Mihnea Dobre (CCEA, University of Bucharest) presented his research seminar, “Revisiting the canon of the early modern period: between philosophy and science,” as part of the Construction(s) of Science(s) Research Seminar series at the University of Bucharest’s Institute for Research (ICUB).
The seminar, which took place on Thursday, May 15, 2025, focused on complex historiographical problems concerning the evaluation of the early modern period at the crossroads of new philosophy and new science. The paper contributed to the scholarly debate by challenging traditional historical frameworks: he critiqued the reliance on the opposing schools of Rationalism and Empiricism, highlighting the need to correct the traditional philosophical canon for a more complex landscape. Furthermore, the presentation questioned the widely used “scientific revolution” metaphor, encouraging recognition of the broader, often overlooked, participation of historical actors in the birth of modern science. Mihnea Dobre discussed the ongoing difficulty of establishing a canonical list of early modern authors, particularly when connecting the history of philosophy and science through contexts like the emergence and spread of Cartesian natural philosophy. His discussion illustrated these broader issues using specific case studies drawn from the second half of the seventeenth century.
More details about the seminar series can be found here: https://icub.unibuc.ro/constructions-of-sciences-research-seminar-in-early-modern-philosophy-and-the-sciences/#2024-2025