Pierre Bayle was professor of philosophy at the Illustrious School in Rotterdam from 1681 until 1693. Little is known about his courses there. However, the discovery of two disputations, Theses philosophicae, which were defended by students under his supervision, makes clear that he taught elementary Cartesian physics in a rather orthodox way. It is obvious that he did not change the course which he had given in Sedan in 1677, and which was published under the title Cours de (...) philosophiein volume four of his Œuvres diverses. (shrink)

I'm scarcely the only reader who has found it puzzling that the self-consistent author of the Meditations, with his firm faith that God has supplied us with clear and distinct ideas sufficient to understand the material world, could have been satisfied with the messy jumble of physical doctrine we seem to find in his ~Priuci les. For example, although Descartes seems to be committed to a relationalism of some sort, his notorious laws of impact look as if they blatantly rely (...) upon an absolute compass of inertia, leading Julian Barbour to complain that Descartes' relationalism is but "froth on the surface of a deep underlying absolutism" (Barbour 1989 p. 600) (by "compass of inertia", I mean "a method of guidance lodged in an absolute background space or spacetime"). (shrink)

There does not seem to be a consistent way to ground the concept of “force” in Cartesian first principles. In this article, I first review the literature on the subject. Then, I offer an alternative interpretation of force—one that seems to be coherent and consistent with Descartes’ project. Not only does the new position avoid the problems of previous interpretations, but it does so in such a way as to support and justify those previous interpretations. *Received June 2007; revised (...) June 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Box 353350, Seattle, WA 98195; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

: This paper presents a detailed account of Descartes' derivation of his second law of nature—the law of rectilinear motion—from a priori metaphysical principles. Unlike the other laws the proof of the second depends essentially on a metaphysical assumption about the temporal immediacy of God's operation. Recent commentators (e.g., Des Chene and Garber) have not adequately explained the precise role of this assumption in the proof and Descartes' reasoning has continued to seem somewhat arbitrary as a result. My account better (...) reveals the dependence of the second law on fundamental principles about time and causality. (shrink)

Descartes is often identified as having fired one of the opening shots of the scientific revolution: rejecting the four Aristotelian causes in favor of the efficient causes characteristic of mechanistic science. Scholars often write as if Cartesian science and corporeal metaphysics is best understood as a rejection of all causal notions other than the efficient. I argue that this is a mistake. On the contrary, Descartes endorses an avowedly Aristotelian notion of formal causality, inherited from Suárez, and this notion (...) is central to his physics and corporeal metaphysics. -/- I begin by tracing the history of the formal cause from Aristotle to Aquinas and Suárez. My main thesis here is that the Aristotelian notion of formal causation picks out two distinct explanatory modes. The first is linked to hylomorphic ontology, and so by rejecting hylomorphism Descartes rejects one sort of formal causation. Crucially, however, the Aristotelians also identify explanations from essence as a species of formal causality. Now, Descartes’s entire philosophical project is built upon the intellectual perception of the essences of God, mind, and matter; the uncovering and exercise of this broadly Platonic intellectual capacity is, as Descartes explained to Hobbes, a key raison d’être for project of the Meditations. So we might expect Descartes to embrace formal causal explanations from essence, which harmonize so thoroughly with his philosophical project. And indeed, this is what we find. This is most obvious in the case of the ontological argument. In the course of defending the claim that God is causa sui, Descartes explicitly appeals to formal causation and claims to be only be “following in the footsteps” of Aristotle. Thus, there is a Cartesian notion of formal causation that is both continuous with and distinct from its Aristotelian predecessors. -/- Other cases are less obvious, but no less important. For example, one of the most strikingly “modern” aspects of Cartesian physics is its emphasis on quantitative laws. Yet Descartes’s official account of how these laws explain particular phenomena is puzzling: He claims that the laws are causes. This, however, is prima facie absurd; Descartes seems to claim that the law of inertia is literally pushing the moon forward along its orbital path. I argue that this is not and cannot be what Descartes means. On the contrary, he clearly takes the laws of physics to follow from the divine essence, especially immutability and simplicity. The laws are true and epistemically accessible to us because they follow from the divine essence. In other words, Descartes thinks nomological explanation in physics is formal causal explanation from (the divine) essence. -/- Another central issue is the impenetrability, or solidity, of matter. I offer a close reading and reconstruction of Descartes’s argument that matter is necessarily but not essentially impenetrable, and I show how Descartes accounts for impenetrability without compromising his mathematical conception of the corporeal. Descartes argues that impenetrability follows from the nature of matter as geometrical extension, thereby reducing a paradigmatic quality of matter (its solidity) to quantity (extension). Note that the explanatory bite throughout is from essence. Thus, while solidity is not a genuine corporeal causal power, it does give bodies an ineliminable causal role in Cartesian physics and corporeal metaphysics. This role is as a formal cause, since every explanation from impenetrability is ipso facto an explanation from the corporeal essence, geometrical extension. This, in turn, shows that Descartes has a principled response to idealists, like Berkeley, who claim that matter’s lack of efficient causal power implies idealism; Berkeley’s mistake, Descartes would argue, lies in equating efficient causality with causality simpliciter. -/- Thus, I argue that formal causal explanation from essence is both well-attested textually in Descartes and is consonant with some of his deepest projects and commitments, including his Platonic intellectualism and mathematization of the corporeal. All this in mind, it is shocking how little attention has been paid to formal causation in Descartes’s metaphysics. If I am right, a thorough re-thinking of Descartes’s physics and metaphysics is long overdue. (shrink)

