Background
Franco Burgersdijk was born on May 3, 1590, in De Lier, Westland, Netherlands, the son of a farmer.
Leiden University, Rapenburg 70, 2311 EZ Leiden, Netherlands
Franco Burgersdijk matriculated at Leiden University as a philosophy student on May 6, 1610, and obtained his doctorate in 1614.
Franco Burgersdijk was born on May 3, 1590, in De Lier, Westland, Netherlands, the son of a farmer.
Burgersdijk's elementary and secondary studies were at the Latin school of Amersfoort and the Delft Gymnasium (1606 - 1610). Burgersdijk matriculated at Leiden University as a philosophy student on May 6, 1610. He was a distinguished student, obtaining his doctorate in 1614.
His first appointment was at the Protestant Academy of Saumur, where he was a professor of philosophy from 1616 to 1619; here he composed his Ideaphilosophiae naturalis. He returned to Leiden as professor of logic and ethics, and delivered his inaugural lecture, "De fructu et utilitate logices," in 1620. Burgersdijk was promoted to the chair of philosophy in 1628 and became a leading figure at the university, serving as rector (1629, 1630, 1634) and writing influential textbooks on natural philosophy, metaphysics, logic, ethics, and politics.
The reason for Burgersdijk’s popularity is apparent from his first book, Idea philosophiae naturalis, which became the model for his later writings. His treatment of his subjects is clear, logical, concise, and well organized. The method of ordered studies that he adopted was designed to impart "solid erudition." Proceeding by his method of definition and division, he explored the whole of natural philosophy in twenty-six disputations, each of which was a series of theses that could be further studied by consulting the pro and contra authorities listed. A further collection of disputations was given in the Collegium physicum.
On the problems of natural philosophy, Burgersdijk was strikingly insensitive to the new science, being content to draw upon the neo-scholastic commentators of the late sixteenth century. Although a Protestant himself, Burgersdijk drew predominantly from Catholic sources, showing a particular liking for the Iberian authors Suarez, Periera, and Toletus, and the Coimbra commentaries. His conservatism in astronomy is illustrated by his simplified edition of Sacrobosco’s Sphaera. He showed greater originality in the Institutionum logicarum, his most popular work, in which he sought a compromise between Aristotelian and Ramist logic, regarding as particularly important the roles of division and definition, which he considered equal to syllogism and method.