Arnold Geulincx: A Cartesian Idealist

Arnold Geulincx: A Cartesian Idealist BRIAN COONEY ARNOLD GEULINCX (1624-1669), a Flemish philosopher born in Antwerp, taught at Louvain from 1646 to 1657. He was dean of the Faculty of Philosophy from 1654 to 1657, when, for reasons no researcher to my knowledge has yet determined, he was dismissed from both his posts of professor and dean. A number of factors may have contributed to this dismissal. (1) Geulincx would seem to have been a popular professor of the new, Cartesian philosophy then encountering much hostility from the faculty at Louvain. (2) He may already have evinced a sympathy for the Calvinist religion to which he was eventually converted. Such a sympathy would have been inconvenient in a staunchly Catholic University of the counter-reformation period. (3) As Alain de Lattre notes, Geulincx got married during the period at Louvain, and marriage was not the accepted practice among philosophy professors. 1Geulincx and his wife took refuge at Leyden, where the modest teaching position he obtained gave him some relief from the financial difficulties that never quite left him after Louvain . Finally, he died of a plague that ravaged Leyden in 1669. This same plague struck down six of his colleagues. The reaction of the University of Leyden to these seven deaths is unfortunately prophetic of a lack of recognition, both from his contemporaries and from historians of philosophy, that was to be the lot of this brilliant thinker. A bronze medallion was struck by the University commemorating the death of all but one: Geulincx. Geulincx had few disciples capable of developing and promulgating his doctrine. His influence was confined almost exclusively to the Low Countries and seems to have died out completely about the end of the seventeenth century. References to Geulincx by seventeenth-century thinkers give the impression that, to the degree that he was known in Europe at large, it was as "just another Cartesian." Nothing could be farther from the truth. L 'Occasionalisme d'Arnold Geulincx (Paris, Les Editions de Minuit, 1967), p. l 1. Seealso de Lattre's French translations of selected texts of Geulincx, with an introductory cbmmentary, in Arnold Geulincx (Paris, Editions Seghers, 1970). De Lattre's thorough and sympathetic commentary strongly emphasizes the moral significance of Geulincx's metaphysics and epistemology. The latter are supposed to show us the essential passivity and impotence of the human condition and so prepare us to accept the practical consequences of this condition as they are presented in the ethics. I think it is undeniable that Geulincx did regard his ethics as the culmination of his metaphysics. But it does not follow from this that the chief historical and philosophical interest of Geulincx's thought lies in his ethics. Yet de Lattre seems to have structured his commentary according to just such an inference: "Si le vrai nom de la physique est la m6taphysique qu'elle promet, le v6ritable nom de celle-ci est la morale qu'elle permet" (Arnold Geulincx, p. 59). Germain Malbreil's "L'Occasionalisme d'Arnold Geulincx," Archives de Philosophie 37 (1973):77-105, is a summary presentation of de Lattre's interpretation of Geulincx. [167] 168 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY During the three centuries since his death, very few historians of philosophy have paid much attention to Geulincx, except to relate him to better known thinkers. 2 Thus he has been compared with Spinoza for his monism, with Malebranche for his occasionalism, and with Kant for his categorial doctrine. The most prolific period of Geulincx scholarship was the late nineteenth century in Germany. This period began with the discovery that Geulincx had used the metaphor of coordinated clocks to express the harmony of the cosmos. The ensuing controversy dealt both with the honesty and accuracy of Leibniz's unfavorable characterization of occasionalism, and with the originality of his doctrine of pre-established harmony. Much was learned about Geulincx and about occasionalism in general, but the focus of the controversy was the honor and historical status of Leibniz, not of Geulincx. My study of Geulincx has convinced me that his resemblance both to Spinoza and to Malebranche has been exaggerated. His monism and his occasionalism are both sustained by a metaphysics as different...