Philosophical Letters (1664), her Blazing World (1666), and her Grounds of Natural Philosophy (1668) in such a light may go some way towards redeeming her philosophical reputation from those contemporary, and modern, critics, who have sought to demean it.

Actual Works:

The Atomic Poems (with some biography and essay resources): at the Women Writers Resource Project

A brief selection from Philosophical and Physical Opinions is here.

"Of the Breeding of Children"

A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding, and Life: Cavendish's 1656 memoir

Nature's Pictures at Renaissance Women Online

If you have placed on-line any resources on Margaret Cavendish, especially articles or papers on her work, or selections from her original works, or if you have come across such resources, please contact me at bwatson{at}chass{dot}utoronto{dot}ca.

On-line Resources on Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659-1708)

General Overview:

There are almost no significant on-line resources for Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham, even for research at the elementary level.

Little Bits:

Damaris, Lady Masham: a brief summary of her life

Damaris Cudworth Masham: a timeline of her life

Damaris Masham: Good summary of her life and works at Thoemmes Press

Somewhat More Substantive:

Leibniz’s Exposition of His System to Queen Sophie Charlotte and Other Ladies (George Macdonald Ross): some brief discussion of the Leibniz-Masham correspondence

Lady Damaris Masham (Sarah Hutton): A short summary of her works at the SEP

On-line Resources on James Beattie (1735-1803)

General Overview:

For research beyond the elementary level, there are no significant on-line resources on James Beattie.

Little Bits:

James Beattie: brief summary of his life

James Beattie: Summary of his life

Somewhat More Substantive:

The Rise and Fall of Beattie's Common Sense Theory of Truth (James Fieser): a brief discussion of a particular revision made by Beattie to his Essay on the Nature of Truth

Pragmatic Arguments for the Existence of God (Jeff Jordan): this article in the SEP has a brief but interesting discussion of what the author calls Beattie's "Consolation Argument"

Actual Works:

Excerpt from The Minstrel

The Complete Poetry at Project Gutenberg

I have placed on-line at Siris a brief selection from Beattie on taste, here.

If you have placed on-line any resources on George Campbell, especially articles or papers on his work, or selections from his original works, or if you have come across such resources, please contact me at bwatson{at}chass{dot}utoronto{dot}ca.

On-line Resources on George Campbell (1719-1796)

General Overview:

There are almost no resources on-line for research about George Campbell beyond the elementary level. While there seems to be considerable interest in Campbell's philosophy of rhetoric, this interest has not been developed into a set of significant research resources.

Little Bits:

George Campbell: a summary of his life

Dr. George Campbell: a short but good summary of his life

George Campbell: a very brief summary of his rhetorical views

Somewhat More Substantive:

George Campbell Research Links: a mixed selection, some of them fairly useful (there appear to be a number of dead links)

George Campbell: an incomplete outline (literally) of Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric, at the Rhetorica ad Digitum Project

George Campbell on Rhetoric (Ed Lamoureux): notes summarizing Campbell's resemblance theory of rhetoric

Vicissitudes in the History of Appeals: a brief but interesting discussion on Campbell's rhetoric and appeals to the audience (Campbell minimizes the latter and focuses on arguments)

The Validity of Miracles (Kevin Wright): a Seniors Honors Project for Southwest Missouri State University giving an analysis (based on Toulmin) of several of Hume's responses to Campbell's response to Hume on miracles.

Actual Works:

The Philosophy of Rhetoric: an on-line study edition edited by H. Lewis Ulman and Roger Graves; this is a collaborative project, although it appears not to have received any collaboration, or even to have been developed, in several years. Currently it only includes book one of the Philosophy of Rhetoric, from the 1850 Tegg edition.

I have put on-line at Siris a brief selection from Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles, here.

If you have placed on-line any resources on George Campbell, especially articles or papers on his work, or selections from his original works, or if you have come across such resources, please contact me at bwatson{at}chass{dot}utoronto{dot}ca.

On-line Resources on John Norris (1657-1711)

General Overview:
For reasearch beyond the elementary level there are almost no significant resources on-line for John Norris.

Little Bits:

Other Literary Clergy of Bemerton: (by the Parish of Bemerton; the page is 'other literary clergy' because the literary clergyman of Bemerton is George Herbert) brief summary of life; also gives his epitaph


Somewhat More Substantive:

The Poetic Nocturne: From Ancient Motif to Renaissance Genre (Chris Fitter): mostly on the genre in general, but makes use of some of Norris's poetry

John Norris and his Ideal World: From volume VIII of The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, a short description of Norris's theory of ideas

Philosophical and Theological Writings (Richard Acworth): From Thoemmes Press, an excellent general introduction to his thought

A Reconsideration of the Impetus for John Locke's Replies to John Norris of Bemerton (Heather Lawson): an article in the Journal of Undergraduate Research for the University Scholars Program at the University of Florida, considering the vexed issue of how much of the Locke-Norris dispute was motivated by personal quarrel

Actual Works:

Extracts from Norris's works by John Wesley

I have put up two poems by Norris at Siris, here.

If you have placed on-line any resources on John Norris, especially articles or papers on his work, or selections from his original works, or if you have come across such resources, please contact me at bwatson{at}chass{dot}utoronto{dot}ca.

On-line Resources on Mary Astell (1666-1731)

General Overview:

For research beyond the elementary level, there are almost no significant resources on-line for Mary Astell. There does appear to be some interest in Astell's thoughts on rhetoric and on marriage; but there is little development of this into significant research resources.

