Vészmadarak : Pósaházi János és a németalföldi karteziánus viták a 17. század második felében = Incendiary birds : Pósaházi János and the Dutch debates around Cartesianism in the second half of the 17th century

Simon, József (2023) Vészmadarak : Pósaházi János és a németalföldi karteziánus viták a 17. század második felében = Incendiary birds : Pósaházi János and the Dutch debates around Cartesianism in the second half of the 17th century. IRODALOMTÖRTÉNETI KÖZLEMÉNYEK, 127 (3). pp. 279-295. ISSN 0021-1486

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Abstract

The paper investigates Pósaházi János’ (?–1686) Dedicatory Epistle in his Syllabus (Cluj 1685). Pósaházi’s denunciation of thirty-two Cartesian propositions in this work, along with an anonymous Hungarian author’s response to it in the form of an apology for Descartes, mark the closing episode of the quarrel around Descartes’ philosophy in Transylvania from 1673 to 1685. In his Dedicatory Epistle, Pósaházi quotes two letters that he had received from celebrated Dutch Professors whose names he conceals. One of the letters identifies Christoph Wittich (1625–1687) as the representative of the most extreme position of subversive Cartesianism. Given this data and other philological evidence, the paper suggests that Pósaházi might have developed his anti-Cartesian cultural identity following the scrupulous personality of Samuel Maresius (1599–1673). Both Maresius and Pósaházi accommodate Pliny’s account of the never seen incendiary bird in order to denounce their confessional adversaries. Beyond the verbatim correspondence between their paraphrase on Naturalis Historia 10,17, Pósaházi’s Dedicatory Epistle strictly follows the rhetoric of Maresius’s 1972 publication concerning the afflicted state of theological studies (Tractatus brevis de afflicto statu studii theologici) in the Netherlands. According to the thesis of the paper, the Hungarian debates around Cartesian philosophy followed the cultural patterns of the Low Countries on both sides: Pósaházi’s criticism of Cartesian philosophy in his Syllabus and its refutation by an anonymous Hungarian author seem to reiterate the famous Dutch controversy between Samuel Maresius and Christoph Wittich.

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