Sangiacomo, Andrea:
Aristotle, Heereboord and the polemical target of Spinoza's critique of final causes

In: Journal of the History of Philosophy 54, 3 (2016), 395-420

Literature type: Articles
Language: English
Thematic areas: Metaphysics / ontology, Previous history (e.g. Descartes, Stoicism), Contemporaries and context, Comparison of theories
Subject: E
Subject (individuals): Aristoteles [Aristotle] ; Heereboord, Adriaan ; Suàrez, Francisco

Autopsy: yes
English commentary: "This paper aims to identify the polemical target of Spinoza’s critique of final causes in the Appendix to the first part of the Ethics.i assess Spinoza’s arguments on the background of a comparison between Aristotle’s own account of unthought-ful teleology and Adriaan Heereboord’s account of final causes proposed in his Meletemata Philosophica (1654). Although Heereboord explicitly presents himself as an Aristotelian and an anti-scholastic, his view on final causes is at odds with that of Aristotle and can be rather traced back to Suárez. The paper proves that Spinoza’s arguments are effective against Heereboord’s view, but not against Aristotle’s." (abstract, p. 395)URL: http://https://muse.jhu.edu/article/628206/pdf

Link to this page: http://spinoza.hab.de/detail.php?id=19995&LANG=EN