Bernard Nieuwentijt, Nieuwentijdt, or Nieuwentyt (10 August 1654,
West-Graftdijk,
North Holland
North Holland (, ) is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands in the northwestern part of the country. It is located on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht (province), Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevola ...
– 30 May 1718,
Purmerend
Purmerend () is a city and municipality in the west of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The city is surrounded by polders, such as the Purmer, Beemster and the Wormer. Purmerend's population grew relatively slowly until the 1960s ...
) was a Dutch philosopher, mathematician, physician, magistrate, mayor (of Purmerend), and theologian.
Career
As a philosopher, Nieuwentyt was a follower of
Descartes and an opponent of
Spinoza. In 1695 he was involved in a controversy over the foundations of infinitesimal calculus with
Leibniz.
Nieuwentijt advocated 'nilsquare' infinitesimals (which have higher powers of zero), whereas Leibniz was uncertain about explicitly adopting such a rule - they did however come to be used throughout physics from then on.
He wrote several books (in
Dutch) including his chief work ''Het regt gebruik der werelt beschouwingen, ter overtuiginge van ongodisten en ongelovigen''
he True Use of Contemplating the World(1715), which argued for the existence of God and attacked Spinoza.
[Jonathan Israel, ''Enlightenment Contested'', p. 385–6] It went through several editions (1715, 1717, 1720, 1725, 1730, 1740) published by Joannes Pauli, and was translated into
English as ''The religious philosopher, or the right use of contemplating the works of the Creator'' (1718) and into
French as ''De l'existence de Dieu démontrée par les merveilles de la nature, ou traité téléologique dirigé contre la doctrine de Spinoza par un médecin hollandais''.
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...
owned a copy of this book, and it was an influence on
William Paley
William Paley (July 174325 May 1805) was an English Anglican clergyman, Christian apologetics, Christian apologist, philosopher, and Utilitarianism, utilitarian. He is best known for his natural theology exposition of the teleological argument ...
,
to the extent that in 1859
Robert Blakey could make "a detailed argument for plagiarism" by Paley. To the English version was added a letter to the translator by
John Theophilus Desaguliers.
[Bernard Nieuwenty]
The Religious Philosopher: Or, The Right Use of Contemplating the Works of the Creator
Vol. II (transl. by John Chamberlayne) Cambridge: Cambr. Uni. Press, 2015
Nieuwentyt's posthumously published ''Gronden van zekerheid''
undaments of Certitude, or the Right Method of Mathematicians in the Ideal as well as the Real(1720) argued Spinoza's 'geometrical method' was not the proper 'experimental method' of science. The work also contains a critique of the ontological argument similar to a later critique by
Kant.
Works
*''Het regt gebruik der werelt beschouwingen, ter overtuiginge van ongodisten en ongelovigen'', Amsterdam, 1715
''The Religious Philosopher'' 1718
*''Gronden van zekerheid'', 1720
See also
*
Continuum (theory)
References
Further reading
* E. W. Beth, Nieuwentyt's significance for the philosophy of science, ''Synthese'', Vol. 9 No. 1, 1955, pp. 447-453 (Published also as Chapter V in ''Science: a Road to Wisdom'', D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland, 1972, Print , DOI 10.1007/978-94-011-7644-6_5.)
* Steffen Ducheyne, Curing pansophia through eruditum nescire. Bernard Nieuwentijt’s (1654 – 1718) epistemology of modesty, ''HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science'' 7(2) (2017), pp. 272-301. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/693423
* Gysel C., Odontology, theology and antispinozism according to Bernard Nieuwentyt (1654-1718), ''Ned Tijdschr Tandheelkd'', 1977 Jun; 84(6):214-6.
* Michael John Petry (1979). ''Nieuwentijt's Criticism of Spinoza'', E. J. Brill.
* R. H. Vermij (1989). Een zekere, zakelijke wijsbegeerte. ''Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie'' 51 (3):544-544.
* JANTZEN, BENJAMIN C.. An Introduction to Design Arguments. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2014. Hardback, Paperback.
External links
* Bernard Nieuwenty
The Religious Philosopher: Or, The Right Use of Contemplating the Works of the Creator Vol. II (transl. by John Chamberlayne) Cambridge: Cambr. Uni. Press, 2015
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nieuwentyt, Bernard
1654 births
1718 deaths
17th-century Dutch philosophers
18th-century Dutch philosophers
Christian philosophers
Dutch Christian theologians
17th-century Dutch mathematicians
People from Graft-De Rijp
Enlightenment philosophers
Age of Enlightenment