This article tries to retrace through some authors of the 17th and 18th century the history of the motto libertas philosophandi, which, following its original affirmation and defence of the freedom of the philosopher, scholar or professor, finds in the age of Enlightenment the true universality of political, intellectual and civil rights.

“Libertas philosophandi”, “Libero filosofare”, “Free-thinking”, “Liberté de penser”, Modern Philosophy.

The present article examines the vindication of the “freedom to philosophize” in astronomy and cosmology from Rheticus and Copernicus to Galileo and Kepler. The common thread of the study, the famous sentence by the Greek Platonist Alcinous taken up by Rheticus in his Narratio prima (1540), is traced through the Latin edition of Galileo’s Dialogo (Strasbourg, 1635), where it joins with similar motifs in Seneca’s Naturales Quaestiones, then widely diffused across Germany on the occasion of the comet of 1618. This development is studied in relation to the hardening of measures against philosophical and theological dissent in Protestant and Catholic circles as manifested in the sentences suffered by Bruno, Telesio and Patrizi.

Rheticus, Melanchthon, Castellion, Jesuits, Kepler, Federico Cesi, Galileo.

The present essay offers a brief survey of the travails of philosophical liberty in England during the first few decades of the seventeenth century, culminating with the foundation of the Royal Society in 1660. Focusing on metaphors used by the proponents of the new science it seeks to flesh out the extent to which the invocation of a purported papal cultural tyranny – especially in the aftermath of the condemnations of heliocentrism in 1616, and of Galileo in 1633 – enabled English savants to promote, and to legitimate, their own enterprise.

Libertas philosophandi, England, Science and Religion, John Wilkins, Spinoza.

Libertas philosophandi is only claimed where it is restricted, incomplete or fragile. The awareness that many authors of the 16th-18th centuries had of the gap between what can be conceived and what it is prudent to declare constitutes, together with all subsequent practices, what can be called their reserve. Together with the historical distance of languages, contexts and belief systems, this contributes to making the problem of access to these authors’ ‘true beliefs’ an especially thorny one, at least on the face of it – especially, of course, in matters of religion. With reference to Quentin Skinner’s famous contributions, and recalling the way in which the problem arises in Montaigne, Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza, I try to show that the main interpretive issues concerning these authors are not related to unexpressed thoughts, but always to the complexity of the very things that were to be understood, and therefore to the limits of what can be called their convictions.

Descartes, Dissimulation, Interpretation, Hobbes, Montaigne, Religion, Spinoza.

In this essay I explore not the freedom of philosophical expression in the seventeenth century, but some of the reasons for the opposition to libertas philosophandi. After noting briefly the cases of Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei, I turn to two lesser known cases where philosophers were prevented from discussing their views in public. The first was a group of three young scholars who, in a public disputation held in Paris in August of 1624, attempted to refute Aristotle, then central to both theology and university philosophy. They were shut down by the civil authorities at the recommendation of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Paris, and sent out of Paris. The second was the actions, including legal action, taken against Descartes and his followers in Utrecht in the early 1640s, attempting to prevent his ideas from being taught at the University of Utrecht. The reasons for this resistance to intellectual innovation and change include fear of religious heterodoxy, the view that those who promote such novelties are more interested in personal fame than in the truth, and the resistance to changing an entrenched university curriculum, among other reasons. The claim is made that if we are to understand the arguments for libertas philosophandi, we must also understand what they were arguing against.

Libertas philosophandi, Antoine Villon, Jean-Baptiste Morin, Descartes, Utrecht.

This paper intends to show that, from the beginning of his philosophical career, Pierre Gassendi borrowed the notion of libertas philosophandi from Cicero. This is a clue to the constructive role of Academic philosophy in the forging of Gassendi’s thought and allows us to challenge various interpretations according to which Gassendi was first a Pyrrhonian before becoming a mitigated skeptic. The freedom to philosophize was conceived by Gassendi not as a way to challenge religious authorities, but as a method against any sort of philosophical dogmatism, inviting us to choose the most probable explanations of natural phenomena and allowing us to revise our opinions in case of new experimental evidence.

