Franciscus van den Enden: Spinoza’s Latin Teacher

A website dedicated to the life and works of Spinoza’s Amsterdam teacher of Latin, no doubt he who introduced him to the plays of Seneca and Terence and many of a political circle. Filled with notable details, primary sources and histories. A thinker whose influence on Spinoza is yet calculable: Franciscus van den Enden    

Opticality and Fragmentation: Rilke

…und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. …it wouldn’t be breaking out from every edge like a Star: for there is no place on this stone that does not see you. You must change your life. I [...]

Descartes and The Blind Man’s Cane

A bit of primary evidence against a strictly representationalist interpretation of Descartes’ theory of knowledge (like the one that many anti-Cartesian, philosophy-of-mindists may presuppose), From Descartes’ Treatise on Optics: …it is necessary to beware of assuming that in order to sense, the mind needs to perceive certain images transmitted by the objects to the brain, [...]

L’occhiale all’occhio (1660), Primary Source for 17th Century Lens Grinding Techniques

Carlo Antonio Manzini, astronomer and designer of lens-grinding Machines, wrote his L’occhiale all’occhio as a comprehensive guide to the state of the art of lens-grinding in 17th century Italy. Importantly its woodcut diagrams are the earliest we have of these devices. The details of the work in terms of practical techniques was meant to alleviate the secrecy of [...]

Some Experiments in Re-translation, “idea” as “information”

In lead to some of the thoughts on Idea as “information”, here are a few interesting “distortions” of the Spinoza notion of idea. (These are very rough sketches, mostly a simple swapping out to be read for effect, and then later for analysis):   E1A6: True Information must agree with its correspondent. E2D3: By Information I mean a reception [conceptus] [...]

Spinoza’s Idea as Information

  E2p13 The correspondent of the information contituting the human Mind is the Body, or a certain mode of Extension which actually exists, and nothing else. A brief thought, which I constantly have imagined that needs to be said, but I have yet to say it fully to myself, and not to others. Is there [...]

Van Leeuwenhoek’s View of Technology and Spinoza

Part of this process of looking into the lensed conception of Spinoza’s metaphysics is understanding how at the cusp of a change in the technological interface - that is, with Descartes, an increased mathematization of nature and its corresponding instrumentization of devices - there also existed alternate conceptions of what viewing, observing and measuring entailed. The idea that [...]

Monconys’ Visit: Six Degrees of Separation for Spinoza

  The Distance from Spinoza’s Tydeman home, just 5 minutes walk from the Huygens Estate, and The Hague is just over 2 miles. The distance from the Huygens Estate and Vermeer’s House, just about 4 miles. Veermer, Van Leeuwenhoek, Huygens, Hudde, Monconys, Oldenburg A selection from Philp Steadman’s Vermeer’s Camera, which works to establish a fine net [...]

Spherical Aberration: Descartes’ Solution

Philosophical Context: Optics For those unclear about what spherical aberration is, and attempting to follow Spinoza’s comments about Descartes below, it is the tendency of rays at the edge of a spherical lens to refract at a focal length shorter than those near the axis: This tendency is corrected by a hyperbolic lens, as theorized by Rene [...]

Spinoza and Hooke’s Micrographia: The minascule made Large

Look at Robert Hooke’s incredible, and conception-changing Micrographia (1664). And see it as if you are looking at the very book with excellent viewing software, at Turning the Pages Online (click “Turn The Pages”). This book must have struck one as if from another planet. See the overleafs open up into the most extraordinary illustrations of the smallest [...]