Theme song for the Early Modern Philosophy of Emotions Reading Seminar
(University of Helsinki course in Theoretical Philosophy 404034, 7. 9. - 14. 12. 2011)

Tune: Mambo No. 5

A little bit of Descartes in my life
A little bit of Senault by my side
A little bit of Charleton is all I need
A little bit of Malebranche is what I see
A little bit of Pascal in the sun
A little bit of Hobbes all night long
A little bit of Spinoza here I am
A little bit of Emotions makes me this man

A little bit of Leibniz in my life
A little bit of Mandeville by my side
A little bit of Shaftesbury is all I need
A little bit of Hutcheson is what I see
A little bit of Smith in the sun
A little bit of Hume all night long
A little bit of Locke here I am
A little bit of Emotions makes me all I am

Trumpet, the Trumpet!
Mambo No. 5!

Two weeks in Leibnizland

I spent the latter two weeks of September in Hannover, Northern Germany. Hannover is in fact the best place to study Leibniz in the world as there within G. W. Leibniz Bibliothek lies Leibniz-Archiv which includes, besides the most extensive collection of commentaries on Leibniz in the world, the microfilms of his manuscripts. In itself Hannover is not a very lively city, but it is a good place to work and has a certain charm - in a quiet, conservative way, although in Steintor where my very cheap hotel was located, there was a good amount of barefoot homeless hippies lounging about. And why not, it was over twenty degrees celcius most of the time.

The library is a kind of funny place. It was built probably in the 70's and includes a lot of bright colours (predominantly green and brown) and lots of tables made out of plastic. The library was formely called as Niedersächische Landesbibliothek, the regional library of Lower Saxony, so it is one of the largest ones in Northern Germany.

I spent three months in the library in 2001, so now I took the opportunity (as I was to attend the IX. Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress in Hannover anyways) and spent a week working in the library. I had prepared myself properly beforehand, so I knew that the texts I needed from Leibniz were already published in the Academy series. So as the database is available in the internet (includes the stuff from the Leibniz-Archiv), I could just print out what I needed beforehand and order away stuff to the reading room. I went through around 30 books a day, looking for interesting articles for different projects going on at the moment of which the most important is Leibniz and emotions.

As I expected, I did not find anything revolutionary, but quite enough interesting material to keep me working for a year at least. In addition, the library has a good collection of journals in the open-shelf-collection, so I could copy published articles. This work was surprisingly heavy and after a day of looking briefly at books and copying stuff from 9-17 I was completely exhausted each night. Some red wine, a baguette and German tv and I was asleep at around nine each night.

At friday of the first week I sent five kilos of copies to Helsinki, crossing my fingers that they arrive safely. And they did. Phew. The weekend went with Flohmarkt (flea market), buying a lot of dirt-cheap vinyl records (of James Last, mostly) and thinking how I will smuggle these all to home (the suitcase weighed 25 kilos, but I got away with it).

Here, btw. are some photos from the visit. And the congress.

The latter week went witht he congress Natur und Subjekt. IX. Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress. I had two papers and both went reasonably well, one on Emotions and the Human Body and one on Uneasiness and the passions. So I can be happy with the conference as a whole. The emphasis of the conference was on philosophy of nature, as the title suggests and there was in fact a good session on the topic. Another popular topic was Locke and Leibniz (partly because Marcelo Dascal's workgroup on the topic covered two sessions), so there was a lot of interesting stuff to follow. As an afterthought the quality of the conference did not quite match the previous one in 2006, partly because it was arranged in September and a lot of English and American speakers had to teach at that time. But again the participants were given three thick volumes of Vorträge of which I am certain I will find lots of interesting material. One nice thing in the conference the first ever session on Leibniz's theory of emotions and I was lucky enough to be the first speaker of that session.

As is usual in these kinds of conferences, the papers are only part of the fun. The social life was well taken care of in the evening receptions and in the Waterloo Biergarten. This was my third Leibniz-Kongress and at this point my face and name was beginning to sound familiar (I flatter myself to think this is also somewhat due to the quality of my papers), so I had an active week, meeting previous acquintances and making new friends. All in all, an enjoyable week. Including a few hours in the magnificent Herrenhausen Gärten which was right next door to the congress (which, I am sorry to say, was not located in the beautiful main building of the G. W Leibniz Universität Hannover).