Pierre Gassendi, Libertas philosophandi, Skepticism, Cicero, Probable.

In the mid-seventeenth century in Leiden, themes developed in different though often close intellectual environments converged around the claim of the libertas philosophandi. Among them we can find the search for the autonomy of philosophy from theology; the refusal the faithfulness to Aristotelian dictates; the development of a confessional identity affecting philosophy; the commitment to Cartesian thought, caused by purely intellectual reasons or by choices involving academic politics. Such is the background, enhanced by elements concerning mostly the reflection upon the relationship between religious and civil authorities, on which Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus will stand out shortly thereafter.

Libertas philosophandi, Philosophy and Theology, Dutch Cartesianism, Leiden University, Adriaan Heereboord; Johannes de Raey, Henricus Bornius

The expression Libertas philosophandi does not appear in the Leviathan. Yet, Hobbes deals with the topic of the confrontation of ideas between men when he debates both on the “state of nature” and on civil society. After an analysis of the concepts eleaborated in the first part of the Leviathan, in order to clarify the link between intellectual dialogue and human passions, this essay investigates the relationships that must be established between Civil State and Universities, which is the topic of chapter XLVI entitled “Of Darknesse from vain Philosophy, and Fabulous Traditions”.

Science, Universities, Libertas philosophandi, State, Nature, Natural Wit.

The natural equality of men is a primary and incontrovertible fact with which modern political theory has to deal. The awareness of the “original” power of individuals thus pushes Hobbes to outline a theory of the limits of power (and of the “duties of the sovereign”), which Spinoza translates into a republican and democratic political proposal. The themes of libertas philosophandi, repression and cultural control (which we study through some disputationes academicae written against Spinoza in the 18th century) can be read as a metaphor for the changes that new social and political subjectivities impose on modernity.

Spinoza, Hobbes, Musaeus, Staalkopf, Disputationes.

There is a tension in Spinoza between a definition of superstition that makes it inherently seditious (and therefore subject to the limitations that Spinoza sets for freedom of speech) and his justification for freedom of speech in Theological Political Treatise. Here, I will explain the tension based on an interpretation of superstition I have defended in previous work; then I will show how Spinoza was aware that suppression of superstition vis-à-vis its being seditious may promote, rather than prevent, instability. Finally, I will explore how Spinoza’s tenets of universal faith are attempts to inoculate a society against the spread of superstitious beliefs and offer a few suggestions on a secular alternative to Spinoza’s tenets of faith.

Spinoza, Philosophy, Ethics, Religion, Politics.

Scholars have studied the figure of Christ within the Theological-Political Treatise for quite some time, as a symbol of the riddle that runs through Spinoza’s reflection on freedom of thought. Christ is placed by Spinoza at the centre of a specific problem in the Treatise, also reflected in the Ethics, which is: if freedom consists in adequately understanding our nature and the nature in which we are included, why is this understanding so difficult to reach for most of mankind? What kind of philosophical and political obstacles stand in the way of reaching intellectual perfection? As we shall see, Spinoza’s Christ incarnates this riddle, which is individual and collective at the same time, and corresponds to the distinction between the philosopher and common people.

Spinoza, Christ, Freedom of Philosophy, Imagination, Intellect.

For two centuries after their publication, the works of the ‘notorious atheist’ Spinoza were not only never translated into Italian, but their content was known only through short and often biased summaries drawn mostly from other authors. The first work by Spinoza to be translated into Italian did not appear until 1875: this was a translation of the Theological-Political Treatise, the only original book published during the lifetime of the philosopher. This text shows how Spinoza’s defense of libertas philosophandi is the element that determined and gave rise to this first Italian translation published for the first time in Italy after the abolition of the Pope’s temporal power and the declaration of freedom of expression and of the press.

Spinoza, Libertas philosophandi, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, First Italian Translation, Carlo Sarchi.

