Symposium ‘Exercises in Early Modern Thought: Philosophy, Arts, Science, Theology, Politics’

Matthäus Merian, Gezicht op de Sorbonne universiteit van Parijs, 1655. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum

Wednesday 19 November (MFO)

13:30–14 :00 Welcome. Stéphane van Damme, director of the MFO.

Session I

14:00–14:45 Susan James (Birkbeck/Kings College London), Margaret Cavendish on Natural Philosophy and Poetry

14:45–15 :30 Eric Sheng (Merton, Oxford), Gassendi’s Arguments for Hedonism

Chair: Mogens Lærke (CNRS-IHRIM/MFO, Lyon/Oxford)

15 :30–16:00 Coffee Break

Session II

16 :00–16:45 Philip Beeley (Linacre, Oxford), John Pell and the Advancement of Mathematical Learning in Seventeenth-Century England

16 :45–17:30 David Bartha (Birmingham Newman University), Animal Souls and Immortality in the Browne–Baxter Debate

Chair: Louis Rouquayrol (CNRS-IHRIM, Lyon)

Thursday 20 November (MFO)

Session III

9:00–9 :45 Odile Panetta (Aarhus University/Christ Church, Oxford), Dutch Reformed Universities and the Debate over the Ius circa sacra

9:45–10 :30 Daniel Pedersen (University of Aberdeen), Seventeenth-Century Theologians Against the Clear and Distinct Knowledge of God

Chair: Niall Dilucia (CNRS-MFO, Oxford)

10:30–11 :00 Coffee Break

Session IV

11:00–11:45 Sarah Mortimer (Christ Church, Oxford), Freedom, Miracles, and Revelation: The Remonstrants and Spinoza

11:45–12:30 Olivier Yasar de France (Pembroke, Oxford), Spinoza and the Rights of Peace

Chair: Noel Malcolm (All Souls, Oxford)

12:30–14:00 Lunch

Session V

14:00–14:45 Eric Schliesser (University of Amsterdam/Tulane University, New Orleans), Huygens (and Newton, of Course!): Some Awkward Observations about Causal Isolation and Simultaneity

14:45–15:30 Yoav Beirach (Max Planck Institute, Berlin), “Something of Imitation, That is Not Easily Removed”: Huygens and Leibniz on Time Measurement

Chair: Paul Lodge (Mansfield, Oxford)

17:00-19:00 Old Library, All Souls. All conference participants are cordially invited to the book launch of Nuno Castel Branco’s The Traveling Anatomist. Nicolaus Steno and the Intersection of Disciplines in Early Modern Science (University of Chicago Press, 2025). With the participation of Daniel Garber (Princeton), Mogens Lærke (CNRS, Lyon/Oxford), and Kathryn Murphy (Oriel College, Oxford). The event will be followed by a wine reception offered by All Souls College.

Friday 21 November (Hovenden Room, All Souls College)

Session VI

9 :00–9:45 Robert Iliffe (Linacre, Oxford), TBA

9:45–10:30 Delphine Antoine-Mahut (IHRIM/Labex Comod, ENS de Lyon), In the Brain of Christ. Fenelon as a Reader of Malebranche

Chair: Nuno Castel-Branco (All Souls, Oxford)

10:30–11:00 Break

Session VII

11:00–11:45 Michael Jaworcyn (CNRS-MFO, Oxford), The Finitude of Cartesian Minds

11:45–12:30 Daniel Garber (Princeton University), We Desire to Form a Model of Human Nature’: Spinoza on Becoming a More Perfect Self

Chair: Raphaële Garrod (Magdalen, Oxford)

Organisation: Mogens Lærke (CNRS, Lyon/Oxford) and Nuno Castel-Branco (All Souls College, Oxford)

The event is funded by the European Research Council (NOTCOM, ERC AdG no. 101052433, 2023-2027). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the participants only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the ERC. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.