Arnold Geulincx (1624—1669)

Arnold (or Arnout) Geulincx was an early-modern Flemish philosopher who initially
taught at Leuven (Louvain) University, but fled the Catholic Low Countries when he
was fired there in 1658. He settled at Leiden, in the Protestant North, where he
worked under the patronage of the Cartesian Calvinist theologian Abraham Heidanus
(1597-1678), and tried to obtain a post at Leiden University. Geulincx was never to
procure a steady position in his new surroundings, and ultimately died in poverty as a
victim of the 1669 Leiden plague. On the basis of Descartes’ philosophy, he developed
a range of philosophical ideas that sometimes closely resemble Spinoza’s, but always
have a particular flavour of their own. His contributions in the fields of logic,
metaphysics and ethics have earned him a place not only in the history of Dutch
Cartesianism, but in Western intellectual history at large.

As a result of accusations that he had been a Spinozist in disguise, Geulincx’ name

was almost erased from history after 1720, but nineteenth-century historians
rehabilitated Geulincx for having been a forerunner of Immanuel Kant. Nowadays,
Arnold Geulincx is primarily known as a representative of seventeenth-century
“occasionalism”, and as an original thinker in-between Descartes and Spinoza.
Despite a certain impact he made on his immediate Leiden pupils, such as the Dutch
Cartesians Cornelis Bontekoe (c. 1644-1685) and Johannes Swartenhengst (1644-
1711), and on the English philosopher Richard Burthogge (1638-1705), as well as on a
number of enlightened members of the Dutch Calvinist clergy during the last quarter
of the seventeenth century, Geulincx’ most significant influence in intellectual history
to date has been on the novels and plays of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), as well as,
through Beckett, on late twentieth-century French philosophy.

Table of Contents
1. Life
2. Logic and Method
3. Metaphysics
4. Ethics
5. Anti-Aristotelianism
6. A Philosophy of Wonder
7. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources
b. Secondary Sources
1. Life
Arnold Geulincx was born in the city of Antwerp, which despite having lost its former
glory as a hub of world trade and a centre of the arts, had regained new vigour as the
home of Counter-Reformation culture in the Southern Netherlands—a new spirit that
was evidenced in the paintings of Peter-Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens and Anthonie
van Dijck, as well as in the Baroque church of Saint Carolus Borromeus, a Jesuit
monument consecrated in 1625. Geulincx’ father apparently did well as the city’s
messenger to Brussels, since he bought a large house just around the corner of Saint
Carolus Borromeus’ Church when Arnold was around thirteen years of age, and
another, adjacent one, a year later. While Jan Geulincx, one of Arnold’s younger
brothers, studied with Jacob Jordaens for some time, Arnold was destined for an
academic career and left Antwerp to go to university in January 1640. In Leuven, he
studied arts and philosophy at the College of the Lily, obtaining his licentiate on
November 19, 1643 ranking second best in a class of 159 students. Reading theology
for some time, Geulincx was appointed junior professor in philosophy at Lily College
in December 1646.

Not much is known about Geulincx’ early career, but it is reasonable to assume that
he made a strong impression with his rhetorical skills, founded on the remarkable
proficiency in Latin he had already exhibited during his Antwerp school days. In the
autumn of 1649, Geulincx’ career perspectives seemed secure enough for his parents
to give up their life in Antwerp and join their son in Leuven, the area they originally
came from. Another three years hence, Geulincx became senior professor and was
asked to deliver a series of speeches during the end-of-the-year Saturnalia festivities.
Protests against the nova philosophia at Leuven may have been prompted by Geulincx’
opening address on December 16, 1652, where he ventilated Baconian ideas and
outlined recommendations for changes to be made to the university curriculum. 
Initially, however, this did not in any way hinder a successful continuation of his
academic career.
Disgrace and downfall came only in 1658, when Geulincx was dismissed, presumably
on account of attempting to breach the rule of celibacy for university professors by
planning to marry his cousin Susanna Strickers— a privilege that had been granted to
his Lily tutor William Philippi (1600-1665) in 1630 only after mediation by the
Brabant Council. Reportedly, the 1630 agreement had been made on the explicit
condition that this would be the last time. A later eighteenth-century source mentions
disputes with his colleagues and debts as reasons for Geulincx’ dismissal, but these
have been impossible to trace. Since there is no evidence that the committee that
sacked him had any problems with Geulincx personally, it may well have been the
case that he simply had to choose either not to marry or to leave.

Religious considerations, however, may also have played a part. A letter of

recommendation signed May 3, 1658 by the three Leiden theologians: Abraham
Heidanus, Johannes Coccejus (1603-1669) and Johannes Hoornbeek (1617-1666), not
only indicates that Geulincx had turned his back on the Catholic faith after he had
taken in St. Augustine’s theory of grace, but also that he had initially visited Holland
of his own accord in January 1658, “under the pretext of another trip to this province”
(Eekhof, 1919: 19). Upon his return to Leuven, Geulincx had found that a successor
had been appointed in his place. Although, as the text tells us, he had already decided
to give up his position at Leuven, he had not expected the hostile reaction he was met
with, since the letter specifies that “he barely escaped a life sentence.” If it is indeed
the case that Geulincx confronted his colleagues in January 1658 with the
embarrassing fact that he had left Leuven prompted by the intention to convert to
Protestantism, it is likely they treated his case with utmost efficiency and discretion.
Such intentions would have come at a very untimely moment. Amidst condemnations
of Jansenism issued by the Vatican, and declarations of political freedom made by the
Brabant Council, there was extremely little room to maneuver for Leuven’s university
professors. They may well have been happy to explain Geulincx’ dismissal, if at all, in
terms of marriage plans rather than dogmatic preferences. Rumors about Geulincx’
debts, moreover, may have had their origin in the fact that, under these
circumstances, Geulincx had to leave everything behind in a hurry, and flee to Leiden
penniless.