In saturday I took part on the excursion to the Harz mountains where Leibniz made experiments with (vertical) windmills and the like, trying to pump the water off from the mines as efficiently as possible. Led by an expert, we went by bus to many different locations where Leibniz made his experiments and studied his methods. Our expert was firmly of the opinion that the reason why Leibniz failed was the fact that he was not trying to be a part of the team, but tried to be their boss. He even wrote to the chief engineer in French!

Kinky Kindle

I love my Kindle.

It's light and one can read it anywhere, even in sunlight. One can read pdf-articles with it which is my main occupation. The battery runs for several weeks and it is fairly easy to use (keyboard is not very good but seldom needed). And what is most important, it is good for they eyes. The e-ink really works.

But I am beginning to hate my Kindle.

The reasons for loving it apply, but this is the second time the screen of my Kindle is frozen. It happened just like the last time - the screen saver (they are, by the way, very nice!) was on and I slid the power switch to get back to reading mode. And then it happened - part of Darwin's picture stayed, the lower part of the screen went blank and there you are - some flickering, no change. Tried every booting alternative there is - nada. I have to call to Amazon customer service again.

Don't get me wrong - Amazon customer service is very helpful.

They will probably send me another device. But in order to achieve that, you will have to call to their customer service in London. And calling from Finland to England is not too cheap. Then you have to pack your device and send that back to them and deal with Ups and arrange two meetings with them - to get the broken one and deliver the new one. Fine. But as this is the second time in three months, I am not too pleased. If the third device gets frozen within three months, I am going to ask my money back and stay with real, physical books which do not froze between readings.

Ps. Last record heard is Beirut: The Rip Tide

Ps. 2. The inevitable happened. I returned the Kindle to Amazon and bought a second-hand ipad. Let's see how it works.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Philosophy: First Impressions

This almost 600-page handbook, edited by Desmond M. Clarke and Catherine Wilson, just came into my hands from the library. Here are some first impressions.

The cover.

The baroque garden is often used to illustrate Early Modern philosophy and indeed it is quite appropriate. Clever paths leading nowhere and tidy, immaculate labyrinths of thought. Very nice.

The content.

What struck me most was the interesting titles of most chapters. The vast scale of topics is hacked into small portions which often discuss the topic systematically and only the relevant philosophers are taken in. This book appears to be very readable and the text and general comfortability is of high standard.

Here's some chapters which are not too often seen in collections like this: The soul, ideas, aesthetics, hypotheses, Instruments of knowledge, Picturability and Mathematical Ideals of Knowledge, Realism and Relativism in Ethics, The Equality of Men and Women, Religious Toleration. Very nice.

All in all, one gets the feeling that this book is not only another of its kind and can be forgotten instead of, say, The Cambridge History of 17th Century Thought. There is some stuff here which clearly makes the picture more complete.

Writers.

Most writers are different from the earlier Cambridge history and Alan Nelson's Companion to Rationalism. There are many well-known writers plus some less familiar ones. As these are first impressions and I have not read a single article, I will say nothing of the quality of the articles. But I certainly would like to read them all and probably will. The price is about 100 euros, but this book looks like it is going to be valuable for a long time.

Ps.

I was delighted to find in Gabor Boros' article on passions some discussion of Leibniz's views on passions. To my knowledge, this is the first time (apart from my own sofar unpublished papers) that anyone has written about to any extend of this most interesting topic.

Last record heard: Steve Mason & Dennis Bovell: Ghosts Outside

The new commandements

Been reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion every now and then. There's a lot of food for thought and I won't go to the many of the main thesis here, but only bring out one nice topic. Dawkins is referring to a web-site which has tried to formulate a secular set of rules for moral conduct. They call them the ten new commandements. Cathcy name for it, isn't it?

Here they are:

First Commandment: Do not do to others what you would not want them to do to you.
Second Commandment: In all things, strive to cause no harm.
Third Commandment: Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness and respect.
Fourth Commandment: Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
Fifth Commandment: Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
Sixth Commandment: Always seek to be learning something new.
Seventh Commandment: Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
Eighth Commandment: Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent; always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
Ninth Commandment: Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience; do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
Tenth Commandment: Question everything.