The major question that concerns this paper is why Leibniz moved away from his early physical system, expressed in Theoria motus abstracti and the Hypothesis physica nova. The general claim is that metaphysics together with theology was part of the reason why Leibniz abandoned it. Leibniz saw that his views on bodily action as motion and impenetrability lead to a misguided interpretation of the Eucharist. His solution was, first, to fully endorse the activity principle of individuation; second, to abandon the explanation of impenetrability through the composition of conatus admitting it among the basic qualities of bodies. In changing his position, Leibniz was trying to avoid falling into a similar situation in which Descartes found himself regarding the doctrine of real presence.

Leibniz, Physics, Theology, Activity, Impenetrability, Real presence.

This paper identifies and revisits early modern models of religious toleration, focusing on the relationship between truth and toleration. It argues that, from a theoretical point of view, the culprit in intolerance is not belief in some objective truth per se, thereby challenging some common assumptions. After discussing approaches based on the rights of the individual conscience and on the unknowability of religious truths above human reason, it investigates whether grounds for a general and principled theory of toleration can be found in religious truth itself and, following the tradition of natural law, in some universal truth discoverable by natural reason.

Religious Toleration, Religious Truth, Golden Rule, Natural Law, Natural Reason.

I examine Collins’ definition of free-thinking, his further claim that free-thinking is a natural right, and two arguments in favour of free-thinking. I argue that Collins’ notion of free-thinking as a natural right also involves a natural, epistemic duty, implicit in the normative content of the definition.

Free-Thinking, Epistemology, Judgment, Reason, Epistemic justification.

The idea of criticism, from Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) to Kant’s «Preface» of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781), plays a central role in modern philosophy. Bayle is an intermediary between the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth centuries: he brings in age of Enlightenment questions relating to scepticism and to philosophical, religious and historical criticism. The article analyses Bayle’s idea of criticism and his heritage on the Eighteenth century, particularly on Montesquieu and Voltaire. Bayle’s influence on Montesquieu and Voltaire is significant, despite their critiques of his hypothesis of an atheistic society. Bayle’s legacy on these two authors – more evident in Voltaire – emerges not only from religious tolerance but also from an intellectual affinity for freedom of thought, historical criticism or moderate scepticism. Bayle’s philosophical criticism and freedom of thought – especially on the problem of evil or on the antinomies of reason – also influence some texts of the clandestine philosophical literature.

Libertas philosophandi, Criticism, Pierre Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire.

Although Christian Wolff’s championing of the libertas philosophandi from the mid-1720s up to the late 1740s is widely recognized as a milestone in the development of the German Enlightenment, some aspects of it are still unexplored. This paper focuses on the historical and theoretical relationship between Wolff’s ideal of philosophical freedom and his equally famous definition of philosophy as the science of possible things. These two issues appear to have been linked with each other since the very beginnings of Wolff’s philosophical career, when his views about scriptural exegesis led him to demarcate philosophy from revelation as well as natural science from natural history.

Christian Wolff, Freedom to Philosophize, Definition of Philosophy, Scriptural Exegesis, Scientific Hypothesis.

This essay reconstructs the early modern controversy about libertas philosophandi in Germany till 1711. This period is characterized by the two provoking philosophical inputs of Descartes and Spinoza to which several German philosophers and theologians made their replies. Regarding the different kinds of attitudes towards freedom of opinion it will be shown that the bulk of conservatives, especially of the Protestant Orthodoxy, sets narrow confines for libertas philosophandi and that in contrast Nikolaus Hieronymus Gundling is the only one during this period who claimed an unrestricted libertas academica, whereas his teacher Christian Thomasius remained half-hearted.

Libertas dicendi scribendique, Libertas sentiendi et dissentiendi, Limites libertatis philosophandi, Libertas vs. Licentia, Libertinismus, Descartes - Spinoza - Nikolaus Hieronymus Gundling - Kant.

In his 1994 book Freedom of Speech: Words Are Not Deeds, Harry M. Bracken, renowned American philosopher and friend of Chomsky, opposes empiricism and rationalism as the sources of competing approaches to the issue of freedom of speech. In his view, while freedom of speech flourished within the framework of Cartesian-type theories (Pierre Bayle), it was undermined within empiricist-type theories (John Locke). This is because the dualisms: mind/body and talk/action that entail distinction between subversive but private thoughts and subversive actions lie at the core of Cartesianism but are totally absent from empiricism. The aim of the present paper is to verify Bracken’s thesis by setting it against contrary textual evidence and recent research by Peter Anstey, Anna Wierzbicka and others.