This book argues that Descartes’ physics was a milestone on the road to modern mathematical physics. After Newton introduced a completely different approach to mathematical description of motion, Descartes’ physics became obsolete and even difficult to comprehend. This text follows the language of Descartes and the means of which motion can be described. It argues that Descartes achieved almost everything that later Newton was able to do—to describe the motion of interacting bodies- by different (i.e. algebraic) means. (...) This volume completely refutes the received view according to which Descartes’ physics was merely a kind of discursive natural philosophy. To make this interpretation more plausible the book follows Descartes’ ideas from his early work in mathematics, through his invention of the analytic method towards his mature physics. It shows that Descartes followed a similar heuristic pattern. The volume appeals to students and researchers; it invites the reader equippedwith minimal understanding of college mathematics to follow Descartes on his intellectual journey through the Scientific Revolution. The reader will gain a deeper understanding of the role of mathematical language in the creation of modern physics and a glimpse into the fascinating world of Descartes’ scientific thought. Several of Descartes’ philosophical ideas can be traced back to his scientific interests and thus the book elucidates the motivation behind some of Descartes’ key positions in the area of epistemology and method. In the penultimate chapter the book presents four arguments in favor of seeing Descartes as a physicist on par with Galileo and Newton. (shrink)

This book recounts a few ingenious attempts to derive physical theories by reason only, beginning with Descartes' geometric construction of the world, and finishing with recent derivations of quantum mechanics from natural axioms.

This book offers the first sustained critique of individualism in psychology, a view that has been the subject of debate between philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Tyler Burge for many years. The author approaches individualism as an issue in the philosophy of science and by discussing issues such as computationalism and the mind's modularity he opens the subject up for non-philosophers in psychology and computer science. Professor Wilson carefully examines the most influential arguments for individualism and identifies the main (...) metaphysical assumptions underlying them. Since the topic is so central to the philosophy of mind, a discipline generating enormous research and debate at present, the book has implications for a very broad range of philosophical issues including the naturalisation of intentionality, psychophysical supervenience, the nature of mental causation, and the viability of folk psychology. (shrink)

This book offers a sustained critique of individualism in psychology, a view that has been the subject of debate between philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Tyler Burge for many years. The author approaches individualism as an issue in the philosophy of science and by discussing issues such as computationalism and the mind's modularity he opens the subject up for non-philosophers in psychology and computer science. Professor Wilson carefully examines the most influential arguments for individualism and identifies the main metaphysical (...) assumptions underlying them. Since the topic is so central to the philosophy of mind, a discipline generating enormous research and debate, the book has implications for a very broad range of philosophical issues including the naturalisation of intentionality, psychophysical supervenience, the nature of mental causation, and the viability of folk psychology. (shrink)