Little Bits:

Mary Astell: a timeline of her life

Mary Astell: very brief summaries of her works on women (misdates her birth to 1668)

Mary Astell: very brief summary of her life

Somewhat More Substantive:

Mary Astell, "Some Reflections on Marriage": brief summary and notes (particularly compared to Dryden on wit) for an English 211 class at Goucher College

A Summary of Erin Herberg's Mary Astell's Rhetorical Theory: A Woman's Viewpoint (Richard Workman): brief summary

De l'invisibilité du genre dans la théorie politique. Le débat Locke/Astell (Evelyne Pisier and Eleni Varikas): French, PDF; paper presented for a colloquium on genre and politics.

It is to be hoped that SEP will put Alice Sowaal's article on Mary Astell on-line at some point in the near future.

Actual Works:

Some Reflections Upon Marriage; see also here

I have put up at Siris a very short selection from one of Astell's letters in Letters Concerning the Love of God, here.

If you have placed on-line any resources on Mary Astell, especially articles or papers on her work, or selections from her original works, or if you have come across such resources, please contact me at bwatson{at}chass{dot}utoronto{dot}ca.

On-line Resources on Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679-1749)

General Overview:

For research beyond the elementary level, there are no significant on-line resources for Catharine Trotter Cockburn.

Little Bits:

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679-1749): a timeline of her life

Cockburn: brief biographical blurb

Notes on the Women Philosophers of the 17th and 18th Centuries (Peter Suber): a list of her works

Somewhat More Substantive:

Literary Encyclopedia Profile (Anne Kelley)

Catharine Cockburn (Victor L. Nuovo): a short essay at the Thoemmes Continuum

A Review of Anne Kelley's Catharine Trotter: An early modern writer in the vanguard of feminism (Ellen Moody)

It is to be hoped that the SEP will put Patricia Sheridan's article on Cockburn's moral philosophy on-line in the near future.

Actual Works:

Two Poems

I have put up at Siris a brief selection from her play, The Revolution of Sweden, here.

If you have placed on-line any resources on Catharine Trotter Cockburn, especially articles or papers on her, or selections from her original works, or if you have come across such resources, please contact me at bwatson{at}chass{dot}utoronto{dot}ca.

"I have no need of that hypothesis"

According to a story commonly gets told, Laplace presented Napoleon with a copy of his book on the System of the World; Napoleon notes that Laplace did not mention God in it; Laplace replies, "I have no need of that hypothesis."

I have come across several occasions on which people have claimed this story is apocryphal. This is not quite true; it is fictionalized history. The real story, which happened in August of 1802, is given by Sir William Herschel (among other things, the discoverer of Uranus, binary star systems, the first asteroid, and infrared rays):

The first Consul then asked a few questions relating to Astronomy and the construction of the heavens to which I made such answers as seemed to give him great satisfaction. He also addressed himself to Mr. Laplace on the same subject, and held a considerable argument with him in which he differed from that eminent mathematician. The difference was occasioned by an exclamation of the first Consul, who asked in a tone of exclamation or admiration (when we were speaking of the extent of the sidereal heavens): 'And who is the author of all this!' Mons. De la Place wished to shew that a chain of natural causes would account for the construction and preservation of the wonderful system. This the first Consul rather opposed. Much may be said on the subject; by joining the arguments of both we shall be led to 'Nature and nature's God'.

[Source: Herschel's diary of his visit to Paris in 1802, as found in C. Lubbock's _The Herschel Chronicle_, p. 310.]

I haven't been able to check this up yet, but I suspect the popular version is due in some form to Bell's _Men of Mathematics_, which is sub-titled 'A Novel', and which is on rare occasions cited as the source of the story. Lubbock's _The Herschel Chronicle_ came out a few years before Bell's book originally did, and so is almost certainly where Bell found the story he adapted for his book.

If you search for the punch-line by search engine you'll find several misattributions, and some of them fairly blatant. Pascal, for instance, despite being unimpressed by natural theology, would never have said. Nor, although it might not be so obvious to those who've never read him, would Voltaire, who criticized the atheist d'Holbach for thinking one could have a system of the world without God. But even when they get the right characters, other mistakes get made. It is fictionalized, but it is also historical in origin.

As I said, I've found a few, even in history of science, who have simply dismissed the story as made up (apparently they've never read up on Sir William Herschel); so I thought I'd post the information here so if you ever use the story you can cite it properly, or if you run across people who treat the story as pure fiction you can correct them and prevent the misinformation from spreading. It's also interesting, simply for how stories get changed through time, that in Herschel's version it's actually the theist that gets the upper hand, since Herschel as a devout theist gets to draw the moral of the story, and Laplace doesn't get the witty agnostic line.

The Future of This Weblog

Since I won't be teaching early modern next term, I probably won't be using "Houyhnhnm Land" for a class. However, inspired by Sharon Howard's Early Modern Resources and its companion blog, Early Modern Notes, I will probably continue posting semi-regularly in order to gather together and evaluate various sorts of resources on early modern philosophy. Most of this will be on-line, although I'll probably occasionally discuss books and articles of note. One of the reasons for doing this is that the internet is something of a mess when it comes to accurate information for philosophy - there are excellent resources, but it would be helpful if people had a means of sorting it all out.

I will probably also occasionally post neater & simpler summaries and conclusions of work in early modern philosophy I've roughed out in Siris.

(Cross-posted to Siris.)