Hemsterhuis’ reception has always advanced in waves: the sentimental Hemsterhuis of Herder and Jacobi, the prophetic Hemsterhuis of the Jena romantics, the Christian-Platonist Hemsterhuis of Meyboom, the pantheist Hemsterhuis of Dilthey, the irrationalist Hemsterhuis of Bulle, Hartmann’s Hemsterhuis as ‘a forerunner of the philosophy of value’ (1923: 170), the Dutch-Cartesian Hemsterhuis of Hammacher, the Socratic Hemsterhuis of Fresco, Petry’s and Melica’s Hemsterhuis the scientist and, most recently, Israel’s conservative Hemsterhuis. There have indeed been many images of Hemsterhuis – and my concern in the second part of this book is with one reason for such a variety of images. I certainly do not want to suggest that there exists some fundamental, original ‘image’ of Hemsterhuis, nor even that one grounding principle reconciles them all. Rather, I am interested in how these partially irreconcilable interpretations spring from irreconcilable demands within Hemsterhuis’ philosophy itself.

Two pairs of these competing tendencies in Hemsterhuis’ texts structure the first two chapters. Chapter One takes as its subject matter the seemingly contrary tendencies, on the one hand, to return to a Socratic ideal that stands in judgement on the corrupt, ineffectual philosophising of the eighteenth century and, on the other hand, to celebrate the advances of the modern geometrical method and extend its application to all domains of human knowledge. Chapter Two is devoted to a similar (if ultimately distinct) double demand focused on the writing of philosophy – that is, the demand, on the one hand, to reject the conjectural and poetic in philosophical presentation in the name of ‘humble’ analysis and, on the other hand, to make use of aesthetically charged styles like myth, dialogue, metaphor and irony to effectively communicate the truth.

By beginning with this pair of double demands, I am consciously attempting to escape (to some small extent) the very problem of the ‘many images’ in Hemsterhuis’ reception history. That is, when it comes to the scholarship, the place where one begins does matter: the point at which one starts the exposition of Hemsterhuis’ philosophy often determines in advance what that philosophy looks like. For example, Pelckmans (1987) and Petry (1985) have attacked those who begin their reconstructions with Hemsterhuis’ romantic reception, for, they argue, it imposes a teleological framework that is ultimately ‘a distortion of his true significance’ (Petry 1985: 221).