Priestley on materialism and the essence of God

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on Priestley’s complex views on the essence of God in connection with his materialism, elaborated in the Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit (1777/ 1782). This issue is crucial if one wishes to get a clear idea of what Priestley’s materialism amounts to; whether it is mainly a thesis about the material grounds of the human mind (“psychological materialism”), or a more far-reaching one about what kind of substances exist in the world (a version of “ontological materialism”). The claim that God may be material allows for the most radical version of ontological materialism according to which everything in the world is material, without altogether denying that God exists. In fact, Priestley considers and partially defends at least three different views on the potential materiality of God: (1) an agnostic stance that is his official view, (2) materialism about God based on his own theory of matter, and (3) “gross” materialism about God. The aim of the paper is to analyze these three views, in particular concerning what kind of materialism they support and whether they can contribute to the consistent Christian materialism Priestley envisaged.     

Priestley in Germany

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on the reception of Priestley in Germany, which is remarkable for the huge and assiduous interest it raised in different philosophical milieus. Priestley’s dynamical conception of matter, his explanation of the functioning of the brain, and of the production of material ideas are at the basis of the new form of materialism that develops in Germany in the late 1770s, and which differs completely from the model of mechanical materialism Germany was used to in earlier decades. Indeed, the German reception of Priestley’s ideas begins surprisingly early, just one year after the publication of his edition of Hartley’s Observations on Man (1775), and traverses the two final decades of the eighteenth century with a considerable number of reviews and references in the main philosophical journals and works of the time. In 1778, his introduction to the Observations was translated into German and presented in the form of a manifesto of a new materialistic philosophy compatible with the claims of morals and religion. Within a few years, Priestley became the unavoidable reference point for the most relevant theological and philosophical discussions concerning the nature of matter and spirits, the place of God, the possibility of human freedom, and the legitimacy of free thinking.     

Joseph Priestley as an heir of Newton

ABSTRACT

Like most Enlightenment philosophers, Priestley acknowledges his debt to Newton. However, despite his mentor’s prohibition against “making hypotheses”, in the 1770s, he embarked on a surprising metaphysical epic that led him, the theologian and scientist, to develop in his Disquisitions a bold system that articulated materialism, necessity and Socinianism. This synthesis constitutes the originality of a thinker who wanted to reapprehend science, metaphysics and theology together at the very moment when their dispersion seemed inevitable (and to give them an educational and political extension). It is based on a monistic ontology to which Priestley did not hesitate to give the unexpected name of materialism, at the risk of a number of misunderstandings, while he claims, much to the dismay of Reid, to closely follow the method of Newton. This paper will focus on the relation between Priestley and Newton’s ambiguous inheritance. What is Priestley’s “science” made of? What is its relationship to Newton and his “rules”, to mathematics, to the theory of language, to the so-called “analysis and synthesis method”, to Boscovich? How important is his claim for hypotheses and metaphysics? If Priestley indeed was a Newtonian, he surely was an unorthodox one.     

Scottish Common Sense,association of ideas and free will

ABSTRACT

The philosophical debates that unfolded in Enlightenment Britain left a deep mark on the mindset of future generations of thinkers. A clear echo of eighteenth-century disputes over the meaning of human liberty is heard in the subsequent confrontation between materialists and idealists. In more recent times, a number of arguments developed by compatibilist and incompatibilist philosophers still resemble more old-fashioned positions. However, the aim of this paper is to evaluate the differences between Joseph Priestley’s defence of “necessitarianism” and Thomas Reid’s elaboration of counterarguments to support “metaphysical liberty” – as the two doctrines were known in the late eighteenth century – on the background of their methodological assumptions and the different styles of their reasoning. I contend that a different adoption of the Newtonian scientific method, which they brought to bear on the study of the human mind, is key to understanding the way they endeavoured to defend necessity and liberty, respectively. I also argue that their interpretation of the nature of causality importantly shaped the arguments they put forth in attacking each other’s position.     

From the logic of ideas to active-matter materialism: Priestley’s Lockean problem and early neurophilosophy

