Pietro D. Omodeo
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198779919
- eISBN:
- 9780191825927
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198779919.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter examines the heated polemic against Cartesianism—a field that brings together studies on individual scholars and local scholarly constellations, along with an analysis of additional ...
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This chapter examines the heated polemic against Cartesianism—a field that brings together studies on individual scholars and local scholarly constellations, along with an analysis of additional primary sources and archival research—that emerged at the University of Frankfurt on Oder during the seventeenth century. The debate mainly centred on the use of Rene Descartes’s views which went against the traditional university curricula. The leader of the supporters of Descartes was Jan Kolaczek, latinized as Placentinus, who faced attacks and the vexations of his colleagues from the Faculties of Philosophy and Theology. His opponents accused him of overturning a well-established scholarly tradition—mainly resting on Aristotelianism—and subverting the university statutes. Placentinus overcame his adversaries by making a clever recourse to academic mechanisms and practices, such as the use of disputations to defend and propagate his theses, and by taking advantage of political ties.Less
This chapter examines the heated polemic against Cartesianism—a field that brings together studies on individual scholars and local scholarly constellations, along with an analysis of additional primary sources and archival research—that emerged at the University of Frankfurt on Oder during the seventeenth century. The debate mainly centred on the use of Rene Descartes’s views which went against the traditional university curricula. The leader of the supporters of Descartes was Jan Kolaczek, latinized as Placentinus, who faced attacks and the vexations of his colleagues from the Faculties of Philosophy and Theology. His opponents accused him of overturning a well-established scholarly tradition—mainly resting on Aristotelianism—and subverting the university statutes. Placentinus overcame his adversaries by making a clever recourse to academic mechanisms and practices, such as the use of disputations to defend and propagate his theses, and by taking advantage of political ties.