In his new home town, Geulincx was to graduate in medicine on September 17, 1658,
no doubt in order to be able to earn a living. He married Susanna on December 8.
Rather than to become a doctor, however, his ambition was to resume his career as a
professor of philosophy. After a series of appointments and dismissals, Geulincx was
finally appointed as junior lecturer in late 1662, with the help of Heidanus; first in
logic; then in metaphysics. He was temporarily appointed as Professor
extraordinarius in 1665, but was allowed to teach ethics only in February 1667. From
June to November 1669, Geulincx was again newly appointed, now in order to teach
rhetoric. He died in poverty in November 1669, having failed to pay any rent for the
apartment he had shared with Susanna since October 1668. When Susanna died
around the New Year, there was only some furniture left to compensate the couple’s
creditors.
2. Logic and Method
With two works on the subject of logic, Geulincx had nevertheless started off his
Leiden career in a positive mood. In the first of these works, his Logica suis
fundamentis restituta (Logic Restored to its Foundations, 1662), Geulincx interprets
negation mainly as propositional negation, that is, as acting on the whole of a
proposition, not on terms. The other book, Methodus inveniendi argumenta (A Method
for Finding Arguments, 1663), used set theory relations to demonstrate logical
principles. For this way of approaching logic, the Dutch philosopher Gabriël
Nuchelmans (1922-1996) would later refer to Geulincx’ logic as a “containment
theory of logic”, in which relations of containment illustrate how statements are
implied by other statements. Containment may explain logical consequence, for
instance, since the propositional content of a statement q may be implied by that of p,
just as, according to Geulincx, every proposition p will entail any number of further
statements implied by p. Interpreting the way in which subjects relate to predicates in
terms of relations of containment as well, Geulincx considered subjects as the
denumerable “parts” of conceptual “wholes”, and considered the connection between
subjects and predicates to be made on the basis of the “relation in which they stand to
one another within the hierarchical structure of a conceptual field” (Nuchelmans,
1988: 40).
Producing a modernised summary of Geulincx’ propositional logic in the 1939 issue
of Erkenntniss, the Swiss logician Karl Dürr (1888-1970) portrayed Geulincx as an
early representative of symbolic logic. Geulincx presented his logical principles in a
purely conceptual form and evidently depended on earlier scholastic traditions, such
as in his formulation of De Morgan’s laws, which reproduce the fifteenth-century
account John Versor offered in his commentary on Peter of Spain. Yet, according to
Dürr, Geulincx’ logic contained all the elements of a mathematical logic, complete
with variables and logical constants, as well as other remarkable features, such as a
Tarskian definition of truth.
To weigh the sophistication of a seventeenth-century system of logic against its
medieval forerunners, or to assess its significance for the development of later formal
logic is, however, a complicated matter. In a later study, Dürr compared Geulincx’
achievement with similar works in logic, such as the Port-Royal Logic (1662), and
works by Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665), Leibniz and Girolamo Saccheri (1667-
1733). Dürr came to the conclusion that, especially in the area of propositional logic,
Geulincx’ system was richer than that of most of his contemporaries, whilst in the
field of term logic, his basic rules for the formal validity of syllogisms surpassed even
those of Leibniz in elegance and precision (Dürr, 1965).

As a senior professor in Leuven, Geulincx had previously shown an interest in

Baconian philosophy and had proposed to revise the university’s curriculum in such a
way that natural philosophy might be studied as a separate field that also included
logic and mathematics, as well as forms of experimentation. It is unknown whether
Geulincx developed Cartesian views in Leuven as well, as did his Leuven colleague
William van Gutschoven (c. 1618- 1667) and his tutor William Philippi (c. 1600-1665)
at some point. However this may be, it was only in Leiden that Geulincx began to
develop a Cartesian line of argument in natural philosophy, metaphysics and ethics,
and expounded views on God’s causal role in nature that would later be interpreted as
“occasionalist”.
3. Metaphysics
The appeal to God’s causal activity would become a central feature of both Geulincx’
metaphysics and his ethics, but the way in which he justified and explained the need
for a divine administration of the activities normally attributed to “secondary
causes”—that is to say, to individual persons and things—differs markedly from the
arguments seen in the works of medieval Islamic “occasionalists” and Cartesian
contemporaries such as Louis de la Forge, Géraud de Cordemoy and Nicholas
Malebranche. Rather than developing the theological view that God exercises full
power over man’s causal and epistemological functions; or questioning the
metaphysically problematic notion of an exchange of accidents between substances;
or, finally, dismissing the possibility that purely corporeal bodies might have a power
to move either themselves or other bodies, Geulincx developed his so-called
“occasionalist” position on the basis of an interpretation that grounds the idea of
causality on the inner experience of active involvement (Renz & Van Ruler, 2010).
What may pass for causality in the strictest sense is revealed by what human beings
are familiar with, and what they experience within themselves as their own activities:
the conscious awareness of “doing” things. Geulincx thus turns the Cartesian focus on
human awareness, with its potential for deliberate and conscious activity, into the
bedrock of a metaphysics of causal activity. With the notion of activity being linked to
states of mental awareness, causality itself becomes the privilege of conscious minds,
and a phenomenon for which the subject “doing” them is uniquely responsible.

At the same time, the scope of human activity is greatly reduced on the basis of such a
criterion. Since the Cogito, or human consciousness, realises that there are many
thoughts (cogitationes) that do not depend on the subject having them, Geulincx very
early on in his Metaphysica Vera drew the conclusion that, “[t]here is a knowing and
willing being distinct from me” (Geulincx, 1892: 150). It is this being, God, who
arouses in us, through his manipulation of matter, the thoughts for which, not
knowing how they come about, we cannot claim responsibility ourselves. On the basis
of this consideration, Geulincx came to formulate the maxim that has become known
as the first axiom of his philosophy: Quod nescis quomodo fiat, id non facis, in other
words: “What you do not know how to do, is not your action” (Geulincx, 1892: 150).
In the Metaphysica Vera, or True Metaphysics, first published posthumously in 1691, the
focus on the various causal roles of God and man gives rise to a tripartition of the
discipline into an Autologia, a philosophy of the Self; a Somatologia, or a metaphysics
of the World; and, finally, a Theologia, on God. To include a discussion of the physical
universe in an exposition on metaphysics is something that would have been
uncharacteristic for Descartes, but it is a move towards a deeper, metaphysical,
understanding of nature that Geulincx shares with Spinoza. In fact, although
the Metaphysica Vera is an unfinished text that was never authorized and leaves many
questions unanswered, it testifies to the way in which various ontological
conceptualisations in Spinozism have their antecedents in Geulincx. One of these is
the distinction of causal levels into substantial and modal spheres. A significant
aspect of Geulincx’ understanding of physical reality is his duplication of the world
into a world of “becoming” and a world of “being”— a distinction Geulincx relates to
Plato. According to this view, all individual bodies, with their states of “presence” and
“absence”, belong to the world of becoming. Based on the idea that a world of mere
effects cannot be all there is, Geulincx’ Platonic interpretation of the Cartesian
universe introduces the notion of a Body-as-such, in which these effects find their
ontological foundation. Carefully avoiding any reintroduction of the Aristotelian
terminology of “substance” and “accident”, Geulincx thereby reintroduces the idea of
an ontological distinction between the enduring entities of Mind and Body on the one
hand, and their varying “modal”, that is, spatio-temporal manifestations on the other.
Formulated in Platonic terms in Geulincx and in Aristotelian terms in Spinoza, this
quasi-scholastic strategy to distinguish substantial from accidental levels of being
results in a metaphysical interpretation of reality in terms of a diversity of ontological
spheres – an interpretation that goes well beyond Descartes, but that we find in both
Geulincx’ Metaphysica vera and Spinoza’s Principia Philosophiae Cartesianae, Short
Treatise and Ethics (Van Ruler, 2009). In Geulincx, moreover, Descartes’ indistinct
metaphysical categorizations, in which a single universal matter occurs next to a set
of countless individual minds and a single God, is transformed into a strict
metaphysical dualism according to which there are only two things: God, or Mind, on
the one hand, and World, or Matter, on the other. Placing human minds in God,
moreover, Geulincx also prefigured Spinoza in his way of arguing that human minds,
like human bodies, are parcels of a larger field, or “modes”.
4. Ethics
Parallels with Spinozistic ways of thinking equally occur in Geulincx’ treatment of the
subject of ethics. In both authors, Descartes’ natural philosophy serves as a new basis
for the neo-Stoic view that morality should primarily be seen as a way of mentally
dealing with inevitable patterns of causality in nature and human social life.
According to Geulincx, moreover, the application of reason to all areas of experience
is the practical upshot of a mental attitude focused on a “love of God”. Contrary to
Spinoza, Geulincx had no qualms with the idea that one is free whether or not to align
oneself mentally to the necessary course of things. To put it in Geulincx’ own words:
whereas one always obeys God, one has the option whether or not to obey reason –
and this is what constitutes the criterion of morality.