ABSTRACT

Empiricism is a claim about the contents of the mind: its classic slogan is nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, “there is nothing in the mind (intellect, understanding) which is not first in the senses.” As such, it is not a claim about the fundamental nature of the world as material. I focus here on in an instance of what one might term the materialist appropriation of empiricism. One major component in the transition from a purely epistemological claim about the mind and its contents to an ontological claim about the nature of the world is the new focus on brain–mind relations in the eighteenth century. Here I examine a Lockean trajectory as exemplified in Joseph Priestley’s 1777 Disquisitions Relating to Matter and Spirit. However, Locke explicitly ruled out that his inquiry into the logic of ideas amounted to a “physical consideration of the mind.” What does it mean, then, for Priestley to present himself as continuing a Lockean tradition, while presenting mental processes as tightly identified with “an organical structure such as that of the brain” (although he was not making a strict identity claim as we might understand it, post-Smart and Armstrong)? One issue here is that of Priestley’s source of “empirical data” regarding the correlation and indeed identification of mental and cerebral processes. David Hartley’s theory in his 1749 Observations on Man was, as is well known, republished in abridged form by Priestley, but he discards Hartley’s “vibratory neurophysiology” while retaining the associationist framework, although not because he disagreed with the former. Yet Hartley was, at the very least, strongly agnostic about metaphysical issues (and it is difficult to study these authors while bracketing off religious considerations). One could see Locke and Hartley as articulating programs for the study of the mind which were more or less naturalistic (more strongly so in Hartley’s case) while avoiding “materialism” per se; in contrast, Priestley bit the (materialist) bullet. In this paper I examine Priestley’s appropriation and reconstruction of this “micro-tradition,” while emphasizing its problems.     

Lucy Hutchinson,Lucretius and Soteriological Materialism

Abstract

This article examines Lucy Hutchinson's pervasive materialism, arguing that her use of corporeal imagery – in part shaped by her early translation of Lucretius – contributes to the soteriological purposes of her later works in multiple ways. Criticism on Hutchinson has tended to divorce the materialist imagery of her translation from the Calvinistic themes of her other writings. I argue, however, for the lasting presence of a materialism constructed from the vocabularies of Lucretian Epicureanism, Neoplatonism and John Owen. Focusing especially on the poem Order and Disorder and Hutchinson's theological tract to her daughter, I show how she uses materialism as a “means” to achieving assurance and grace. I suggest that these various responses to physical experience are part of Hutchinson's enduring investigation into the ontology of “Order” and “Disorder”, and her quest for stable spiritual being.     

Joseph Priestley on metaphysics and politics: Jonathan Israel's ‘Radical Enlightenment’ reconsidered

This article probes Jonathan Israel’s theory about ‘Radical Enlightenment’ inaugurating political modernity by way of explicating the thought of Joseph Priestley. In Israel’s view, despite the inconsistencies plaguing Socinian thought, Priestley, a monist, emerged as an ardent supporter of religious toleration and democratic republicanism. This article seeks to restore the fundamental coherence of Priestley’s theological and metaphysical views, arguing that they were produced as parts of a system founded on the simultaneous adherence to providentialism and necessitarianism. Prized as a prerequisite of the unfolding of the divine plan, the unobstructed expression of religious opinions was the centre of the conception of civil society and civil liberty that Priestley articulated based on these premises and his forays into politics aimed to secure its permanence. A comparison of Priestley’s stance on the issue of manhood suffrage with that of Richard Price reveals not the materialist Priestley, but Price, a dualist, as an advocate of democratization and casts into doubt the applicability of Israel’s scheme in the case of England. The article closes with some suggestions towards reappraising the relationship between Enlightenment and modernity.     

Priestley and Kant on materialism

ABSTRACT

Kant maintains in the Critique of Pure Reason that both materialism and spiritualism cannot explain our existence. This paper argues that Kant’s relation to (psychological) materialism is more complex than this rejection suggests and is usually thought, and it evaluates this relation in a new and more positive light. The paper shows that Priestley anticipates some of Kant’s arguments against rationalist psychology, and that Kant’s rejection of materialism does not commit him to an immaterialist metaphysics of the soul. These arguments involve a discussion of the problem of the unity of consciousness and of notions such as simplicity and identity.     

Tannery and Duhem on the Concept of a System in the History of Philosophy and History of Science

ABSTRACT

This article examines John Toland’s Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews (1714) by placing it alongside other elements of his engagement with Jewish history, Mosaic principles and wider “Hebraica” – specifically, an appendix to his Nazarenus (1718) and his Origines Judaicae (1709). Although Toland’s case for Jewish naturalization shows the strong influence of Locke’s case for political and religious toleration, and also of a general “mercantilism”, it is argued that one of its main characteristics is a philosophical naturalism, shown in its treatment of the human species as a whole. Furthermore, it is also argued that this same naturalism is evident throughout Toland’s engagement with Jewish history and Mosaic thought. Accordingly, when we “fold” these works into each other, we find each enhancing our understanding of the others – not just as examples of Toland’s treatment of “Jewish affairs”, but also as illustrations of a consistent conceptual materialism. To emphasize this, the article concludes by suggesting that the figure of Rabbi Simone Luzzatto, author of a 1638 plea for tolerance, provides an important clue in understanding the links between Toland’s political injunctions and the philosophical foundation on which they are built.     

