Oxford French Graduate Seminar, All Souls College (Hovenden Room)

23^rd February 5-6.30pm

Textbook Structure and the Framing of Descartes’ Arguments

Jon Templeman (St John’s College, Oxford)

It's common to find Descartes presenting the same argument in a variety of formal settings. The paper argues that formal variation in Descartes' work tracks, in part, his shifting attitude towards teaching. In particular, it tracks the varying influence of contemporary textbook styles on Descartes' own methods of presentation. I look briefly at four projects: the /Discours de la méthode/, the proposed Eustachius commentary, the /Principia philosophiae/, and Henri Regius's /Fundamenta physices/. The first three projects seem to describe a gradual simplification in Descartes' style of presentation, and an increasing conformity to late scholastic academic norms. I think that is right, with heavy qualification. To develop that qualification, I compare the /Principia/ with Regius's text, which is from the same period but is substantially less daring both in terms of form and argument. That brings out the distance that remains, at the end of Descartes' career, between his style and that of more conventional textbook-writers.

A DPhil ‘through the ages’

Emma Claussen, Olivia Madin, Cameron Quinn & Gemma Tidman

In this session, four graduate students at varying stages in their DPhil research will talk briefly about their experiences of DPhil life – applications, challenges, strategies, methods etc. There will then be an open discussion during which people are invited to ask questions and to share their own experiences and thoughts. We hope that this will provide an opportunity for people who are already doing a DPhil or are thinking about applying to do a DPhil, to talk about research in a relatively informal and constructive environment.