With his focus on reason, Geulincx conforms to a general tendency within

Renaissance moral philosophy. At the same time, he interprets what is reasonable in
his own peculiar way, introducing a new set of four cardinal virtues, namely diligence,
obedience, justice and humility, in place of the old quadriga of temperance, fortitude,
justice and prudence. These virtues are all aimed at reason. Accordingly, rather than
being directed towards other human beings, what Geulincx prescribes as obedience is
an obedience to reason, just as humility is a mental humility in the face of reason,
diligence involves a diligent attention to reason, and justice is the acceptance of a just
and reasonable mean.
Reason should always be followed, but in the context of such encouragements to
mental subservience, the example with which Geulincx illustrates obedience is easily
misread. Even the wretched life of a slave, Geulincx argues, may be lived in freedom,
as long as the slave is able to direct his will to the call of reason and to endure even
“an appalling and cruel slavery” by obeying orders not because it is the will of his
master, but because it is his own (Geulincx, 1986: 82; See also 1893: 23; 2006: 24).
Despite its awkward way of seemingly sanctioning slavery, this argument only carries
to the extreme another conception predominant in both classical and Renaissance
traditions of Western moral philosophy, and most straightforwardly expressed in
(neo-)Stoic sources: the notion that mental freedom does not depend on the relative
force of outward circumstances, but is brought about exclusively by an inner consent
to the demands of reason.

In combination with his metaphysical view on the limitations of human causal

activity, such a radical endorsement of intellectualist and indifferentist arguments
would seem inevitably to lead to a moral position emphasising a passive or even
submissive attitude. Geulincx, however, did not preach quietism. The complete text of
his Ethics was published only posthumously in 1675, presumably by Bontekoe, under
the title of Gnōthi seauton, or Know Thyself, but Geulincx had already issued a Dutch
version of the first of its six “Treatises” as Van de Hooft-deuchden (“On the Cardinal
Virtues”) in 1664. Far from teaching resignation, the book contains an exceptionally
practical list of ethical maxims and reads like a self-help manual in popular
psychology rather than a moral treatise in the traditional sense of the word. What,
according to Geulincx, is reasonable for a human being to do in the light of the
“human condition”— a concept he may have taken over from the French moralist
Pierre Charron, or from his Leuven professor in theology Libert Froidmont (1587-
1653)— is to abide by seven moral guidelines, or “obligations”: to accept death, to
avoid suicide, to take care of one’s health and of that of one’s species, to learn a trade,
to earn a living, to relax now and again, and never to curse one’s ancestry or day of
birth.
With respect to all of these guidelines, Pierre Charron’s De la Sagesse (1601; revised
edition 1603) may have provided Geulincx with a model for the kind of things a moral
treatise should instruct (De Vleeschauwer, 1974). Geulincx, however, explained his
obligations on the basis of a quasi-Cartesian metaphysical groundwork that at first
sight seems to undermine rather than to support them. Denying, like Spinoza, the
possibility of any interaction between the body and the mind, Geulincx comes to the
conclusion that the human being is only an onlooker, a “spectator” of the outside
universe: “I am a mere spectator of a machine whose workings I can neither adjust
nor readjust” (Geulincx, 1893: 33; 2006: 34). This would seem to make all human
activity not only irrelevant, but downright impossible. Geulincx, however, argues that
we should nevertheless be mindful to fulfil certain actions we know from experience
God wishes us to perform. We have to search for food, for instance, in order to
survive, and we should try to comply in as far as we are able with such evident
commitments. Indeed, an attentiveness to the basic facts of life is what links the two
aspects of what Geulincx presents as his ethics of ‘humility’. On the one hand, this is
the “occasionalist” Inspection of Oneself that tells us we find ourselves in a situation we
neither control nor really understand; and, on the other hand, the list of “Obligations”
that mark the obvious tasks we have to fulfil, and thus comprise a Disregard of Oneself.
We should always choose what we know to be best. The only thing we should not do,
according to Geulincx, is to bother about the outcome of our wishes, all of which are
ultimately up to God. Thus, in the end, it is only our intentions that matter. In a
famous example, Geulincx argued that it is for God to decide whether or not one is
killed by the dagger with which one penetrates one’s heart. How one’s volitions are
matched by activities produced in the material sphere “outside” is necessarily beyond
us.
Geulincx does not speculate on the question to what extent we may rely on God’s
resolve. Since the way in which God links physical to mental states is unknown to us,
it is unclear whether Geulincx himself expected God either to have established a
permanent world order or to produce an incessant number of miracles. As German
commentators argued in late-nineteenth century debates on the possible impact of
Geulincx on Leibniz, the analogy of two independent but synchronised clocks that
Geulincx introduced in order to explain the relation between body and mind, seems
to accentuate the Cartesian idea of a law-like regularity in nature. This is a position
consistent with the emphasis laid on the notion of reason in Geulincx’ ethics. Yet
where human volitions are in play, such as in Geulincx’ example of the dagger, or in
his references to the phenomenon of paralysis, it would seem that God might have a
more immediate role to play.

