Abstract
Balthasar Bekker’s interest in Cartesian philosophy developed alongside his anti-confessional religious position during his early years in Groningen and Franeker. Cartesianism had been highly controversial in the Republic since it began to gain a foothold there in the 1640s, drawing intense opposition from the confessional wing of the Reformed church, which saw philosophical rationalism as a threat to religious belief. Bekker’s interest in Cartesianism therefore further embittered his confessionalist opponents and involved him in another complex web of intellectual controversy, this time between Dutch Cartesians and their clerical opponents.
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References
C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute, Nederlands Cartesianisme (Amsterdam, 1954), 554–555.
Theo Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy /637–1650 (Carbondale, 1992), 82–88.
Thomas A. MaGahagan, Cartesianism in the Netherlands 1639–1676: The New Science and the Calvinist Counter-Reformation (dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1976 ), 106.
See Theo Verbeek (ed), Descartes et Regius: Autour de l’Explication de l’esprit humain (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1993).
Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch,70–71, 228–229; Thijssen-Schoute 96–99, 125.
Theo Verbeek, “De Vrijheid van de Philosophie: Reflecties over een Cartesiaans Thema,” Quaestiones Iniinitae: Publications of the Department of Philosophy, Utrecht Uni versity,1 V:1994,4–7; Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch, 72–73; Thijssen-Schoute 126–140.
Thijssen-Schoute, 356–362, 380–381, 395–404.
Wiep van Bunge, “Van Velthuysen, Batelier and Bredenburg on Spinoza’s Interpretation of the Scriptures,” in Paolo Cristofolini (ed), The Spinozistic Heresy: The Debate on the Tractatus Theologico Politicus 1670–1677 and the Immediate Reception of Spinozism (APA Holland University Press, 1995 ), 1–4.
Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch,16–19; Thijssen-Schoute 96–99.
Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch,20–33.
Ibid., 44–50, 59–70; Thijssen-Schoute 101–104.
Verbeek, Descartes and the Dutch,52–54; Thijssen-Schoute 4–13. 23 McGahagan, 303–310, Thijssen-Schoute 20–41, 104.
McGahagan, 344–346; Thijssen-Schoute 48–59.
Jacob van Sluis, Bekkeriana: Balthasar Bekker biografisch en bibliografisch (Leeuwarden, 1994), 4.
W.P.C. Knuttel, Balthasar Bekker, Bestrijder van het Bijgeloof (Groningen and Castricum, 1979 ) 31–45.
Klaus Scholder, The Birth of Modern Critical Theology: Origins and Problems of Biblical Criticism in the Seventeenth Century (London and Philadelphia, 1990), 123.
Wiebe Bergsma, “Balthasar Bekker als Predikant: diener en doctor,” in It Beaken: Tydskrift fan de Fryske Akademy,58, 2–3, (1996), 73–91.
Balthasar Bekker, Ondersoek van de Betekening der Kometen, By gelegenheid van de gene die in de Jaaren 1680, 1681, en 1682 geschenen hebben (Amsterdam, 1692), 11–18, 26–30.
Balthasar Bekker, Kort Begryp der Algemeine Kerkelyke Historien, Zedert het Jaar 1664 daar Hoornius Eindigt, tot den Jure 1684 (Amsterdam, 1739), 38–39; Knuttel, 171–173. See also Wiep van Bunge, `Balthasar Bekker’s Cartesian Hermeneutics and the Challenge of Spinozism,“ British Journal for the History of Philosophy I (1993), 55–79.; Andrew Fix, `Bekker and Spinoza,” in Disguised and Overt Spinozism Around 1700,ed. by Wim Klever and Wiep van Bunge (Leiden, 1996); and Theo Verbeek, “De Vrijheid van de Philosophie: Reflecties over een Cartesiaans Thema.”
Knuttel, 173–180; Wiep van Bunge, “Balthasar Bekker over Daniel: Een Zeventiende Eeuwse Kritiek op Millenarisme,” It Beaken: Tydskrift van de Fryske Akademy 58 2–3, (1993), 138–145.
Knuttel, 180–186.
Scholder, I29.
Balthasar Bekker, De Betoverde Weereld, Zynde een Grondig Ondersoek van t’ gemeen gevoelen aangaande de geesten, deselver Aart en Vermogen, Bewind en Bednk als oak t’ gene de Menschen door deselver kraght en gemeenschap doen (Amsterdam, Daniel van Dalen, 1691), I, 52–72.
The idea that angels’ actions were key evidence for their existence emerged once again in Bekker’s discussion of the vexed question of whether spirits could be in a place. Bodies as extended substances occupied space and were said to be in a place, Bekker argued, but spirits lacking extension could only be located by their actions. One did not ask where a spirit was, but rather where it acted. A spirit had no place except insofar as it acted on a body that was in a place, in which case the spirit could be said to be in the same place as the body. For example, the common place of the human soul was the human body, which it acted on and through. Bekker then continued by making a strange argument that would give his opponents much ammunition for ridicule later. If the soul thought about things or persons in another place, he maintained, then that could be said to be the soul’s place. If the soul thought about the largeness of a city, then the soul could be said to be the same size as the city. If the soul compared Amsterdam to London and Paris, it could be said to be in all three cities at the same time. The soul could encompass the size of the entire earth with one thought, Bekker declared, and many souls could be in one small place if they all thought about that place. Thus it was that the souls of many of his countrymen accompanied William of Orange in his triumphal procession across the channel to become king of England in 1689, Bekker noted. With this somewhat ecstatic profession of the power of the human mind Bekker overstepped the boundaries of Cartesianism and gave his orthodox opponents ammunition with which to attack his larger arguments about spirits. Ibid., 17–19.
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Fix, A. (1999). Cartesianism and the Spirit Controversy. In: Fallen Angels. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées, vol 165. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1531-7_3
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