Descartes’ derivation of the primary qualities of matter and their role in explaining observed physical phenomena are briefly reviewed. The lesson drawn from Descartes’ methodology of explanation is that we ought to aim to reduce complex phenomena to simple unifying principles and conceptual primitives. Three proposed solutions to the apparent paradoxes in contemporary quantum physics (primarily associated with the notion of entanglement) are briefly compared with lessons taken from Descartes. It is argued that further research in this field should (...) provide criteria for selecting modifications to the standard (largely Cartesian) conceptual scheme, along the lines of either visualisable causality or the physical spatial separability of all material objects. (shrink)

Although Descartes’ natural philosophy marked an important advance in the development of modern science, many of his specific concepts of science have been largely discarded, and consequently neglected, since their introduction in the seventeenth century. Many critics over the years, such as Newton (in his early paper De gravitatione), have presented a series of apparently devastating arguments against Descartes' theory of space and motion; a generally negative historical verdict which, moreover, most contemporary scholars accept. Nevertheless, it is also true that (...) most historians and philosophers of science have not sufficiently investigated the viability and effectiveness of the case against Cartesian space and motion. This book explores the success of the arguments against Descartes’ theory of space and motion by determining if it is possible to formulate a Cartesian theory of science that can avoid the problems raised by Newton, as well as by a host of other past and contemporary philosophers either sympathetic or hostile to the overall design of Cartesian science. In particular, if Descartes' theory of motion can be reconciled with his hypotheses on dynamics, then a Cartesian can successfully resolve the difficulties imposed by his critics. This book comprises, therefore, a sustained attempt to construct a consistent “Cartesian” spacetime theory: i.e., a theory of space and time that incorporates Descartes’ various theories of physics and nature without falling into the kinds of problems and contradictions as charged by, for example, Newton. (shrink)

The seventh chapter focuses on the aftermath of the decline of Cartesianism as a leading force in the Dutch academic context. After De Volder and De Raey, indeed, only Ruardus Andala in Franeker carried on the teaching of Cartesian physics (which he taught by commenting upon Descartes’s Principia) and metaphysics, mainly for the sake of contrasting Spinozism and other forms of radical Cartesianism. Thus, Descartes’s philosophy came a dead end on the eve of the eighteenth century. Yet, Leiden (...) Cartesianism and the Leiden experimental tradition (which could include, after De Volder and Senguerd, the activities of Herman Boerhaave), favoured the introduction of Newtonianism as the standard in teaching natural philosophy. This was carried out by ’s Gravesande, who used logic and metaphysics (including rational theology), that is, the chief foundational disciplines in the Cartesian tradition, to introduce students to and justify the assumptions (methodological and ontological) of a Newtonian approach in natural philosophy. This had two outcomes. On the one hand, his arguments in metaphysics (i.e. ontology) have the function of clarifying which objects natural philosophy can investigate. These are natural laws, whose ultimate source in substances or modes cannot be ascertained by intellect alone, as they depend on the power of God. On the other, given the fact that experience is our only means of grasping such laws (which are then mathematically handled) he provides a rational-theological justification of experiential evidence, as capable of providing us with a degree of certainty equal to mathematical evidence. As for the Cartesians, this is still the paradigm of scientific knowledge. Accordingly, with the introduction of Newtonianism foundational disciplines such as logic and metaphysics (including rational theology) served as a justification for and a reflection on a given scientific methodology. Thus, philosophy started to be actually detached from the natural sciences, and to assume a subservient role with respect to them, as once it was the ancilla theologiae. (shrink)

This book is an extended discussion of individualism in the philosophy of mind.

Le dualisme métaphysique de Descartes a des conséquences importantes pour la physique qu’il a développée. Descartes cherchait à établir une connaissance quantitative et certaine du monde physique, et son dualisme en a retiré toute forme d’esprit ou de force. Néanmoins, « les forces» ne semblent pas totalement absentes de sa philosophie naturelle. Quelques auteurs contemporains estiment que Descartes, dans certains passages du Monde, et des Principes de la Philosophie, s’exprime comme si les forces décrites étaient des propriétés « réelles» des (...) corps. Par conséquent, dans cet article, je vais donner des arguments en faveur de la cohérence du dualisme cartésien, en utilisant une notion peu connue de « force» proposée par Descartes. (shrink)

Paper presented in the 3rd edition of Bucharest Colloquium on Early Modern Science.

