René-Joseph Tournemine
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René-Joseph Tournemine (1661-1739) was a French Jesuit theologian and philosopher. He founded the Mémoires de Trévoux, the Jesuit learned journal published from 1701 to 1767[1], and assailed Nicolas Malebranche with the charges of atheism and Spinozism[2][3].
His Réflexions sur l'athéisme originated as a preface to the Traité de l'existence de Dieu (1713) by Fénelon, and was an effective direct attack on Spinoza; it argued that 'Spinozism' wasn't practically tenable[4].
A debate with Leibniz on the mind-body problem[5] was prominent in the period.[6]
Tournemine taught the young Voltaire, and became a friend. In correspondence from 1735, however, Voltaire was critical of the Jesuit reception of Newton and Locke.[7]
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://pagesperso-orange.fr/astrid01/journal_1.htm, in French
- ^ Malebranche
- ^ Jonathan Israel, The Radical Enlightenment (2001), p. 42.
- ^ Israel, p. 299.
- ^ Brandon Look, Leibniz and the "Vinculum Substantiale" (1999), pp. 51-63.
- ^ R. S. Woolhouse, Richard Francks, Leibniz's 'New System' and Associated Contemporary Texts (1997), Chapter 10.
- ^ John W. Yolton, Locke and French Materialism (1991), pp. 46-51.
