Investigation on the Development of the Seventeenth Century Dutch Cartesianism and its Network(Fostering Joint International Research)

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16KK0034
• Research Category: Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: History of thought
• Research Institution: Rikkyo University (2019); Tokyo Christian University (2016-2017)
• Principal Investigator: KATO Yoshiyuki 立教大学, 文学部, 准教授 (00708761)
• Project Period (FY): 2017 – 2019
• Keywords: 思想史 / 哲学 / 宗教学 / キリスト教 / オランダ / スピノザ / デカルト / 十七世紀

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The present research project sheds light into the intellectual networks of the seventeenth-century Dutch Cartesians by analyzing their letters, university disputations, and books. Through the research, it has become clear how Descartes’s understanding of nature and philosophy had impacted the religious and political order of the day and had further burgeoned other controversies. By focusing on the relationship between philosophy and theology as well as science and religion through the analyses of the works of the Dutch Cartesians, the present research succeeds in a partial reformulation of the history of philosophy, which in general sees a liner progression from Descartes to Spinoza and eventually to Leibniz.

Free Research Field

思想史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

従来の近世哲学史研究では、デカルトやスピノザといった有名な哲学者たちが注目される。また、彼らの著作のなかでも自然学や形而上学などの領域の研究が盛んである。それに対して、本研究の学術的意義は、彼らと同時代人であるデカルト主義者たちの知的ネットワークに光をあて、またさらには神学との関係のなかで分析することで、政治的な文脈における哲学のあり方を明らかにできた点にある。