Ce texte a pour objet d’étudier le rôle de l’agrément et du plaisir dans le bon usage cartésien de l’imagination, usage qui conditionne la connaissance du monde matériel et en particulier le déploiement de la « fable du monde ». Pour étayer cette lecture de l’œuvre cartésienne, ce texte s’appuie sur certaines remarques de Malebranche portant sur le contentement que procure l’usage de la géométrie dans la recherche de la vérité et dans la physique, des remarques qui explicitent certaines perspectives (...) cartésiennes. Cependant, dans un second temps, le texte aborde différentes difficultés que soulève la conception cartésienne d’une matière agréable et facile à imaginer. (shrink)

Perhaps the most influential compatibilist response to this question is Fodor's strategy of levels. Fodor argues that although psychological laws range over world-involving propositional attitudes and their contents, these laws are implemented in computational mechanisms that supervene on the individual's intrinsic states.

The period in the history of blood transfusion that I discuss is roughly 1628, the date of publication of Harvey’s work on blood circulation, De Motu Cordis, and 1668, the year of the first allegedly successful transfusion of blood into a human subject by a French physician Jean Denis, and the official order to prohibit the procedure. The subject of special interest in this history is Robert Desgabets, an early defender and teacher of the Cartesian philosophy at St. Maur, (...) in the region of Lorraine, France. Desgabets’ Discourse de la communication ou transfusion du sang Communication or Transfusion of Blood contains a defence and description of the procedure. This three page manuscript is a lecture delivered at one of the meetings held at M. de Montmor in July 1658. Letters and documents which describe the events of these conferences during Desgabets’ eight month stay in Paris in 1658, indicate that he had numerous discussions with the Cartesian physicist Jacques Rohault and also with another leading Cartesian scientist, Gerauld Cordemoy. In addition, Desgabets is said to have frequently attended the meetings where he showed his interest in many scientific questions. I provide evidence that Desgabets was not an arm-chair scientist: he performed experiments, and he designed and created an apparatus to carry out the procedure of blood transfusion. I show how Desgabets’s Cartesian conception of mechanism and body had theological as well as epistemological underpinnings and consequences. For Desgabets, experiments on blood transfusion were as much demonstrations of the truth of the Cartesian metaphysics as they were demonstrations of the possibility of transubstantiation. The role of experiment was to provide demonstrations of the first principles or truths of physics and theology by connecting them to the way God actually made the world. The upshot of Desgabets's treatment of expérience is that it is integral to the knowledge of essences, and hence to the discovery of the truth of things. In placing expérience at the very foundation of true knowledge, Desgabets reconstructs Cartesianism on an empiricist foundation. (shrink)

In this chapter, the author presents some Cartesian thought experiments by reproducing an excerpt from The Meditations on First Philosophy. The author asks us to imagine that the physical world around us is an elaborate illusion. He imagines that the world was merely a dream or, worse yet, a hoax orchestrated by an evil demon bent on deceiving us. The author asks us to suppose that we are dreaming, and that some particulars ‐ namely, the opening of the eyes, (...) the motion of the head, the forth‐putting of the hands ‐ are merely illusions; and even that we really possess neither an entire body nor hands such as we see. Nevertheless, he says that, it must be admitted at least that the objects which appear to us in sleep are, as it were, painted representations which could not have been formed unless in the likeness of realities. (shrink)

Descartes and his early followers were widely seen to be enemies of superstition and the occult. This was particularly visible in the Cartesian movement’s antagonism to astrology. However, why Descartes and his early followers were so pitted against astrology is less than clear given the flexibility afforded to them through their system of philosophy and various mechanical explanations. Claude Gadroys (1642-1678), for example, produced a short treatise that provided a mechanical explanation consistent with Cartesian physics to allow (...) for celestial influence on Earth. In doing so, he exposed a contradiction in Cartesian vortex theory that seemed to disallow any such influence. In this way, Gadroys brought against himself and then dispelled one of the strongest objections to a Cartesian astrology. Oddly, no other Cartesian relied on principles specific to Cartesianism to argue against astrology as a legitimate science. This paper’s goal is to give a survey of some of the most prominent anti-astrological influences on Descartes, as well as some of the most prominent anti-astrological Cartesians in the second half of the 17th century. In doing this, I hope to show two things. First, in mainstream Cartesianism of the period, the anti-astrological sentiment was in no way part of the debate surrounding Descartes’ philosophy. Instead, ‘Cartesian’ anti-astrological arguments were based on well-worn arguments with an emphasis on experimental difficulties in establishing an astrological science. Second, the explanation for the curious lack of distinctly Cartesian anti-astrological arguments reflects an inherent flaw in Cartesianism; namely, it lacked the theoretical tools to completely rule out ‘occult’ sciences such as astrology. (shrink)

