There is considerable debate among scholars over whether Descartes allowed for genuine body–body interaction. I begin by considering Michael Della Rocca's recent claim that Descartes accepted such interaction, and that his doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths indicates how this interaction could be acceptable to him. Though I agree that Descartes was inclined to accept real bodily causes of motion, I differ from Della Rocca in emphasizing that his ontology ultimately does not allow for them. This is not the end of the story however, since two of Descartes's successors offered incompatible ways of developing his conflicted account of motion. I contrast the occasionalist view of Nicolas Malebranche that changes in motion derive directly from divine volitions with the non-occasionalist claim of Pierre-Sylvain Regis that such changes derive from a nature distinct from God. In light of Della Rocca's interpretation, it is noteworthy that the issue of eternal truths is relevant to both alternative accounts. Indeed, Regis took the doctrine that such truths are created to provide crucial support for his alternative to an occasionalist account of body–body interaction. What does not help Della Rocca, however, is that Regis's view of motion requires a fundamental revision of Descartes's ontology.
...More
Article
Ott, Walter;
(2008)
Régis's Scholastic Mechanism
(/isis/citation/CBB000930744/)
Article
Christophe Schmit;
(2015)
Les dynamiques de Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan
(/isis/citation/CBB695462531/)
Article
Platt, Andrew R.;
(2011)
Divine Activity and Motive Power in Descartes's Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB001035113/)
Article
Janiak, Andrew;
(2010)
Substance and Action in Descartes and Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB001221446/)
Chapter
Alexandrescu, Vlad;
(2009)
The Double Question of the Individuation of Physical Bodies in Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001021826/)
Book
Schmaltz, Tad M.;
(2002)
Radical Cartesianism: The French Reception of Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB000302043/)
Thesis
Ekeberg, Bjorn;
(2010)
The Metaphysics Experiment: Modern Physics and the Politics of Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB001567187/)
Article
Hao Dong;
(2021)
Hobbes’s model of refraction and derivation of the sine law
(/isis/citation/CBB808807913/)
Book
Ariew, Roger;
(2011)
Descartes among the Scholastics
(/isis/citation/CBB001500336/)
Chapter
Raymond, Dwayne;
(2009)
Parmenidean Intuitions in Descartes' Theory of the Heart's Motion
(/isis/citation/CBB001201158/)
Article
Andrew Janiak;
(2015)
Space and Motion in Nature and Scripture: Galileo, Descartes, Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB462811041/)
Article
Gorham, Geoffrey;
(2005)
The Metaphysical Roots of Cartesian Physics: The Law of Rectilinear Motion
(/isis/citation/CBB000640507/)
Article
Hyslop, Scott J.;
(2014)
Algebraic Collisions
(/isis/citation/CBB001201189/)
Article
Dijksterhuis, Fokko Jan;
(2013)
Jeu de Paume and Jeux de la Raison in Seventeenth-Century Optics
(/isis/citation/CBB001252891/)
Article
Katherine Brading;
Marius Stan;
(2021)
How Physics Flew the Philosophers' Nest
(/isis/citation/CBB008141627/)
Chapter
Roux, Sophie;
(2006)
Découvrir le principe d'inertie
(/isis/citation/CBB001024285/)
Article
Ablondi, Fred;
(2007)
Knowing Our Nature: A Note on Régis' Response to Malebranche
(/isis/citation/CBB000760671/)
Thesis
Bray, Michael Edward, Jr.;
(2002)
The science and politics of the efficient cause in Hobbes and Spinoza
(/isis/citation/CBB001562181/)
Article
Schuster, John A.;
(2012)
Physico-Mathematics and the Search for Causes in Descartes' Optics---1619--1637
(/isis/citation/CBB001211473/)
Chapter
Brading, Katherine;
(2012)
Newton's Law-Constitutive Approach to Bodies: A Response to Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001500338/)
Be the first to comment!