Bracken, Freedom of Speech, Dualism, Rationalism, Empiricism.

The experimental theist Cleanthes and the skeptical Philo in the Dialogues, Epicurus in the oration of the First Enquiry, all deal with the same problem and endorse the same epistemology. Both the method and the argument come from Newton’s Principia: the former derives from the famous regulae philosophandi and the argument from the Scholium generale appended to the third book of the Principia. Not only the theologians of the Boyle lectures, but Newton himself, in the Scholium generale, had established a close connection between the use of induction, the rejection of hypotheses, the argument from design or final causes, and the conception of a “living, intelligent, powerful being”, that governs the world as a Lord. It is notable that Newton did not hesitate to include God among the objects of “natural philosophy”. The Dialogues represent a challenge to this “experimental theism” inspired by Newton, but they also aim at rehabilitating the function of hypotheses, against Newton’s famous veto, albeit in a new form, compatible with the scepticism endorsed by the protagonist of the work, Philo. This new reading of the Dialogues centred on Philo’s “hypotheticism” also sheds light on the meaning and scope of the work.

David Hune, Isaac Newton, Hypothesis, Scepticism, Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment is well known for its critical analysis of the Bible. Though the Renaissance sources have been acknowledged as an inspiration of this movement, the Querelle des femmes and its critique of the Bible has never been considered as a possible catalyst for the enlightened philosophical discourse. For centuries women have fought against interpretations of the Bible. This paper argues that the Querelle des femmes criticized the Bible not only because of its patriarchal content but also criticized philosophical thinking that, for supporting the views from the Bible and its misogynist stance, misused the instruments of rational philosophy. Arguments from 1400-1750, from Nogarola to Du Châtelet prove women philosophers’ fight in favour of a critique of the Bible from a rational point of view, reflecting also on the status of what it meant, to argue rationally.

Bible critics, Querelle des femmes, Isotta Nogarola, Émilie Du Châtelet, Enlightenment.

The materialism of La Mettrie and Diderot has been the object of some recent reevaluations, most of which focus on their conception of matter, and how this changes, notably, our idea of a predominantly mechanistic materialism in the period. Less attention has been paid to their conception of liberty, or conversely, their denial thereof. Indeed, of the typical, and strident objections to materialism in terms of human freedom, building on the usual view of materialism as a necropolis of ‘dead matter’, two core objections emerge: that materialism reduces humans to deterministic, passive, sets of atoms, and that it is an immoralism. In this paper I focus chiefly on the second claim, and turn to Diderot’s own objections to La Mettrie in this regard. Both philosophers share a large number of materialist tenets, but Diderot is upset by the ethical consequences La Mettrie draws. My aim is not to defend one or the other of their materialist approaches to ethics (and liberty) but to reflect on the aporias involved therein, in considering whether “libertinage” is a necessary consequence of materialism.

Materialism, Immoralism, La Mettrie, Diderot.

The theater of Diderot and Marivaux (but not only), in the eighteenth century, is the social and cultural place where a very high political stake is played. What is lawful to say and what, on the contrary, is it better or more prudent to be silent about, and not to say, or to which it is simply possible only to allude on the scene, with gestures, looks, movements? The theatrical space is, like the clandestine literature of the same era, also the place of a struggle for the affirmation of freedom of expression and thought, through «writing techniques» that make use of encrypted markers, signs that are allusions to a common code (art of writing) that only a few spectators have the opportunity to understand and decrypt. The essay analyzes some lesser known pièces by the two authors – Est-il bon? Est-il méchant? (Diderot) and L’Île des esclaves (Marivaux) – to identify the subtle interplay of references to the theme of political freedom of conscience, through the détours of clandestine writing and (self) censorship.

Materialism, Clandestinity, The Art of Writing, Freedom, Heterodoxy.