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Dutch philosopher, mathematician, physician, and politician
Bernard Nieuwentijt
,
Nieuwentijdt
, or
Nieuwentyt
(10 August 1654,
West-Graftdijk
,
North Holland
– 30 May 1718,
Purmerend
) was a Dutch philosopher, mathematician, physician, magistrate, mayor (of Purmerend), and theologian.
Career
[
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]
As a philosopher, Nieuwentyt was a follower of
Descartes
and an opponent of
Spinoza
. In 1695 he was involved in a controversy over the foundations of infinitesimal calculus with
Leibniz
.
[1]
Nieuwentijt advocated 'nilsquare' infinitesimals (which have higher powers of zero), whereas Leibniz was uncertain about explicitly adopting such a rule - they did however come to be used throughout physics from then on.
He wrote several books (in
Dutch
) including his chief work
Het regt gebruik der werelt beschouwingen, ter overtuiginge van ongodisten en ongelovigen
[The True Use of Contemplating the World] (1715), which argued for the existence of God and attacked Spinoza.
[2]
It went through several editions (1715, 1717, 1720, 1725, 1730, 1740) published by Joannes Pauli, and was translated into
English
as
The religious philosopher, or the right use of contemplating the works of the Creator
(1718) and into
French
as
De l'existence de Dieu demontree par les merveilles de la nature, ou traite teleologique dirige contre la doctrine de Spinoza par un medecin hollandais
.
Voltaire
owned a copy of this book, and it was an influence on
William Paley
,
[2]
to the extent that in 1859
Robert Blakey
could make "a detailed argument for plagiarism" by Paley.
[3]
To the English version was added a letter to the translator by
John Theophilus Desaguliers
.
[4]
Nieuwentyt's posthumously published
Gronden van zekerheid
[Fundaments of Certitude, or the Right Method of Mathematicians in the Ideal as well as the Real] (1720) argued Spinoza's 'geometrical method' was not the proper 'experimental method' of science. The work also contains a critique of the ontological argument similar to a later critique by
Kant
.
[1]
Works
[
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]
- Het regt gebruik der werelt beschouwingen, ter overtuiginge van ongodisten en ongelovigen
, Amsterdam, 1715
- The Religious Philosopher
, 1718
- Gronden van zekerheid
, 1720
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
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]
- E. W. Beth, Nieuwentyt's significance for the philosophy of science,
Synthese
, Vol. 9 No. 1, 1955, pp. 447-453 (Published also as Chapter V in
Science: a Road to Wisdom
, D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, 1972, Print
ISBN
978-94-011-7646-0
, DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-7644-6_5.)
- Steffen Ducheyne, Curing pansophia through eruditum nescire. Bernard Nieuwentijt’s (1654 ? 1718) epistemology of modesty,
HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science
7(2) (2017), pp. 272-301.
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693423
- Gysel C., Odontology, theology and antispinozism according to Bernard Nieuwentyt (1654-1718),
Ned Tijdschr Tandheelkd
, 1977 Jun; 84(6):214-6.
- Michael John Petry (1979).
Nieuwentijt's Criticism of Spinoza
, E. J. Brill.
- R. H. Vermij (1989). Een zekere, zakelijke wijsbegeerte.
Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie
51 (3):544-544.
- JANTZEN, BENJAMIN C.. An Introduction to Design Arguments. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014.
ISBN
978-1-107-00534-1
Hardback,
ISBN
978-0-521-18303-1
Paperback.
External links
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]
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