The Princeton-Bucharest Conference in Early Modern Philosophy, 4-6 July, Alba Iulia
The Princeton Bucharest Conference in Early Modern Philosophy: Recipes and experiments from the library to the laboratory took place between 4 and 6.07.2023, in the beautiful Batthyaneum Library, Alba Iulia. The event brought together scholars working on the early modern thought from Princeton, Bucharest, Cambridge, Sydney and other universities around the world. The Batthyaneum Library seemed the perfect venue not just because of its rich old book collection, but also because it gave us the opportunity to test some of our project research hypotheses regarding the way knowledge was transmitted via recipes, experimental recordings, and natural histories. In this very process, the library along with its reading room became akin to our own „laboratory”, as our project is investigating specifically the transition from the library to the laboratory in producing early modern knowledge.
The founder of the Batthyaneum Library imagined an institution that was to put together the collection of books with the laboratory (in this case the astronomical observatory) and with the instruments of disseminating knowledge (the printing press). The research activity in our project advanced by understanding more about the Batthyneum collections and by sharing our learning with colleagues from other universities around the world. Apart from the core members, such as Dan Garber (Princeton) and Dana Jalobeanu (Bucharest), this year the colloquium benefitted from the participation of the following: Peter Anstey (Sydney), Scott Mandelbrote (Cambridge), Laura Georgescu (Groningen), Cornelis Schilt (Brussels), Ovidiu Babes (Brussels), Oana Matei (Bucharest), Fanhao Meng (Princeton), João Marques Carvalho (Princeton), Jason Yonover (Princeton), Connor Tannas (Princeton), Alexandru Liciu(Bucharest), Anita Drella (Bucharest), Costel Cristian (Bucharest).
Program
Tuesday, July 4
10:00-11:00 Tour of the Batthyaneum Library – Cristian Mladin
11:00-12:30 Reading group 1- Daniel Garber, Dana Jalobeanu, Oana Matei, Grigore Vida, “Merchants of light: experimental philosophers and their libraries”
12:30-14:30 lunch break
14:30-15:05 Dana Jalobeanu, Francis Bacon’s “World of Sciences”
15:05-15:40 Peter Anstey, Locke on Reading
15:40-16:00 coffee break
16:00-16:35 Laura Georgescu, Cavendishian Modality
16:35-17:10 Alex Liciu, Robert Hooke’s Science of “Petrifaction” and its European Sources
17:10-17:30 coffee break
17:30-18:05 Oana Matei, Henry Power on the Palingenesis of Plants
18:05-18:40 João Carvalho, Political Obligation and Freedom of Judgement in Hobbes’s Leviathan
Wednesday, July 5
10:00-12:30 Reading group 2 – Peter Anstey, “Locke’s New Method of Commonplacing in Practice”
12:30-14:30 lunch break
14:30-15:05 Scott Mandelbrote, Influence and Evidence: How to Know What Newton Read and When and How He Read It
15:05-15:40 Jason Yonover, Chaos sive Natura: Nietzsche, Spinoza, and Naturalism
15:40-16:00 coffee break
16:00-16:35 Ovidiu Babes, Steffen Ducheyn, The Forgotten Natural Philosophy of Robert Greene (1678?–1730): The Principles of External Objects
16:35-17:10 Connor Tannas, Scepticism and the Synthetic Method
17:10-17:30 coffee break
17:30-20:00 Reading group 3 – Fanhao Meng, “Descartes, Malebranche and the Laws of Nature: Metaphysical and Experimental Approaches”
Thursday, July 6
10:00-12:30 Reading group 4 – Cornelis Schilt, Grigore Vida, “Francis Bacon, The Wisdom of the (Early) Moderns”
12:30-14:30 lunch break
14:30-15:05 Mihnea Dobre, Constructing a Philosophical System: Claude Clerselier’s Recipe for Cartesianism
15:05-15:40 Tinca Prunea Bretonnet, The Problem of Inclinations and the Berlin Academy in the 1770s
15:40-16:00 coffee break
16:00-18:30 Reading group 5 – Jason Yonover, “Genealogical Arguments”
Dana Jalobeanu 