The Dutch Republic around 1600 was a laboratory of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Here conditions were favourable for the development of new ways of knowing nature and the natural philosopher Isaac Beeckman, who was born in Middelburg in 1588, was a seminal figure in this context. He laid the groundwork for the strictly mechanical philosophy that is at the heart of the new science. Descartes and others could build on what they learned, directly or indirectly, from Beeckman. As previous studies have mainly dealt with the scientific content of Beeckman’s thinking, this volume also explores the wider social, scientific and cultural context of his work. Beeckman was both a craftsman and a scholar and fruitfully combined artisanal ways of knowing with international scholarly traditions. Beeckman’s extensive private notebook offers a unique perspective on the cultures of knowledge that emerged in this crucial period in intellectual history.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- A Note on Abbreviations
- Preface
- 1. Introduction
- Klaas van Berkel, Albert Clement, and Arjan van Dixhoorn
- Part I: Assessing Beeckman
- 2. Isaac Beeckman in the Context of the Scientific Revolution
- 3. Isaac Beeckman at Gresham College in 1668
- An Alternative ‘As If’ Scenario
- 4. Framing Beeckman
- Cornelis de Waard as Editor of the Beeckman Papers
- Part II: Understanding Beeckman
- 5. ‘Like Water, That Is Forced to Flow through a Narrow Opening’
- Isaac Beeckman’s Early Conceptualization of the Telescope
- 6. Optics, Astronomy, and Natural Philosophy
- Beeckman, Descartes, Kepler, and the Dutch Connection
- 7. Combining Atomism with Galenic Medicine
- The Physiological Theory of Isaac Beeckman (1616-1627)
- 8. Physician, Patient, Experimenter and Observer
- Isaac Beeckman’s Accounts of Illness and Death
- 9. Beeckman, Descartes, and the Principle of Conservation of Motion*
- 10. Beeckman’s Corpuscular Study of Plants
- Part III: Situating Beeckman
- 11. Networks of Knowledge in Middelburg around 1600
- The Context of Isaac Beeckman as a Young Man
- 12. Musical Culture in Middelburg in the Times of Isaac Beeckman
- 13. Consten-Culture
- Beeckman, the Rhetoricians, and a New Style of Philosophizing*
- 14. Harnessing the Elements
- Beeckman and Atmospheric Instruments
- 15. ‘Communicated Only to Good Friends and Philosophers’
- Isaac Beeckman, Cornelis Drebbel, and the Circulation of Artisanal Philosophy
- 16. What’s in a Language?
- Dutch and Latin in Isaac Beeckman’s Journal
- 17. ‘Ut patet in figura’
- On the Use of Images in Beeckman’s Journal*
- 18. Concluding Remarks
- Klaas van Berkel and Arjan van Dixhoorn
- Acknowledgements
- Index
- Colour Section
- 1 Image projection with a camera obscura, from Johan van Beverwijck’s Schat derOngesontheyt
- 2 Joos Lambrechtse and his family
- 3 ‘Reaal van Achten’, issued by the Verenigde Zeeuwsche Compagnie, 1602
- 4 Portrait of Symon Jasperse Parduyn, by an unknown painter
- 5 Signboard of the workshop of the Middelburg printer Jan Pietersz van deVenne, 1623
- 6A The Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in Middelburg, with the house of HansLipperhey
- 6B Network of Middelburg scholars, printers and amateurs, around 1600
- 7 The use of Lansbergen’s quadrant explained, 1620
- 8 Title page and first page of the auction catalogue of Antonius Biesius
- 9 The encounter of a mathematician, a lawyer, a painter, and an engraver, with asculptor in the background
- 10 The house on the Beestenmarkt (now Varkensmarkt no. 11) in Middelburgwhere Beeckman was born
- 11 The Beeckman residence in the Hoogstraat in Middelburg and neighbouringhouses
- 12 Identification of the houses around the Beesten- or Varkensmarkt inMiddelburg in 2020