In the end, a solution to such metaphysical questions is not Geulincx’ primary

concern in the context of ethics. As far as morality is concerned, it does not matter
whether God makes a singular decision or whether he lets all physical conditions play
their proper roles whenever one wishes to pierce one’s heart with a dagger. The moral
point is, that this should not have been one’s intention in the first place. In this sense,
the example is not so much meant to elucidate a metaphysical viewpoint, as it is
indicative of Geulincx’ preoccupation with questions of life and death, and with the
idea that the realm of the moral is defined by the mental attitude one takes with
respect to preserving the condition that one finds oneself in as a conscious being. This
is also the way in which to read the ethical axiom that Geulincx introduced as a
counterpart to his earlier metaphysical maxim. The slogan Ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil
velis, “Wherein you have no power, therein you should not will” (Geulincx 1893: 164;
2006: 178), applies not so much to any specific activities, but rather to human
existence—“the human condition”— as such.
Although it is very likely that Spinoza (whose friend Lodewijk Meyer studied with
Geulincx) must at least have known Geulincx by name, and although one may trace
many coincidences in their works, there is no convincing evidence that the two men
either knew each other, or knew each other’s work (Van Ruler, 2006). Likewise, it is
unknown to what extent Geulincx’ moral philosophy may have inspired Spinoza.
Spinoza may have been thinking of Geulincx for instance when, in his own Ethics, he
explicitly denied that humility is a virtue, since this was the single most important of
the four cardinal virtues for Geulincx. Spinoza may, on the other hand, also have
wished simply to make an unequivocal statement against the traditional glorification
of humility in Christian theological contexts.
Contrary to Spinoza, Geulincx presented his own moral philosophy as a philosophy
compatible with Christian views. Interpreting certain Christian themes in purely
naturalistic ways, such as by taking the “devil” solely to stand for a mental propensity
to persist in inconsiderate behaviour, Geulincx’ Christian philosophy was
unorthodox, but it was also paradoxical in various respects. He considered his moral
philosophy to be an ethics exclusively founded on reason. Still, God’s word, or so
Geulincx argued, had worked for him like a microscope: once Scripture had revealed
the truth, he was now able to decide questions of right and wrong without its help –
in other words, purely on the basis of reason. The obvious implication of this is that
pagan philosophers could never have been able to find their way in matters of moral
philosophy, and this is indeed what Geulincx concluded. True spiritual redemption
was open only to philosophers acquainted with what Scripture had shown to be
reasonable: the idea that one has no title to one’s life and that this insight should bear
fruit in an attitude of humility. Geulincx might still include Platonic, Stoic and even
Aristotelian concepts, and stick to classical forms of philosophical analysis in his
ethics, but he dismissed all pagan philosophies for having been developed on the
basis of inappropriate motivations. All pagans had urged “for the Land of Cockaigne”;
they had craved for pleasure rather than having searched for God (Geulincx 1893: 52-
54; 1966: 116-118). The pagans, in other words, had consciously aimed at achieving
happiness, when all they should have been doing was to look for what is right. The
difference between these two roads, Geulincx admits, is a very subtle one, for since
reason and Christianity themselves lead to happiness, one has to be extremely careful
to avoid the pitfall of self-centered motivations even as a Christian philosopher.

If, as Geulincx argues, one has to flee happiness in order to pursue it, it may seem
tempting to try to flee happiness exactly for the reason of acquiring it. In that case,
however, Geulincx argues, happiness “will not pursue you” (Geulincx, 1893: 58;
2006: 57). In other words, while one knows happiness will result from the fulfilment
of a duty, one still needs to fulfil the duty without doing it with the aim of acquiring
happiness, or it will not work. The notions of “Obligation” and “Law” may help to
avert any psychological dilemmas here. Laws, according to Geulincx, never
correspond to obvious forms of self-interest, or they would not be laws. If only we
direct our mind “to refer nothing of what we do or do not do to our Happiness, but
everything to our Obligation” and thus “pledge” ourselves “wholly to God” (Geulincx,
1893: 58 and 57, respectively; 2006: 57 and 56), there is no problem. Libertas will be
the immediate, if paradoxical, effect of obedience; and happiness, Felicitas (or
beatitude, Beatitudo, a word Geulinx uses for Felicitas only when explaining matters in
the accepted scholastic terminology) will present itself automatically as the mental
bonus for abiding by the way of virtue. Simply doing what God and reason demand,
the wise man is able to disconnect his mind from sensory impressions, and to assent
to what happens in God’s universe not according to what is most agreeable to him,
but according to the way in which reason presents things as they are.
The complicated dialectics of receiving happiness in return for virtue caused Geulincx
to touch upon theological questions as well. If Geulincx became a Jansenist in Leuven
after having imbibed Augustine’s theory of grace, and a Calvinist later in Leiden, he
must at some point have become aware that the whole idea of devising a Protestant
moral philosophy was something inherently problematic. Theologically speaking,
there could be no question of a Jansinist or Calvinist God distributing happiness in
return for our effort. Geulincx was well aware of this, and therefore attempts to deny
that he ever implied that God acts in reply to our achievement: “But mark: I did not
say that the Humble first love God, and are then loved in return by God. Certainly
not, I did not say this, and this should suffice” (Geulincx, 1893: 64; 2006: 63).
Philosophically speaking, the rewards of virtue were nevertheless exactly this: God’s
love in return for our love of God and reason. In line with a wider tendency in Dutch
Cartesianism, Geulincx inevitably had to argue for a strict separation between
philosophy and theology in order to save the practical relevance of his moral
philosophy.
Besides classical, Christian and Cartesian themes, there may also have been
biographical factors involved in shaping Geulincx’ ethics. The precarious living
conditions of his Leiden years in particular seem to be reflected in his preoccupation
with the insecurities of life and with the possibility of suicide, both of which topics are
central to his ethics. Yet such interests may also have had their origin in a special
talent for the experience of wonder in Geulincx, as well as an exceptionally subtle
philosophical imagination.

