Translating Renaissance Neoplatonic panpsychism into seventeenth-century corpuscularism: the case of Sir Kenelm Digby (1603–1665)

Kenelm Digby was an early English advocate of Cartesianism, but his approach to the mind-body problem was conciliatory. In his 1644 work Two Treatises, he argued that physical bodies follow corpuscular philosophy, while human intellectual capacities cannot be explained by matter alone. This article examines Digby's little-noticed relationship with Renaissance Neoplatonic doctrines of spirits—entities that are half spirit and half matter, mediating between body and soul. The author suggests that Digby preserved the traditional ideas of a universal spirit and world soul, translating Marsilio Ficino's spiritus doctrines into the language of seventeenth-century corpuscularism rather than overcoming them.

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Abstract

ABSTRACT Kenelm Digby was among the first authors in England to embrace Cartesianism. Yet Digby’s approach to the mind–body problem was irenic: in his massive Two treatises (Paris, 1644), the author advocates a corpuscular philosophy that is applied to physical bodies, whereas the intellectual capacities of human beings remain inexplicable through the powers of matter. The aim of the present article is to highlight the (rather reticent) relationship of Digby’s corpuscularism with doctrines of spirits in connection with the Renaissance Neoplatonic tradition. Not uncommon in seventeenth-century natural philosophies, such “spirits” are notoriously evasive entities: half spirit, half matter acting as mediators between the realms of bodies and souls. This article suggests that Digby sought to preserve the inveterate ideas of a universal spiritus and a world soul and, in particular, that Kenelm Digby translated (rather than “overcame”) Marsilio Ficino’s (1433–1499) spiritus doctrines into the language of seventeenth-century corpuscularism.