Utilizing Einstein’s comparison of General Relativity and Descartes’ physics, this investigation explores the alleged conventionalism that pervades the ontology of substantival and relationist conceptions of spacetime. Although previously discussed, namely by Rynasiewicz and Hoefer, it will be argued that the close similarities between General Relativity and Cartesian physics have not been adequately treated in the literature—and that the disclosure of these similarities bolsters the case for a conventionalist interpretation of spacetime ontology.

This essay addresses Cartesian duality and how its implicit dialectic might be repaired using physics and information theory. Our agenda is to describe a key distinction in the physical sciences that may provide a foundation for the distinction between mind and matter, and between sentient and intentional systems. From this perspective, it becomes tenable to talk about the physics of sentience and ‘forces’ that underwrite our beliefs (in the sense of probability distributions represented by our internal states), (...) which may ground our mental states and consciousness. We will refer to this view as Markovian monism, which entails two claims: (1) fundamentally, there is only one type of thing and only one type of irreducible property (hence monism). (2) All systems possessing a Markov blanket have properties that are relevant for understanding the mind and consciousness: if such systems have mental properties, then they have them partly by virtue of possessing a Markov blanket (hence Markovian). Markovian monism rests upon the information geometry of random dynamic systems. In brief, the information geometry induced in any system—whose internal states can be distinguished from external states—must acquire a dual aspect. This dual aspect concerns the (intrinsic) information geometry of the probabilistic evolution of internal states and a separate (extrinsic) information geometry of probabilistic beliefs about external states that are parameterised by internal states. We call these intrinsic (i.e., mechanical, or state-based) and extrinsic (i.e., Markovian, or belief-based) information geometries, respectively. Although these mathematical notions may sound complicated, they are fairly straightforward to handle, and may offer a means through which to frame the origins of consciousness. (shrink)

Non-Cartesian substance dualism maintains that persons or selves are distinct from their organic physical bodies and any parts of those bodies. It regards persons as ‘substances’ in their own right, but does not maintain that persons are necessarily separable from their bodies, in the sense of being capable of disembodied existence. In this paper, it is urged that NCSD is better equipped than either Cartesian dualism or standard forms of physicalism to explain the possibility of mental causation. A (...) model of mental causation adopting the NCSD perspective is proposed which, it is argued, is consistent with all that is currently known about the operations of the human central nervous system, including the brain. Physicalism, by contrast, seems ill-equipped to explain the distinctively intentional or teleological character of mental causation, because it effectively reduces all such causation to ‘blind’ physical causation at a neurological level. (shrink)

It is common to assume that Descartes did not have a conception of an object's matter density independently of its size, but this is a rather incomplete assessment of the early modern natural philosopher's theory. Key to our understanding of Descartes's physics is a consideration of the ratios between the quantities of the different types of matter in which an object consists. As these ratios determine the degree of an object's porosity and elasticity, they also affect in Descartes's theory (...) the phenomena of gravity and weight. (shrink)

In this transdisciplinary article which stems from philosophical considerations (that depart from phenomenology—after Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Rosen—and Hegelian dialectics), we develop a conception based on topological (the Moebius surface and the Klein bottle) and geometrical considerations (based on torsion and non-orientability of manifolds), and multivalued logics which we develop into a unified world conception that surmounts the Cartesian cut and Aristotelian logic. The role of torsion appears in a self-referential construction of space and time, which will be further related (...) to the commutator of the True and False operators of matrix logic, still with a quantum superposed state related to a Moebius surface, and as the physical field at the basis of Spencer-Brown’s primitive distinction in the protologic of the calculus of distinction. In this setting, paradox, self-reference, depth, time and space, higher-order non-dual logic, perception, spin and a time operator, the Klein bottle, hypernumbers due to Musès which include non-trivial square roots of ±1 and in particular non-trivial nilpotents, quantum field operators, the transformation of cognition to spin for two-state quantum systems, are found to be keenly interwoven in a world conception compatible with the philosophical approach taken for basis of this article. The Klein bottle is found not only to be the topological in-formation for self-reference and paradox whose logical counterpart in the calculus of indications are the paradoxical imaginary time waves, but also a classical-quantum transformer (Hadamard’s gate in quantum computation) which is indispensable to be able to obtain a complete multivalued logical system, and still to generate the matrix extension of classical connective Boolean logic. We further find that the multivalued logic that stems from considering the paradoxical equation in the calculus of distinctions, and in particular, the imaginary solutions to this equation, generates the matrix logic which supersedes the classical logic of connectives and which has for particular subtheories fuzzy and quantum logics. Thus, from a primitive distinction in the vacuum plane and the axioms of the calculus of distinction, we can derive by incorporating paradox, the world conception succinctly described above. (shrink)