5. Anti-Aristotelianism
It is in foreshadowing quasi-Kantian themes that Geulincx’ philosophical
discernment appears most conspicuously. Essentially a criticism of Aristotelian ways
of thinking, Geulincx’ Metaphysica ad mentem peripateticam, a book that was published
only posthumously in 1691, argued that there was an illusory quality to thinking,
aside from the illusiveness of sense perception. Not only was it true that our senses,
as Descartes had argued, yield a subjective view of the world; according to Geulincx,
our intellectual “ways of thinking” (modi cogitandi) distort our conception of reality
just as much. Indeed, it is with intelligible species that we impose our ways of
thinking on outside things similarly to the way in which we impose sensible species
onto the world that do not apply to things as they are in themselves. Both ways, we
“always attribute the phantasms (phasmata) of sense and intellect to things
themselves”— even if “there is something divine in us that always tells us it is not so”
(Geulincx, 1892: 301).
Once more giving a stricter format to Cartesian intuitions than Descartes himself
would have done, and prefiguring Spinoza on both accounts, Geulincx distinguished
four different kinds of knowledge and drew a sharp distinction between the realm of
“imaginations” and the realm of “ideas”. Holding on to a classical notion
of scientia that limits the notion of “idea” to the knowledge of the “essence” of a thing,
Geulincx interpreted the gradual development of epistemological stages in Platonic
rather than in Aristotelian terms and classified the respective levels of knowledge as
(1) sense perception, (2) knowledge, or cognitio, (3) scientia, or knowledge with an
account; and, finally, (4) the ultimate kind of scientia that is called sapientia or
wisdom, which is available only to whomever is accountable for the thing known.
Thus offering a seemingly Augustinian-inspired understanding of “ideas” as the kind
of things in God’s mind that we must somehow have access to in order to intuit the
essences of things, Geulincx in fact denied man any wisdom apart from the wisdom
related to his own mental activities, such as our mental activities of love and hate,
affirmation and negation and so forth, the reason for this being that to understand
these and to will are, in the end, the only things one can actually “do”.
Wisdom accordingly presents itself in Geulincx mainly in a negative way; that is to
say, in the form of a recognition that our intellectual capacities are extremely limited
with respect to understanding things that occur outside the realm of consciousness.
Although the mind knows that all things are either minds or bodies and that infinite
mind and infinite extension (that is, God and Body) are ultimately all there is, our
“modes of thinking”, in other words, our ways of apprehending reality, misrepresent
things as they are in themselves by seeing them as separate “beings” that may
function as the subject of predication. Yet we have to see them in this way, if we wish
to say something about them.

Although there is an immediate Cartesian context as well as a Scotist terminological

background to these arguments, and although, like Geulincx, authors such as
Clauberg and Johannes de Raey (1622-1702) had also tried to come to terms with the
indistinct manner in which Descartes had discussed general metaphysical concepts in
the Principia Philosophiae (Aalderink: 2009), Geulincx’ position stands out for the way
in which it emphasizes how the human intellect is liable to characterize the outside
world in terms of forms of propositional content that portray whatever there is as
being divided into objects possessing certain properties. As Geulincx himself remarks
(Geulincx, 1892: 199), “few people seem to observe” that this logical mould
introduces ontological classifications for which there is actually no basis in reality
itself.
Geulincx thus came to criticise a philosophical viewpoint that had been almost
universally shared since Aristotle, the idea, namely, that ontological concepts such as
the concept of “substance” may function in parallel ways in metaphysics and logic.
His criticism of this view (which is not merely a Peripatetic, but in fact a virtually
universal human assumption) launched the epistemologically radical idea that the
linguistic and logical ways in which our concepts function within our intellectual
representations of the outside world, should actually be a warning against taking
them seriously in metaphysical terms. According to Geulincx, logical and linguistic
distinctions do not necessarily represent things as they are in themselves. Indeed,
notions such as “being (ens), substance, accident, relation, subject, predicate, whole
and part” only illustrate how we think about objects. As modes of thought we use
these notions to express what we mean when we distinguish a thing from its activity
or from our judgement of it. Our manner of understanding, however, should not be
confused with the way things are structured and organised independently of our
representations of them. Nor should we uncritically build philosophical systems on
the categories and logical forms that help us to analyse what we experience.
Because of the way in which he gave prominence to, and ultimately dealt with, the
question of the knowability of “things as they are in themselves”, Geulincx’ position
has often been associated with the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Ernst
Cassirer (1874-1945), for instance, saw both Geulincx’ thesis of the unknowability of
“things in themselves” (translated in German as Dinge an sich) and his view that all
human understanding is dependent on “forms of thought” brought in by ourselves, as
prefigurations of the Kantian position. Although he remained careful not to deny the
differences between Geulincx and Kant, the Flemish Geulincx scholar (and former
nazi-sympathiser in exile) Herman de Vleeschauwer (1899-1986) in 1957 agreed that
if one defines “Criticism” as the theory according to which “we know things only by
the medium of our forms of thought”, one could no longer “regard it as the personal
discovery of Kant” (De Vleeschauwer, 1957: 63).
In general terms, Geulincx’ alertness to the possible incongruity between the logic of
our thoughts and the structure of the outside world may indeed be compared to
Kant’s. It may even be extended beyond Kant to serve as a comparison between the
Flemish Cartesian’s criticisms of scholastic views and Wittgenstinian, as well as
postmodern censures of the metaphysical suggestion that logical forms reflect an
ontological structure of things. At the same time, Geulincx stood closer to other
seventeenth-century denunciations of Aristotelianism inspired by Descartes, such as
John Locke’s. Exposing scholastic metaphysics as a logical scheme functional only
within the domain of our daily interaction with macroscopic objects, Geulincx’
evaluation of Peripatetic metaphysics, although it is cast in a rather scholastic
terminology itself, anticipates Locke’s view in so far as it confirms the idea that there
is a purely nominal aspect to the Aristotelian manner of metaphysical categorisation.
And yet Geulincx’ Metaphysica ad mentem peripateticam creates a sense of
epistemological alienation that goes far beyond Locke’s criticism of the notion of
substance. If, as a direct consequence of Cartesian natural philosophy, Geulincx
argued that scholastic types of analysis in metaphysics might be exposed as logico-
linguistic frameworks only, this not only meant that there is a certain contingency to
the “essences” derived from mere experience; it also meant that the logic of substance
itself was mistaken, and that, accordingly, the search for “substantiality” was ill-
conceived. Geulincx did, of course, accept the existence of a universal “Body”, but for
him, this idea was not dependent on the vague conceivability of a substantial
substrate to which one might attach accidental properties. For Geulincx, the notion of
Body-as-such may simply be deduced from the fact that one finds many “thoughts”
(cogitationes) in one’s conscious experience that do not depend on oneself.
Accordingly, there is something out there, something orchestrated by God. This is the
World itself, no less— but there is no sense in continuing, like Locke, to see this
World as a substance with properties, or to lament the indistinctness of this
“something”. With respect to substantiality, we should rather be aware that we are
misled by our own intellect into searching for it in the everyday world of things. In
the Principia philosophiae, Descartes himself had already argued against trying to
conceive of substantial beings behind the forms of “extension” and “thought” that we
find in nature. Geulincx drew the ultimate conclusion by arguing that the search for a
universal “something” of which the property of being extended is an “accident”, arises
from the mistaken belief that the world is structured along the lines of our “modes of
thought”.
As a consequence, Geulincx does indeed come close to Kant in the sense that his
emphasis on the unknowability of things is modified by the idea that the world as it is
“in itself”, remains hidden to our observation and eludes our limited epistemological
capabilities to grasp what is actually there. Still, Geulincx’ arguments are very
different from Kant’s. According to the Flemish philosopher, our intellect imposes a
grid on our experience on account of which we necessarily envision the external world
as a world of “things”. Doing so, our metaphysical imagination follows the linguistic
and logical habit of distinguishing substantives from adjectives in language and
subjects from predicates in logic. The problem with scholastic metaphysics is that it
draws ontological conclusions from such cognitive ways of dealing with reality. Just
as we attribute our sense impressions to the outside world even though, at least at a
certain level of mental development, we become aware that such attributions are
incorrect, so too should we, with respect to our intellectual understanding of things,
come to doubt the way in which we attribute our cogitationes to things in themselves.
According to Geulincx, there is hardly a way to avoid this, and we cling to the idea of
distinguishing beings from properties with even more tenacity than we adhere to the
idea of attributing mentally experienced qualities to external things in sense
experience. Posing the question how we come to conclude that there is a real basis for
distinguishing between subjects and predicates, Geulincx rejects the common
scholastic ways of arguing for an actual relation of “inherence” between them. He
does, however, offer an alternative ground for our habit of seeing things this way.
Whenever we refer to things either as “beings” or as “properties”, it may be that we do
so because of the relative stability of our various sense impressions: “The real cause
(…) may be, that people see some things as more firm, stable and lasting, others as
more fluid, fleeting and frail. Thus (…) light and darkness, colours and sounds and all
similar things are regarded as more fluid than body or extension” (Geulincx, 1892:
305). What, in other words, modern psychology and evolutionary biology might
consider to be innate propensities, Geulincx was tempted to explain on empiricist
grounds. Repeatedly confirming that fluid impressions find their support in firmer
ones, rather than that firm marks rest on fleeting signals, our senses will encourage
our intellect to follow suit and conceptualise the world in terms of independent
beings and their dependent properties.