- 13 Portrait of Janneken van Ryckegem, sister-in-law of Isaac Beeckman, 1632
- 14 Organ of the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in MiddelburgDrawing,
- 15 Double virginal, made by Lodewijck Grouwels, 1600
- 16 Portrait of Jacob Pergens, by Salomon Mesdach, 1619
- List of Illustrations
- Figure 5.1 The harmful effect of concentrating sunlight by means of a burning mirror
- Figure 5.2 Propagation of rays of light in a telescope according to Sirtori’s Telescopium
- Figure 5.3 Telescopic configuration according to Beeckman
- Figure 5.4 Diagram sketched by Beeckman for investigating ray density
- Figure 5.5 Beeckman’s drawing of a ‘facet’ lens
- Figure 6.1 Hortensius explains why Kepler claims that a telescope misrepresents the Sun’s diameter
- Figure 10.1 Impatiens herba or Balsaminae
- Figure 11.1 Registration of Beeckman’s engagement with Catharina de C(h)erf, 1620
- Figure 11.2 Abbey church in Middelburg
- Figure 11.3 Title page of a disputation held in the Abbey church in Middelburg, 1597
- Figure 11.4 North-eastern part of the Middelburg Market in 1605
- Figure 11.5 Matthias de L’Obel
- Figure 11.6 Matthias de L’Obel’s garden, the Lauwer-hof
- Figure 11.7 Joannes Isaac Hollandus, Opera mineralia, 160
- Figure 11.8 Telescope with a diaphragm
- Figure 11.9 Johan Radermacher
- Figure 11.10 Map of the inner city of Middelburg (area around the Abbey), 1873
- Figure 11.11 The Middelburg Stock Exchange or Koopmansbeurs
- Figure 11.12 Hans Lipperhey
- Figure 11.13 ’s Lands Giethuys with the adjacent
home of the Zeeland Master of the Mint
- Figure 11.14 Groenmarkt with the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church)
- Figure 11.15 South-eastern part of the Middelburg Market in 1605
- Figure 11.16 Map of the neighbourhood of Beeckman’s youth around the Hoogstraat
- Figure 11.17 The prison, a water mill, and the Stadsschuur (with a sawmill) in front of the Beeckman residence
- Figure 11.18 Medal of the Middelburg Carpenters’ Guild
- Figure 12.1 Ghiselin Danckerts’s ‘Ave Maris Stella’ in the form of a chessboard
- Figure 12.2 Carillon in the tower of the Abbey church
- Figure 12.3 The Wilhelmus, from Adriaen Valerius’s Neder-landtsche gedenck-clanck (1626)
- Figure 12.4 Cats, ‘Ziel-sucht’, stanza 1
- Figure 14.1 Delft weather glass, as depicted by Beeckman
- Figure 14.2 New sketch of the Delft weather glass by Beeckman
- Figure 14.3 Beeckman’s wheel of fortune, driven by a perpetuum mobile machine
- Figure 14.4 Beeckman’s sketch of Drebbel’s instrument, on display in Brussels
- Figure 14.5 The ‘diarium Drebbelii’ according to Beeckman
- Figure 14.6 A thermoscope inside a thermoscope, design by Beeckman
- Figure 14.7 Drebbel's weather glass and Beeckman's idea for improvement
- Figure 15.1 Cornelis Drebbel by Christoffel van Sichem (I)
- Figure 17.1 The mechanics of a spinning top
- Figure 17.2 Light of the Sun refracted by clouds around the Earth
- Figure 17.3 Drawing water from a well with a short rope
- Figure 17.4 Bucket and vessel with water
- Figure 17.5 Urelooper or clepsydra with quicksilver, designed by Beeckman
- Figure 17.6 Balance to find the maximum speed of a falling object
- Figure 17.7 Beeckman’s idea of Drebbel’s submarine
- Figure 17.8 Drebbel’s and Beeckman’s design of a weather glass
- Figure 17.9 Beeckman’s drawing of Drebbel’s microscope and a calibrated weather glass
- Figure 17.10 Van der Veen’s theory of the hollow Earth illustrated by Beeckman
- Figure 17.11 Refraction of light according to Beeckman
- Figure 17.12 Water in a vessel represented as a chain of globuli
- Figure 17.13 Title page of Stevin’s Beghinselen der Weeghconst, 1586
- Colour illustrations
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