Non‐Cartesian substance dualism is a position in the philosophy of mind concerning the nature of the mind‐body relation or, more exactly, the person‐body relation. Whereas Cartesian substance dualism takes subjects of experience to be necessarily immaterial and indeed nonphysical substances, non‐Cartesian substance dualism does not insist on this. This distinctive feature of non‐Cartesian substance dualism gives it certain advantages over Cartesian dualism, without compelling it to forfeit any of the intuitive appeal that attaches to its (...) more traditional rival. In this chapter, the author's own view is that the self is indeed a simple substance. The simplicity of the self goes some way toward explaining its unity, including the unity of consciousness that characterizes its normal condition. A divided consciousness is in principle consistent with self‐identity: what is not consistent with this is a radical disunity of beliefs and values, manifested in a radical inconsistency of thought and action. (shrink)

The Cartesian method, construed as a way of organizing domains of knowledge according to the "order of reasons," was a powerful reductive tool. Descartes made significant strides in mathematics, physics, and metaphysics by relating certain complex items and problems back to more simple elements that served as starting points for his inquiries. But his reductive method also impoverished these domains in important ways, for it tended to restrict geometry to the study of straight line segments, physics to (...) the study of ambiguously constituted bits of matter in motion, and metaphysics to the study of the isolated, incorporeal knower. This book examines in detail the negative and positive impact of Descartes's method on his scientific and philosophical enterprises, exemplified by the Geometry, the Principles, the Treatise of Man, and the Meditations. (shrink)

In the Aristotelian curriculum, De anima or the study of the soul fell under the rubric of physics. This area of study covered the vital (“vegetative”), sensitive, and rational powers of the soul. Descartes’ substance dualism restricted reason or intellect, and conscious sensation, to human minds. Having denied mind to nonhuman animals, Descartes was required to explain all animal behavior using material mechanisms possessing only the properties of size, shape, position, and motion. Within the framework of certainty provided by (...) the metaphysical foundations of his physics, he posited such mechanisms in accordance with appropriately lessened standards of certainty. As Cartesianism (or the Cartesian revolution) spread, adherents offered survey textbooks or treatises of physics to replace the corresponding Aristotelian curriculum. These books typically discussed the role of experience in physics and the appropriate standard of certainty. A comprehensive Cartesian natural philosophy needed to mechanize the offices of the Aristotelian sensitive soul, including sense perception, memory, and cognitive and appetitive responses to the environment. Descartes’ Treatise on Man (1664) offered an initial explanatory program. This chapter examines the role of experience in the natural philosophy and mechanistic psychology of Descartes’ English follower Antoine Le Grand. He offered detailed accounts of the sensory and motor mechanisms shared by human and nonhuman animals (for which he claimed “physical certainty”). These frame his Cartesian psychology. (shrink)

