- First name
- Adriaan
- Last name
- Heereboord
- Date of Birth
- 1614
- Date of Death
- 1661
- Born in
- Leiden
- Died in
- Leiden
Adriaan Heereboord was a neo-scholastic Cartesian logician and philosopher. He studied theology and philosophy in Leiden (1629), and held a chair in ethics (1644). He intervened in the Leiden row about Cartesian philosophy and provided Descartes with all the necessary information to write his letter to the university senate (AT V, 1–15, 35–9; 22–3, 29–31 (board of university governors to Descartes)). He is credited for introducing the writings of Descartes in the university 1644. He also authored the noted text-book Meletemata philosophica (Leiden, 1654; repr. 1659, 1664, 1665 and 1680). It may be conjectured that Spinoza took privatissima, private lessons usually given in the professor’s private lodgings and paid for by students, or attended philosophy lessons of Heereboord. See: Verbeek, 1992; DDP, vol. 1, pp. 395–7; CCS, pp. 70–4.
Depending on whether Spinoza actually studied in Leiden, it is possible that Spinoza attended philosophy lectures by Heereboord. Spinoza based the analytical appendix Cogitata metaphysica on Heereboord's Meletemata philosophica (Philosophical Exercises). Heereboord is to be regarded as one of the main sources for PP/CM. In it he refutes Heereboord's account of the free will (2.12, G 1/279).