Brunello Lotti

This paper examines how Descartes’ philosophy was presented and discussed in articles and reviews published in Mind from 1900 to 1947, a period in which this most prestigious British philosophical journal was edited by George F. Stout (until 1920) and then by George E. Moore (from 1921 to 1947). The survey deals with various aspects of the reception of Cartesian philosophy in the journal: articles devoted to several topics of Cartesian thought, critical notices and reviews of the secondary literature, discussions of twentieth-century English translations of Cartesian works. In line with the theoretical character of Mind, most of the interpreters discussed Cartesian philosophy with the aim either of checking its internal consistency or of proving how the Cartesian system might be rendered consistent with its own premises. In this respect, all the themes revolving around the problem of the Cartesian circle attracted the attention of commentators, and the intuitionist foundation of Cartesian theory was analyzed. Descartes’ metaphysics and natural philosophy were often evaluated from the perspective of contemporary philosophical debates, while their original historical context was neglected. Of particular relevance were issues like the mind-body problem, discussed at the beginning of the century in relation to developments in psychology, and the question of the existence of the external world, which was examined from various standpoints, metaphysically, epistemologically and from the point of view of linguistic analysis. Interest in Descartes was shown by many authors from major philosophers (such as Ward, Schiller, Taylor, Broad, Ryle) to lesser known scholars whose profiles and contributions are outlined. Through the angle of the Cartesian presence a sketch emerges of the rich and variegated philosophical scene of British culture in the first half of the twentieth century.

"'Spiritus intus alit totamque infusa per artus / mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet' (Aen. 6, 726-727) sono i versi del sesto libro dell’Eneide che aprono il discorso di Anchise ad Enea sulla natura e sul destino delle anime. Essi costituiscono un preambolo cosmologico, ispirato alla fisica stoica, dell’escatologia pitagorico-platonica sul ciclo di vita, morte e reincarnazione delle anime individuali. La loro fortuna nella storia del pensiero occidentale è vastissima e questa monografia ne tenta una ricostruzione, sia documentando in numerosissimi autori la diffusione del passo virgiliano dalla tarda antichità all’Illuminismo sia esaminando i temi filosofici che sono intrecciati alla ricezione del passo, in particolare il dinamismo e l’ordine della natura e l’animazione cosmica. L’indagine è concentrata sulla presenza del topos in età moderna, con particolare approfondimento sul pensiero inglese. A questa parte centrale della ricerca sono premessi due capitoli introduttivi, il primo sulla cosmologia filosofica del discorso di Anchise e il secondo sulla ricezione tardoantica e medievale del passo. L’indagine sulla ricezione di lungo periodo dell’adagio virgiliano è ancorata al significato che i versi avevano nell’opera del poeta latino, tenendo conto dei risultati consolidati."--

In Berkeley’s writings the topic of light is discussed in two different ways, within a theory of perception and within a metaphysics of nature of a Platonic stamp. In his first work, the original Essay for a New Theory of Vision, light and colours are regarded as condition and object of vision; they are examined as contents of visual perception distinct from tangible perception. Light will be dealt with in a completely different manner in Berkeley’s last work, Siris, in which a spiritualistic reading of the natural world is superimposed on modern science in general and on Newtonian physics in particular. In Siris, light is the instrument by which the causal activity of divine Intellect orders and permeates the natural world. A detailed analysis of the topic of light in the two aforementioned contexts shows inconsistencies and strained interpretations which derive from the apologetic use of the theory of vision in Berkeley’s early immaterialism and from the multi-layered and confused speculations of his late Siris. On the whole, Berkeley conceives light within the idealistic frame inherited from Platonic metaphysics of light; however, the specific themes examined in the Essay for a New Theory of Vision and in Siris derive from acquisitions of modern science, and are recast within a spiritualistic interpretation which intended both to neutralize scientific ideas through their phenomenistic reading and to exploit them for apologetic ends.