The Vanishing Nature of Body in Descartes’s Natural Philosophy

I defend in this paper the following two theses: first, that Descartes was a Pluralist as regards extended substances, that is, that for him the extended world includes a plurality of bodies, including ordinary objects, each of which may be adequately described as a substance; and that for him the notion of substance is a rather slim notion, making no specific requirements as regards individuation or persistence conditions, and determining therefore no strict constraints on the kind of material objects that may count as substances. In short, I will be arguing for a certain view concerning the extension of the phrase ‘extended substance’ by defending a specific view of what ‘substance’ means.

2024

This book explores René Descartes’s attempts to describe particular bodies, such as rocks, minerals, metals, plants, and animals, within the mechanistic interpretation of nature of his philosophical program. Despite his early rationalistic epistemology, Descartes’s increasing attention to collections, histories, lists of qualities, and particular bodies results in a puzzling ‘short history of all natural phenomena’ contained in the Principles of philosophy (1644). The present book outlines the role of Descartes's observations and experimentation as he aimed to construct a universal science of nature, ultimately revealing the mechanization of nature in detail, and for curious bodies such as the Bologna Stone or the sensitive herb. What results is a theoretical natural history consistent with the mechanical principles of his philosophy, ultimately shedding new light on his attempt to produce a complete philosophy of nature.

Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 2008

The article addresses the connection of theory of knowledge with physics in Descartes and Newton. The establishment of a geometric concept of motion in Descartes’ mechanistic physics required an epistemic subject with strong constructional powers. Descartes found this in the disembodied, supernatural I. Newton’s reintroduction of forces in his kinematics, however, made him accuse Descartes’ interpretation of motion for being non-realistic and contradictory. It also made him attack the mind-body-dualism as the false basis for Cartesian physics. In Newton’s physics only an embodied soul could acquire knowledge of the real motion, force and action of (other) natural bodies. The article presents central parts of this debate.

2024

In this chapter, I focus on Descartes's physics. According to it, nature is extended matter, a uniform solid body made of moving and arranging corpuscles with some size and shape. Nature is a geometrical space. In Descartes's early physics, Le Monde, he invented nature as a mathematical equation, and bodies take different figures following the mechanical laws of nature (i.e., the laws of motion). Yet, in both Les Météores and the Principia, external, actually existing bodies play a more central role, and Descartes's physics starts from the observation of these bodies and the aggregate of corpuscles. In this chapter, I analyze these various interpretations and reconstruct Descartes's attempts to bridge the gap between the geometrical definition of nature and the actually existing world. Finally, I also examine Descartes's uses of observation, which in Le Monde serves to confirm his theory while in the later texts appears as the point of departure to know the universe.

There are long-standing debates in Descartes scholarship surrounding the metaphysics of extended substance. Some of the central topics involved are the real and modal distinctions, nominalism versus Platonism about the essence of extended things, and the unity or multiplicity (and divisibility or indivisibility) of extended substance. In the recent literature, a group of scholars—Thomas Lennon (2007), Kurt Smith (2010), and then Smith and Alan Nelson (2010)—favors a reading of Descartes as a monist about extended substance and an idealist (or even a transcendental idealist) about finite bodies. Other commentators, including Marleen Rozemond and Calvin Normore in recent papers, are loosely united by the claims that Descartes was a pluralist about extended substance and a realist about particular bodies (Rozemond 2011; Schmaltz 2009; Normore 2008; Slowik 2001; Stuart 1999; Des Chene 1996). My topic here is Descartes's account of the concept of space and its relationship to body. Because the discussion of place and space is closely connected with motion and divisibility, the texts concerning space are important for interpreting Descartes's metaphysics of the material world, and they show up frequently in that literature. My claim here is that a careful interpretation of the concept of space in Descartes's Principles of Philosophy supports the second kind of reading of the metaphysics of extension: there are many extended substances that are really distinct, and these particular parts of matter are real as opposed to phenomenal.

Quaderns de Filosofia, 2015

I defend in this paper the following two theses: first, that Descartes was a Pluralist as regards extended substances, that is, that for him the extended world includes a plurality of bodies, including ordinary objects, each of which may be adequately described as a substance; and that for him the notion of substance is a rather slim notion, making no specific requirements as regards individuation or persistence conditions, and determining therefore no strict constraints on the kind of material objects that may count as substances. In short, I will be arguing for a certain view concerning the extension of the phrase ‘extended substance’ by defending a specific view of what ‘substance’ means.Keywords: substance, body, Monism, dependence

Physics and metaphysics in Descartes and in His Reception. New York and London: Routledge, 2019

This volume explores the relationship between physics and metaphysics in Descartes' philosophy. According to the standard account, Descartes modified the objects of metaphysics and physics and inverted the order in which these two disciplines were traditionally studied. This book challenges the standard account in which Descartes prioritizes metaphysics over physics. It does by taking into consideration the historical reception of Descartes and the ways in which Descartes himself reacted to these receptions in his own lifetime. The book stresses the diversity of theses receptions by taking into account not only Cartésianisme but also anti-Cartesianism and by showing how they retroactively highlighted different aspects of Descartes' works and theoretical choices. The historical aspect of the volume is unique in that it not only analyzes different constructions of Descartes that emerged in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, but also reflects on how his work was first read by philosophers across Europe. Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a fresh and up-to-date contribution to this important debate in early modern philosophy.

In this enterprise, I shall present Descartes' theory of 'methodic doubt,' moving systematically as he (Descartes) himself would suppose we do, from the establishment of the being of his thinking self (his soul), through the existence of a non-mischievous, infinitely, perfect Being, God, to the existence of a corporeal, extended substance (his body), as distinct from his mind; and the ultimate interaction of the two distinct and separate substances: mind and body. Also, I shall give a critical evaluation of Descartes' method, bringing into focus the alternative theories of other philosophers aimed at resolving the Cartesian dualism. The scientific standpoint on the issue shall also be considered. Through these analyses, I shall establish the thesis that, the interaction of mind and body is only probable.