Golinski, Jan V.

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University of New HampshireUniversity of New Hampshire Scholars' RepositoryHistory Scholarship History4-1-2013Review of: Sorana Corneanu, Regimens of theMindJan V. GolinskiUniversity of New Hampshire, Durham, jan.golinski@unh.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://scholars.unh.edu/history_facpubThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the History at University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. It has been acceptedfor inclusion in History Scholarship by an authorized administrator of University of New Hampshire Scholars' Repository. For more information,please contact nicole.hentz@unh.edu.Recommended CitationGolinski, J.V. Review of: Sorana Corneanu, Regimens of the Mind. In Renaissance Quarterly 66 (2013), 227-228.Sorana Corneanu. Regimens of the Mind: Boyle, Locke, and the Early ModernCultura Animi Tradition.Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. ix + 308 pp. $50. ISBN: 978–0–226–11639–6.Sorana Corneanu’s book concerns the significance of classical traditions ofself-cultivation in early modern natural philosophy. Specifically, she is interested inthe practice she calls cultura animi (more familiar under Michel Foucault’s term,‘‘care of the self ’’) among philosophers in seventeenth-century England. The bookis an impressive work of intellectual history, displaying a remarkable depth oflearning, and thoroughly documented in both primary and secondary sources. Itadvances an important thesis that demands the attention of historians of scienceand philosophy. The author’s basic claim is that discussions of epistemology andmethod in this period were also — and perhaps fundamentally — debates abouthow the mind should be regulated with the aim of moral improvement.Several schools of ancient philosophy contributed to these traditions.Corneanu carefully disentangles the threads of Platonic, Epicurean, and Stoicthought, and describes their melding with Christian doctrine in the early centuriesof the Common Era. Following the revival of these traditions during theRenaissance, many early modern philosophers took up the task of curing thediseases of the soul that could disturb proper judgment. In the seventeenthcentury, the study of nature was championed as an aid to ethical self-development.Corneanu reads Francis Bacon as diagnosing obstacles to knowledge that arosefrom distempers of the mind, including the kind of egocentrism that led either todogmatism or to excessive credulity. According to Bacon and his followers,empirical inquiry, if properly conducted, encouraged the virtues of patience andhumility. Corneanu sees Robert Boyle as a significant figure in this line ofthought, especially for his emphasis on mental self-control to rein in a tendency tojump to conclusions prematurely. At the end of the century, John Locke broughtthe tradition to a climax with his empiricist philosophy, in which the limited227REVIEWSThis content downloaded from 132.177.229.130 on November 03, 2017 08:48:08 AMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).powers of the human mind were to be focused on the impressions of the senses anddeveloped by habitual practice.Along with her meticulous reconstruction of the thinking of these individuals,Corneanu sometimes indulges in rather blunt assertions as to the superiority ofher approach over those of others. She disputes Steven Shapin and SimonSchaffer’s claim that solutions to the problem of knowledge served the need forsocial order in the period. On the contrary, she insists, ‘‘concern with the socialdimensions of knowledge was rooted in a concern with the good ordering of themind’’ (12). Presenting her own view of early modern objectivity as essentiallya matter of individual ethics, she contrasts this rather sharply with the culturalmodel of objectivity advanced in Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison’s recent book.At the same time, however, she insists that hers is a study of intellectual history, notof personal psychology. She therefore disclaims any interest in the questionsconcerning Boyle’s subjectivity explored by Michael Hunter, the most prominentBoyle scholar of recent years.Though they do not undermine the value of her work, such issues cannot beresolved as easily as Corneanu assumes. The question of how her inquiry relates tothose undertaken with slightly different agendas remains open. Readers are likely toponder this as they reflect on the wider ramifications of the topics she mentions.One might ask, for example, how regimens of the mind related to those directed atthe body. Since they believed in the propensity of the passions to disturb theworkings of the mind, early modern thinkers often devoted considerable care totheir bodies through deliberate choices of diet, medication, exercise, climate, and soon. Also absent here is the issue of gender. Corneanu discusses no female authors,so readers are not told how women might have situated themselves in relation to thecultura animi tradition, or what men’s self-cultivation might say about their identityas men. Finally, there is nothing about the specific practices of experimentation orobservation, so readers are likely to wonder how philosophical positions about thestudy of nature were translated into the actual production of scientific knowledge.These questions remain to be taken up by other scholars. Those who do so will havemany reasons to be grateful to Sorana Corneanu for this excellent and fascinatingbook.JAN GOLINSKIUniversity of New HampshireRENAISSANCE QUARTERLY228This content downloaded from 132.177.229.130 on November 03, 2017 08:48:08 AMAll use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).

Review of:  Sorana Corneanu, Regimens of the Mind

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Review of: Sorana Corneanu, Regimens of the Mind

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