Thomas Hobbes and the development of the science of light and vision in the 1640s: the confrontation with the Dioptrics, by Descartes

• Grant number: 11/21629-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2012
• End date: February 28, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Pablo Rubén Mariconda
• Grantee: Guilherme Rodrigues Neto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This postdoctoral project aims to realize a study on the theory about the nature of light and vision developed by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes in the 1640s. This theory outlines the second stage of the development of his natural philosophy and marks his divergence with the Descartes' natural philosophy. As is well known, Hobbes was profoundly impacted by the reading of Dioptrics' essay, written by Descartes and published in 1637. This reading conducted the English philosopher to the abandon its previous corpuscularian conception about the nature of light and it engaged him in developing an insightful critique of some fundamental Cartesian ideas. This elaboration has enabled him to develop of original and divergent ideas with respect to Cartesian mechanism and, more especially in relation to the Cartesian explanation of the phenomena related with the physics of illumination. That is an interesting and little-known controversy between two important mechanicist philosophers in the first half of the seventeenth century. Such controversy deserves a further study in order to explore certain fundamental tensions that go through the mechanical structure of the new image of nature that unfolds in the beginnings of modern science. Thus, this research project aims to develop a conceptual research about this interesting episode in the history of science and philosophy of the seventeenth century. As a result, the main achievement of this research intends to be the elaboration of a set of translations of primary documents - including unpublished manuscripts and correspondence - along with introductory texts, explaining notes etc. This set of documents represents the bulk of the texts involved in that controversy between the English and French philosophers. (AU)