Rather than to Locke, Kant, or Wittgenstein, Geulincx accordingly compares best to

Geulincx himself. A similar interpretation of the way in which the human intellect
conceptually rearranges sense experience is found only in the works of his pupil
Richard Burthogge. According to Burthogge, the senses give us “external qualia,
which reason interprets as predicable of substances or subjects”; a position that, in
the terminology of analytical philosophy, has been interpreted as a form of “idealism”
(Ayers, 2005: 195). As with so many other statements of this underestimated English
philosopher, however, this particular view derives straight from
Geulincx’ Metaphysica ad mentem Peripateticam.
Again coming closer to Kant than to Locke, Geulincx developed his epistemological
arguments vis-à-vis Aristotelianism not so much in order to make room for a new
understanding of nature, but rather in order to heighten our philosophical awareness
of the fact that we are fundamentally ignorant of what the world is like independently
of our experience. As with Kant, moreover, there is a certain religious susceptibility at
play in Geulincx’ philosophical concerns. Exhibiting a mental predisposition coloured
by Augustinianism in all of his works, Geulincx would always keep wondering at the
ineffable character of God’s universe and our position in it.

6. A Philosophy of Wonder
If Geulincx hardly compares to other philosophers in the Western tradition, others
did take their inspiration from Geulincx. Having developed an interest in
seventeenth-century philosophy during his assistantship at the École Normale
Supérieure in Paris from 1928 to 1930, the Irish poet and novelist Samuel Beckett
would take up a close study of Geulincx’ works (the Metaphysica Vera and Ethics in
particular) at Trinity College Dublin, in the spring of 1936. As a direct result of this
interest, Arnold Geulincx was to play a crucial role in Beckett’s Murphy (finished in
June 1936 and published in 1938)—a book that presents its leading character
preferably sitting naked in his London apartment, tied to a teakwood rocking chair.
Implicit references to Spinoza and explicit references to Geulincx accompany the way
in which Murphy’s inner experience is detailed, and is further explained in later
chapters.
It has been well-established how Geulincxian imagery, such as that of the cradle
(which Geulincx used to explain the relationship between our will and God’s, and
which Beckett turned into a rocking chair), the two synchronised clocks, and the
passenger walking on the deck of a ship against the vessel’s direction (an image
Geulincx himself may have derived from Justus Lipsius), were continually reused by
Beckett well beyond Murphy; how Geulincxian expressions, such as “coming hither,
acting here, departing hence”, turn into metaphorically rich elements of literary
structure in Beckett; and how Geulincx’ overall theme of power and impotency would
continue to resonate in Beckett’s plays, prose and cinematographic works. If it is true
that “[what] chiefly endured for Beckett from Geulincx was his acceptance of
ignorance as the basic human condition, his ethic of humility and his advocacy for
ascetic withdrawal and rigorous self-examination” (Herren, 2012: 195), it is also clear
why Geulincx might come to function as a replacement for Descartes in Beckett, and
as “a philosopher who spoke to [Beckett] as no other had” (Cordingley, 2012: 49). The
contrast between Geulincx and Descartes may also serve to accentuate that there was
a Geulincxian conceptual background to what twentieth-century philosophers may
have derived from Beckett’s plays. On account of the element of ineffability that
Geulincx added to Cartesianism, it has been argued that the notion of an “absence of
self-presence”, particularly in thinking and in authorship (a theme taken up by
French philosophers such as Blanchot, Foucault and Derrida), found a Geulincxian
inspiration in Beckett (Uhlmann, 2006: 113).
The great difference, however, between Geulincx on the one hand and twentieth-
century French philosophers inspired by Beckett’s absurdist plays on the other, is
that Geulincx—like Beckett himself, for that matter—had no inclination to diminish
the importance of subjective experience. Indeed, it is precisely in this respect that
Geulincx’ “experiential” defence of occasionalist arguments was squarely at odds with
Malebranche’s alternative notion of God’s pre-ordination of human minds. Later
commentators have been surprised by such disparities within occasionalist
philosophy (Nadler, 1999), or have even drawn the misguided conclusion that
Geulincx was an inconsistent occasionalist (Terraillon, 1912; Rousset, 1999). In fact,
rather than to explain away human mental activity on the grounds of theological or
determinist dogma, Geulincx not only took the inner world of consciousness as his
starting point in philosophy, but also saw it as a cause for wonder at the singularity of
the human condition. If things prove themselves to be ineffable, it is to the human
subject that they do so. Similarly, if outside things remain inscrutable, it is only of
inner experience itself that our knowledge is genuine and absolute.