Dissenting Heads and Hearts: Joseph Priestley,Anna Barbauld,and Conflicting Attitudes towards Devotion within Rational Dissent

Anna Barbauld's and Joseph Priestley's disagreement on the subject of devotion was famously characterised by James Martineau as “passion for the sublime and the beautiful” confronting “passion for the truth.” Such a characterisation, however, is potentially misleading because it suggests that Barbauld lacked “passion for the truth.” At least partly, the disagreement between Barbauld and Priestley stems from a fundamentally different assessment of the limits of human knowledge (an assessment that in both cases is closely connected to a commitment to the search for truth and the associated principle of “free inquiry”). Inadvertently, Martineau not only distorts Barbauld's position within Rational Dissenting thought but also obscures a crucial split among Rational Dissenters in their approach to the search for truth.     

Point Atomism,Space and God, 1760–80

This paper compares and contrasts the main metaphysical and religious ideas of the eighteenth-century political theorist and chemist Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) with those of his correspondent Ruder Boscovic (1711–1787), astronomer, poet, mathematician, diplomat and Jesuit priest. It points out the theological differences between the two thinkers resulting from the divergent ontological and metaphysical implications of the theory of point atomism that they shared. This theory they placed in a wider context, considering both its limits and its value as a contribution to ongoing speculations concerning the nature of space and time, theological conundrums such as free will and the mind-body problem. Where they differed, however, was that Priestley, a chemist rather than a mathematician, used point atomism mainly to support his campaign to further materialism and discredit Christianity. Boscovic, on the other hand, carefully distinguished the truths of faith and reason and was therefore indignant at Priestley's misuse of his speculations. Boscovic's protest was probably motivated in part by the materialism of atheists such as the Baron d’Holbach (1723–1789). Priestley was no atheist, however. Interestingly, François Arouet de Voltaire (1698–1778), unaware of the works of either Boscovic or Priestley, devised a theistic materialism in his last years that in many respects resembled Priestley's. I begin with brief biographies of the two thinkers, and outline their intermittent relationship.     

Historiographical layers in the relationship between science and technology

Abstract

This paper aims to examine historiographical layers in the historical narrative on the relationship between science and technology, a topic which has been exhaustively discussed without consensus by both historians of science and technology. I will first examine two extreme positions concerning this issue, and analyze the underlying historiographical standpoints behind them. I will then show that drawing implications for the relationship between science and technology from a few case studies is frequently misleading. After showing this, I .will move to the “macrohistory” of the relationship between science and technology, which reveals a long process in which the barriers between them gradually became porous. Here, I will examine the historical formation of three different kinds of “boundary objects” between science and technology, which facilitated their interactions by making their borders more permeable: instruments as a material boundary object; new institutions, laboratories, and departments as a spatial boundary or boundary space; and new mediators as a human hybrid.     

Locke and the Elements of Natural Philosophy: Some Problems of Attribution

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that John Locke’s interactions with the Quakers and his reflections on their doctrines and behaviour provide the salient background for understanding the content and polemical orientation of the chapter on enthusiasm in An Essay concerning Human Understanding. The terms of reference and key features of the vocabulary of the chapter “Of Enthusiasm” that Locke added to the fourth edition of the Essay derive from the Quakers and from Locke’s critical reflections on their doctrine of immediate inspiration. While Locke acknowledged that the phenomenon was to be found among other religious groups, it was the Quakers whom Locke had in mind when he formulated his philosophical critique of enthusiasm.     

Joseph Priestley and the Argument from Design

ABSTRACT

Although Joseph Priestley was notorious for rejecting much of orthodox Christianity and replacing it with a materialistic Unitarianism, in another respect he was an orthodox theist of his time in that he passionately upheld the Argument from Design. The Argument from Design was the heart of his “rational religion”. He contended that natural order, especially biological order, could only be successfully explained by intentional agency. At the time, however, the Argument was coming under attack, first from David Hume, then from Matthew Turner, and lastly from Erasmus Darwin. Priestley replied to each of these critics. This article surveys his replies. The three critics of the Argument contended that intelligent agency could offer only a weak explanation of natural order, that natural order is self-explanatory, or that natural mechanisms can explain biological order. Priestley in turn critiqued all three contentions, arguing that the Argument is a strong explanation; that natural order cannot be self-explanatory; and that the proposed natural explanations conflict with the empirical evidence.     

