Niall Dilucia

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676), célèbre juriste anglais du xvii e siècle, a consacré plusieurs ouvrages et manuscrits à la loi naturelle, à la philosophie naturelle et au droit. Dans cet article, nous examinons la conception des notions communes qui se trouve au cœur de sa théorie du droit naturel. Nous montrerons comment cette conception des notions communes, qui trouve ses sources dans la philosophie ancienne et la théologie chrétienne, permet à Hale de clarifier la relation entre le droit naturel et le droit coutumier anglais ( common law ). Sa théorie des notions communes répond en effet à quatre questions philosophiques alors âprement discutées en Angleterre : dans quelle mesure le droit est-il rationnel, et de quelle raison dérive-t‑il? Dans quelle mesure le droit est-il universellement contraignant, et de quelle manière l’est-il?

The seventeenth-century French Benedictine philosopher Dom Robert Desgabets (1610–1678) has been taken by many historians as an idiosyncratic but ultimately loyal proponent of Cartesianism in the years following Descartes’ death. As a Catholic cleric aware of the importance of squaring the new philosophical conclusions of the seventeenth-century with Church theology, Desgabets wrote extensively on the ways in which this could be achieved with regard to the most contentious and complex theological Church dogma of the time: transubstantiation. Through an examination of Desgabets’ writings on transubstantiation, this article argues that he was emboldened by his particular religious context and preoccupations to undertake an in-depth theological interrogation and revision of Descartes’ eucharistic thought, which motivated him to offer a more epistemologically and theologically ambitious account of transubstantiation than Descartes himself thought possible or wise. This article therefore uses Desgabets as an example of the complex interplay between theology and “new” philosophy in the early reception of Cartesianism. It shows how this interplay allowed early, theologically minded Cartesians like Desgabets to use the intellectual resources of the Catholic Church to fortify and safeguard the legacy of Cartesianism in a way Descartes himself did not do.

The English Catholic philosopher Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–1665) has enjoyed a recent spate of scholarly attention as a prodigious traveller, political figure, and man of diverse intellectual interests. This article contributes to this scholarship by assessing the commentary on salvation at the heart of Digby’s philosophy of the soul and the historical contexts in which it was produced. It argues that Digby’s thinking on the soul was a meditation on the worldly interactions a Catholic must undertake or avoid in order to achieve salvation. As such, our intellectual historical understanding of Digby is much improved when he is viewed as a scholar who constructed an identity as a thinker adept at advising others on the correct path to beatitude. This article also makes the broader argument for salvation as an important conceptual tool for early modern intellectual historians wishing to accurately map the complex relationship between theology, scholarly argument, and scholarly ambition in the seventeenth century.