Samuel Beckett is believed to have broken away from making further dogmatic use of
philosophy after his post-war realisation that “All I am is feeling” (Uhlmann, 2006:
72). His interest in Geulincx, however, did not suffer from this. If a mood of
estrangement, coupled to a painstaking examination of the inner life, is what Beckett
found familiar in Geulincx, it is significant that Beckett never studied the quasi-
Kantian arguments from the Metaphysica ad mentem peripateticam, arguably Geulincx’
most radical philosophical text. Apart from some transcriptions taken from
the Metaphysica vera, Beckett took his notes mainly from Geulincx’ Ethics. A
familiarity of viewpoints must have been obvious to Beckett in these texts as well,
which may add to our conviction that Beckett’s prolonged interest in Geulincx was
based primarily on an affection that went beyond specific images or doctrines of
philosophy.
There was obviously “something of a friendship across centuries” between Beckett
and Geulincx (Tucker, 2012: 181), apparently motivated by the articulation of a
shared experience that Beckett cherished in Geulincx, and that presumably involved a
recognition of something very intimate and relatively rare, even if it had been
expressed in such technical philosophical contexts as a religiously motivated
metaphysics and a theory of ethics combining classical and Christian themes.

The ultimate secret to Geulincx’ appeal may be that his philosophical texts, despite
their traditional setting, have a captivating strangeness to them, which is linked to the
alienating topics they address. Whatever his philosophy may have done for Beckett’s
artistic development, it is beyond doubt that, just as in Samuel Beckett’s case,
Geulincx’ Baroque blend of Augustino-Cartesianism will continue to impress
likeminded readers by its unique evocation of the timeless motif of human
metaphysical ignorance, as well as by its humbling expression of amazement at the
mystery of existence.
 7. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources
 Geulincx, Arnold, Opera philosophica, vol. 1, ed. J.P.N. Land, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1891.
 Geulincx’ Orationes and the Logica restituta
 Geulincx, Arnold, Opera philosophica, vol. 2, ed. J.P.N. Land, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1892.
 The Methodus, as well as the metaphysical and physical works
 Geulincx, Arnold, Opera philosophica, vol. 3, ed. J.P.N. Land, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1893.
 Ethics, ethical disputations and Notes on Descartes
 Geulincx, Arnold, Sämtliche Schriften in fünf Bänden, ed. H.J. de Vleeschauwer, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1965–1968.
 A handy reprint (in 3 vols.) of the Opera Philosophica
 Geulincx: Présentation, choix de textes et traduction, ed. Alain De Lattre, Philosophes de tous les temps
vol. 69, Paris: Seghers, 1970.
 A selection of Geulincx’ texts in French
 Geulincx, Arnout, Van de hoofddeugden. De eerste tuchtverhandeling, ed. Cornelis Verhoeven, Baarn:
Ambo, 1986.
 The first part of the Ethics in a modern version of the Dutch original
 Geulincx, Arnold, Metaphysics, ed. Martin Wilson, Wisbech: Christoffel Press, 1999.
 First English edition of the Metaphysica vera
 Geulincx, Arnold, Ethics, With Samuel Beckett’s Notes, ed. Han van Ruler, Anthony Uhlmann and
Martin Wilson. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006.
 The complete Ethics in English with a transcription of Beckett’s notes
 Geulincx, Arnold, Éthique, ed. Hélène Bah-Ostrowiecki, Turnhout: Brepols, 2010.
 The Ethics in a modern French edition