Let's look at them at more detail. The first seems to be ok, a sort of version of Kantian / Christian golden rule. The second might need some qualifications - harm in what sense? To persons? But I guess it speaks mostly for itself. The third is of utmost importance in these times. Dawkins suggests this further maxim: "Do not discriminate or oppress on the basis of sex, race or (as far as possible) species." but this is in a way included in the third new commandement. "Fellow human being" should include all men and racial and sexual differences. "Fellow" living thing should include living beings in general. "The world" includes nature. So when push comes to shove, this new commandment alone would be a basis for moral conduct.

But let us push on. Fourth commandement is referring to our sense of justice. It may be a tough job to forgive wrongdoing sometimes, but I agree that it is a worthy goal. Fifth commandment is a philosophical one and very important. It is a kind of Cartesian maxim - we should be always ready to learn new things and enjoy it. The sixth commandment is not really required as it can be implied from the fifth - I might replace with one which Dawkings presents. It extends the fifth commandment to education: "Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you." This commandment also encourages to dialogue which is very important for moral thinking.

Now to eighth commandment. This refers to open discussion which is the foundation of free society. Communication is extremely important to understand different world-views and in general, the conduct of others. If one is not ready to discuss or hear other points of view, different from his or her own, there is no possibility for a social order. Ninth commandment and seventh commandment are parts of the same thing - to think for oneself. This Kantian idea of intellectual autonomy is the ideal of a modern man and especially important for secular thinking. It leads naturally to the tenth and last commandment: Question everything. The essence of philosophy.

Insiders and Outsiders

I am reading (or rather going through) a new book called "Insiders and Outsiders in 17th-Century Philosophy", edited by G. A. J. Rogers, Tom Sorell and Jill Kraye. It is about the reception of various 17th century philosophers with a rather vague effort to try to put them into different categories which seems to me to be an effort to fool the publisher to accept it rather than a serious attempt to create new ways to see Early Modern Philosophy.

Much I would like to read the whole book, I have time only to the Leibniz-articles. I rather liked the one by Daniel Garber who tooks the trouble to go through Fontenelle's Éloge of Leibniz in detail and some other later French editions of Leibniz's works. Some nice anecdotes also - never knew that the story of Leibniz's marriage is from the Éloge. Herder, according to Catherine Wilson, was also a Leibnizian of sorts. This was also news to me - he even shared a similar picture of human psychology of the Leibniz of New Essays. Robert Merrihew Adams' article on the 20th century reception of Leibniz is more familiar stuff, but of interest is his remark that the Academy-edition does not include a volume for Leibniz's Theological papers which is indeed a little bit strange (to be sure, there are papers belonging to that topic in Philosophical writings). He also speaks nicely about the intellectual fruits of studying Leibniz. 


Btw. The last record I heard was Teenager of the Year by Frank Black.

Blog as Diary

I never did write diaries systematically. Every now and then I started, but soon gave up due to sheer laziness. I have had this blogspace for a few years now, but never had the energy to write anything. Then I started to feel a need to put down thoughts about my work, mostly to remember them later or because it might be nice to look at them years later and see how naive or ignorant I was at the time. For a few weeks now I have been using my Twitter account for this kind of purpose, but I soon became tired of having to count the symbols all the time. So I'll try this format.

I will mostly blog about philosophy which is my work and calling. My interest include Early Modern Philosophy, especially the rationalists and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. But I will not limit myself to philosophy only. I am also interested in history, (rock) music, fiction and films and I might every now and then blog about contemporary issues. But let's see how long it gets before I get tired of this.

One thing is clear. I am fairly lazy and sometimes busy and I will not promise steady flow of blogs. I like to put thing shortly, but I am glad to discuss should anyone want to.

Oh, and reason I am writing in English (I am a Finn living in Helsinki) is that philosophy is an international discipline and I am likely to blog about fairly specialized stuff for which I will probably not get much response from Finland only. I can, however, discuss in Finnish. I can also read Swedish, German, French and Latin. However, when I am writing (or if I am writing) about topics which has to with Finnish culture or politics or whatever and which are not intelligible to the international readers, I'll write in Finnish.