Cosmology
Early Modern Cosmology Between “Mosaic Physics” and Mechanical Philosophy (1650-1713)
Project Code: PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0710
Principal Investigator: Mihnea Dobre. Research Team: Grigore Vida, Ovidiu Babes, Bogdan Deznan, Ioana Bujor.
Duration of the project: October 2018 - October 2020.
Official website: https://irhunibuc.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/early-modern-cosmology-between-mosaic-physics-and-mechanical-philosophy-1650-1713/
In spring 2020, the project was complemented with two online initiatives:
Cosmological Illustrations. A collection of Cartesian cosmological illustrations from various early modern editions of Descartes's publication. The virtual exhibition is presented here: Dobre, Mihnea, Babeș, Ovidiu, & Bujor, Ioana. (2020, June 5). Cartesian Cosmological Illustrations: a digital approach. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3878938.
Cosmologii carteziene. The outreach section of the project (in Romanian). It hosts brief texts, in blog format, covering topics derived from the research project.
Abstract. This project explores the intermixture of several disciplines in the formation of “the new science” in the early modern period, spanning from Descartes’s death in 1650 up to the second edition of Newton’s Principia in 1713. It aims to show how philosophy, physics, and theology grounded new cosmologies and mingled in one coherent enterprise. Our proposal challenges the current focus on the Newtonian critique of Descartes’s vortex-model of the world. It argues that a new perspective upon the relations between Cartesianism and Newtonianism emerges by looking at early modern reconstructions of the Biblical account of Creation in mechanical terms. We analyse Descartes’s justificatory accounts in his correspondence, where he states that his physics is compatible with the Creation story from Genesis. Furthermore, we explore how these statements were developed by his early followers who were seeking to formulate a “Mosaic physics.” Our project examines this neglected episode of the publication and reception of several treatises comparing the Mosaic history of Creation with the new Cartesian philosophy. Beyond filling this gap in the study of early modern cosmology, our approach has a twofold advantage. First, it offers a source-oriented analysis of the “Mosaization” of Cartesian philosophy, bringing into the spotlight a series of currently lesser-known cosmological treatises which were very successful at their time and, thus, contributed to the spread of Cartesian philosophy. Second, it shows how Cartesianism – broadly understood – was a source of inspiration for cosmogonical and cosmological speculations even for figures who otherwise abandoned the Cartesian system, such as the early Newtonians. Thus, the project has a broader scope and our study of early modern cosmologies opens novel prospects for understanding the intricate early modern debates about religion, natural philosophy, and metaphysics.