b. Secondary Sources
 Aalderink, Mark, ‘Spinoza and Geulincx on the human condition, passions, and love’, Studia
Spinozana vol. 15 / Wiep van Bunge (ed.), Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism, Würzburg: Königshausen &
Neumann, 2006, pp. 67-87.
 On the Augustinian concept of love and its impact on Geulincx and Spinoza
 Aalderink, Mark, Philosophy, Scientific Knowledge, and Concept Formation in Geulincx and Descartes,
Utrecht: Zeno, 2010.
 Published dissertation on the epistemological differences between Descartes and
Geulincx
 Armogathe, Jean-Robert, and Vincent Carraud, ‘The First Condemnation of Descartes’ Œuvres: Some
Unpublished Documents from the Vatican Archives’, in: Daniel Garber and Steven Nadler (eds.), Oxford
Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon, 2003, pp. 67-109.
 Contains the only known reference to Geulincx’ marriage plans as a reason for his
dismissal
 Ayers, M.R., ‘Richard Burthogge and the Origins of Modern Conceptualism’, in: Tom Sorell and G.A.J.
Roger (eds.), Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon, 2005, pp. 179-200.
 On Geulincx’ most important pupil in epistemology
 Cassirer, Ernst, Das Erkenntnisproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit (Berlin,
1906-1923), ed. Dagmar Vogel in 2 vols., Hamburg: Meiner, 1999.
 On Geulincx and Kant
 Cooney, Brian, ‘Arnold Geulincx: A Cartesian Idealist’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, vol. 16
(1978), pp. 167-180.
 English language introduction to Geulincx
 Cordingley, Anthony, ‘École Normale Supérieure’, in: Anthony Uhlmann (ed.), Samuel Beckett in
Context, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2013, pp. 42-52.
 On Samuel Beckett’s intellectual development during the late 1920s and early 1930s
 Dürr, Karl, ‘Die mathematische Logik des Arnold Geulincx’, The Journal of Unified Science
(Erkenntnis), vol. 8 (1939-40), pp. 361-8.
 A translation of Geulincx’ logic in modern terms
 Dürr, Karl, ‘Arnold Geulincx und die klassische Logik des 17. Jahrhunderts’, Studium Generale 18 (1965-
8), pp. 520-541.
  Geulincx’ logic in the context of other seventeenth-century sources in the field
 Eekhof, A., ‘De wijsgeer Arnoldus Geulincx te Leuven en te Leiden’, in Nederlandsch Archief voor
Kerkgeschiedenis, new series, vol. 15 (1919), pp. 1-24.
 On the Letter of Recommendation of 3 May 1658
 Herren, Graley, ‘Working on Film and Television’, in: Anthony Uhlmann (ed.), Samuel Beckett in
Context, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2013, pp. 192-202.
 On Beckett’s psychology and Geulincx’ influence on his screenplays
 Kossmann, E.F., ‘De laatste woning van Arnold Geulincx’, in Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche
Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 7-3, pp. 136-138.
 On Geulincx’ last residence and debts
 Land, J.P.N., ‘Arnold Geulincx te Leiden (1658-1669)’, in Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke
Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, 3rd series, vol. 3 (1887), pp. 277-327.
 On Geulincx’ Leuven dismissal and Leiden career
 Land, J.P.N., ‘Aanteekeningen betreffende het leven van Arnold Geulincx’, in Verslagen en
Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, 3rd series, vol. 10
(1894), pp. 99-119.
 On Geulincx’ life in Flanders
 Land, J.P.N., Arnold Geulincx und seine Philosophie. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1895.
 A Geulincx biography.
 Lattre, A. de, L’occasionalisme d’Arnold Geulincx, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967.
 Published dissertation on Geulincx’ philosophy
 McCracken, J.D, Thinking and Valuing: An Introduction, Partly Historical, to the Study of the Philosophy
of Value. London: Macmillan, 1950.
 Interpretation of Descartes, Geulincx and Spinoza as a particular school of ethics
 Monchamp, Georges, Histoire du Cartésianisme en Belgique, Bruxelles et St. Trond: F. Hayez, 1886.
 An as yet unsurpassed history of Cartesianism in the Southern Netherlands
 Nadler, Steven, ‘Knowledge, Volitional Agency and Causation in Malebranche and Geulincx’, British
Journal for the History of Philosophy 7 (1999-2), pp. 263-274.
 On similarities and differences between Malebranche and Geulincx
 Nuchelmans, Gabriël, Geulincx’ Containment Theory of Logic, Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse
Akademie van Wetenschappen / Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1988.
 Detailed account of Geulincx’ use of set theory in logic
 Paquot, Jean Noël, Memoires pour servir a l’histoire litteraire des dix-sept provinces des Pays-Bas, de la
principauté de Liege, et de quelque contrées voisines, vol. 13, Louvain: De l’imprimerie academique,
1768.
 Reference to Geulincx’ presumed Leuven quarrels and debts
 Pfleiderer, Edmund, Leibniz und Geulincx: Mit besonderer Beziehung auf ihr beiderseitiges
Uhrengleichniss, Tübingen: Tübinger Universitäts-Schriften, 1884.
 Start of the controversy on the image of the synchronised clocks in Geulincx and Leibniz
 Renz, Ursula, and Han van Ruler, ‘Okkasionalismus’, in: Hans Jörg Sandkühler (ed.), Enzyklopädie
Philosophie, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 2010, vol. 2, pp. 1843-1846.
 On the diversity of occasionalisms
 Rousset, Bernard, Geulincx entre Descartes et Spinoza, Parijs : Vrin, 1999.
 Posthumously published monograph on Geulincx
 Ruler, Han van, ‘“Something, I know not what.” The Concept of Substance in Early Modern Thought’, in
Lodi Nauta and Arjo Vanderjagt (eds.), Between Imagination and Demonstration. Essays in the History of
Science and Philosophy Presented to John D. North, Leiden: Brill, 1999, pp. 365-93.
 On Geulincx, Locke and the notion of individuality in scholastic and Cartesian thought
 Ruler, Han van, ‘Geulincx, Arnold (1624-1669)’, in Wiep van Bunge, Henri Krop, Bart Leeuwenburgh,
Han van Ruler, Paul Schuurman and Michiel Wielema (eds.), The Dictionary of Seventeenth and
Eighteenth-Century Dutch Philosophers, in 2 vols, Bristol: Thoemmes, 2003, vol. 1, pp. 322-331.
 Extended dictionary entry on Geulincx and his works
 Ruler, Han van, ‘Geulincx and Spinoza: Books, Backgrounds and Biographies’, in Studia Spinozana 15 /
Wiep van Bunge (ed.), Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2006,
pp. 89-106.
 On whether Geulincx and Spinoza knew each other or each other’s work
 Ruler, Han van, ‘Spinozas doppelter Dualismus’, transl. Andreas Fliedner, in: Deutsche Zeitschrift für
Philosophie 57 (2009-3), pp. 399-417.
 On parallel forms of dualism in Geulincx and Spinoza
 Terraillon, Eugène, La morale de Geulincx dans ses rapports avec la philosophie de Descartes, Paris:
Alcan, 1912.
 Short work on Geulincx’ occasionalism
 Thijssen-Schoute, C. Louise, Nederlands Cartesianisme, Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers
Maatschappij, 1954; new ed. by Theo Verbeek, Utrecht: HES, 1989.
 Source book on Dutch Cartesianism
 Tucker, David, Samuel Beckett and Arnold Geulincx: Tracing ‘a literary fantasia’, London: Continuum,
2012.
 Detailed study and interpretation of all of Beckett’s references to Geulincx
 Uhlmann, Anthony, Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2006.
 On Beckett’s use of philosophical themes and their literary and philosophical impact
 Uhlmann, Anthony, Chris Conti and Andrea Curr (eds.), Arnold Geulincx Resource Site, funded by the
Australia Research Council: www.geulincx.org
 A website dedicated to Geulincx research by The Beckett and Geulincx Research Project
 Uhlmann, Anthony (ed.), Samuel Beckett in Context, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2013.
 A volume of articles on Beckett’s intellectual biography
 Vander Haeghen, Victor, Geulincx. Étude sur sa vie, sa philosophie et ses ouvrages, Diss. Liège, Gent:
Vanderhaeghen, 1886.
 Complete intellectual biography
 Vanpaemel, Geert, Echo’s van een wetenschappelijke revolutie. De mechanistische natuurwetenschap
aan de Leuvense Artesfaculteit, Brussel: KAWLSK, 1986.
 On Leuven University’s curriculum and Geulincx’ proposals for change
 Verbeek, Theo, ‘Geulincx, Arnold (1624-69)’, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, vol. 4, Londen: Routledge, 1998, pp. 59-61.
 Concise account of Geulincx’ philosophy and its relation to Descartes
 Vleeschauwer, Herman J. de, Three Centuries of Geulincx Research, Mededelings van die Universiteit
van Suid-Afrika / Communications of the University of South Africa, Pretoria 1957.
 Bibliographical outline of Geulincx-interpretations
 Vleeschauwer, Herman J. de, ‘Ha Arnold Geulincx letto il « De la Sagesse » de Pierre
Charron?’, Filosofia 25 (1974-2 and 1974-4), pp. 117-134 and 373-388.
 On Charron’s De la Sagesse as a model for Geulincx’ Ethics.