DOES HISTORY MATTER? CHARLES TAYLOR ON THE TRANSCENDENTAL VALIDITY OF SOCIAL IMAGINARIES

Since its appearance in 2007, Charles Taylor's monumental book A Secular Age has received much attention. One of the central issues in the discussions around Taylor's book is the role of history in philosophical argumentation, in particular with regard to normative positions on ultimate affairs. Many critics observe a methodological flaw in using history in philosophical argumentation in that there is an alleged discrepancy between Taylor's historical approach, on the one hand, and his defense of fullness in terms of openness to transcendence, on the other. Since his “faith‐based history” is unwittingly apologetic, it is not only “hard to judge in strictly historical terms,” but it also proves that “when it comes to the most ultimate affairs history may not matter at all.” This paper challenges this verdict by exposing the misunderstanding underlying this interpretation of the role of history in Taylor's narrative. In order to disambiguate the relation between history and philosophy in Taylor's approach, I will raise three questions. First, what is the precise relation between history and ontology, taking into account the ontological validity of what Taylor calls social imaginaries? Second, why does “fullness” get a universal status in his historical narrative? Third, is Taylor's position tenable that the contemporary experience of living within “an immanent frame” allows for an openness to transcendence? In order to answer these questions, I will first compare Peter Gordon's interpretation of the status of social imaginaries with Taylor's position and, on the basis of that comparison, distinguish two definitions of ontology (sections I and II). Subsequently, I try to make it clear that precisely Taylor's emphasis on the historical character of social imaginaries and on their “relaxed” ontological anchorage allows for his claim that “fullness” might have a trans‐historical character (section III). Finally, I would like to show that Taylor's defense of the possibility of an “openness to transcendence”—as a specific mode of fullness—is not couched in “onto‐theological” terms, as suggested by his critics, but that it is the very outcome of taking into account the current historical situation (section IV).     

Science and the History of the Sciences. Conceptual Innovations Through Historicizing Science in the Eighteenth Century

Science and the History of the Sciences. Conceptual Innovations Through Historicizing Science in the Eighteenth Century. The historical reconstruction of science is linked to philosophical discussions of the eighteenth century in many ways. The historiography of philosophy and the historiography of science share the conceptual problem to assemble the multitude of scientific and philosophical practices under general concepts. The historical analysis of scientific progress offers a clue by problematizing definitions of “science” and “sciences” as well as the system of sciences as a whole. By analyzing these conceptual problems and the typology of historical enterprises of the eighteenth century, this paper will discuss the close interrelations which existed between philosophical and historical discourses of eighteenth‐century reflection on science.     

Beyond Natural Law Talk: Politics and Prudence in St. Thomas Aquinas's On Kingship

Abstract

As second-wave feminism crested in the 1980s, feminist intellectuals began to radically reappraise liberalism by developing a communitarian “ethic of care” that promised to remake American society and politics. The new communitarianism, however, could not be reconciled with feminist defenses of abortion rights. This tension became increasingly untenable in the late 1980s as Roe v. Wade faced new political challenges. Feminist communitarians responded by re-embracing liberalism, especially its emphasis on autonomy and independence. This history suggests that many feminist intellectuals regard their support for abortion rights as something that is prior to their larger philosophical commitments, such as liberalism and communitarianism.     

Tocqueville on Pantheism,Materialism, and Catholicism

Abstract

It is widely acknowledged that Leo Strauss was an extraordinary scholar and teacher who strove to open up forgotten vistas of philosophical inquiry. Gigantic controversy rages, however, about the sorts of political and social changes, if any, that he hoped to promote. The fire has been fueled by the alleged contributions of Straussians to the Iraq War—and by the publication of Strauss's 1933 letter that commended “fascist, authoritarian, and imperial” principles. This article reviews and then updates the assessments proffered in my 2009 book (Straussophobia) about the state of the “Strauss Wars.” Critics such as Shadia Drury continue to embarrass themselves in prestigious venues, but newer voices are using innovative strategies to argue that Strauss was attempting to undermine the principles of American democracy. Whereas William Altman relies on “esoteric interpretations” of Strauss's writings, Alan Gilbert illuminates Strauss's behind-the-scenes efforts regarding policy disputes. Although I maintain that Gilbert and especially Altman have made invaluable contributions, I argue that they both overreach.     

The rise and fall of “individualism” before and after the May Fourth Movement

Abstract

“Individualism” was one of the most important philosophical trends in the May Fourth era, heavily influencing youths seeking personal liberation and independence. However, not long after the May Fourth Movement, positive associations with individualism gradually receded. Compared with devotion to “nation” or “society,” the quest for individual independence was repeatedly criticized as almost synonymous with “selfish.” There were two reasons for this: first was opposition stemming from a traditional Chinese respect for collectivism; second was that individualism had become the theoretical basis for private capitalist production following the First World War and its founding values were coming under increased scrutiny. As the Second World War unfolded, the fight for survival benefitted the promotion of collectivist values and the idea of social organisms. Individualism declined and eventually became supplanted by a heavily politicized form of collectivism.