Theory of modus concipiendi in Richard Burthogge’s Epistemology

Abstract

The paper focuses on the epistemology of Richard Burthogge, the lesser known seventeenth-century English philosopher and author of, among other works, the Organum Vetus & Novum (1678) and An Essay upon Reason and the Nature of Spirits (1694). Although his ideas had minimal impact on the philosophy of his time, and have hitherto not been the subject of a detailed study, Burthogge’s writings contain a highly original concept of idealistic constructivism. The most important claim of this approach is that the external objects are never presented to the mind directly, as they are in themselves, but always under the modus concipiendi, a particular form of conceiving or conceptualizing, performed by the human cognitive powers (both intellectual and sensuous) in the manner and with the means determined by their structural and functional properties. Thus, Burthogge clearly anticipates Kant in claiming that the external world is unknowable in itself, being accessible to the human mind only through the phenomena that the mind itself co-produces. The paper provides an outline of the theory of modus concipiendi, including its historical context and idealistic consequences, preceded by the brief presentation of Burthogge’s epistemology.