"Cartesian Dualism" is a systematic examination of a version of mind-body dualism in light of recent work in the philosophy of mind and the theory of reference. I analyze Descartes' modal argument for dualism and argue that some of the principal objections against dualism are not decisive. The thesis is divided into five sections. ;The first section sets forth the main features of Descartes' ontology and his theory of mind. I defend Descartes' theory of individuation and discuss recent conceptions (...) of physical objects and properties. ;In the second section I argue that there are serious problems facing theories of mind that eliminate a phenomenological first person perspective. I criticize several attempts to analyze inverted spectrum and qualia thought experiments from a functionalist perspective. I also consider recent theories of reference which hold that a person's identification of her psychological state is dependent upon her physical environment and the conventional meaning of words. ;The third section examines several treatments of first person reference that are incompatible with Cartesian dualism. I review work by Malcolm, Anscombe, Kenny, Strawson, and Mackie. ;The fourth section outlines Descartes' arguments for mind-body dualism which appear in his major works and correspondence. I clarify the use of de re and de dicto modality in different versions of the modal argument and formulate that I take to be an at least prima facie plausible version of the argument. ;Section five focuses upon two major objections to dualism. The first is the dualism leads to intractable problems concerning the individuation of persons. The second challenges the dualist interactionist on the basis of an ostensibly plausible principle of causation. It seems that causal relations among particulars derive from relations among the particulars' properties and relations. It is not clear what properties and relations a nonphysical person might instantiate that would account for the causal relations between it and some physical object. I maintain that neither objection is decisive. (shrink)

At the core of the essay that follows is a set of intuitions that distinguish the mental and subjective from the public and objective. I call these intuitions Cartesian intuitions even though Descartes himself ignored some of them. I argue that some of them survive the best efforts of critics to explain them away. This, I contend, is the basis of the mind-body problem, which should be seen as a paradox, in which both materialist and dualist lines of argument (...) seem conclusive. My aim is thus to clarify and to bolster what I call the neo-Cartesian half of the mind-body paradox, to show that there really is a paradox, one that remains with us, undissolved. ;I use two forms of arguments to accomplish this. One is the Knowledge Argument, according to which there are certain things which you can know everything physical about but not know everything about and which, because of that, make physicalism false. The Knowledge Argument says that your having this extra knowledge depends on the existence of special properties called qualia, which are supposed to be separate from any physical or functional properties. I argue that the Knowledge Argument is what survives from Descartes's original critique of materialism. I defend the Knowledge Argument, or at least I defend the claim that it has not so far been refuted. ;The other form of argument is the Absent Qualia Argument. I use it further to support the case against functionalism, the approach to the mind according to which mental states are definable by their causal relations to behaviors, perceptions, and each other. Against this position, I argue that there might be so-called absent qualia states which filled the causal roles of some of our genuine mental states but did not look or feel like anything. The functionalist response to this position is that since absent qualia states cause the same beliefs as genuine states do we could never know whether we were having real states or absent qualia replicas. I argue that there is no such skeptical problem. ;At the heart of both arguments is an account of our direct reference to our own phenomenal states. Critics of the Knowledge Argument have argued that the Cartesian intuitions the argument exploits can be explained away as a result of two distinct forms of reference: roughly, the direct reference distinctive to the mental, the descriptive reference distinctive to our neurophysiological talk. But I argue that we could not refer directly to our phenomenal states unless we did so by way of properties distinct from any neurophysiological properties. Critics of the Absent Qualia Argument can argue that our direct reference to phenomenal states requires mental processing with phenomenal aspects, processing that necessarily runs outside any causal role that might be shared with absent qualia replicas. These side-effects mean that absent qualia are impossible in us. I grant that but argue that this would not rule out the possibility of absent qualia in nonsentient creatures. They might be similar enough to have states with identical causal roles to our phenomenal states; but since they would be free of experience, there would be no chance for the side-effects that make absent-qualia states impossible to realize in us. (shrink)

In the history of the scientific revolution, Descartes is often considered as the mechanical philosopher par excellence, and opposed as such to the founder of mechanical science, that is to say, Galileo: this cliché is not without foundation, but it must not make us forget that Descartes was himself a practitioner of mechanical science. In the article "Cartesian Mechanics" I detail the meaning and reach of "mechanics" in the Cartesian corpus, and do so in three steps. 1. I (...) begin by explaining the genesis of the thesis which states that there is no difference between the physical and the mechanical; this thesis is so famous that it is often imagined that it is constituted in Descartes's first writings. But we can in fact show that the first works of Descartes and Beeckman arise from a "physico-mathematical" practice which does not necessarily imply a complete reworking of traditional physics, even if it might have favored the Cartesian ambition for a physics as certain as geometry; it was only in the late 1630s that Descartes began to systematically affirm the identity of physics and mechanics, or of "rules of motion", of "laws of Nature" and of "laws of mechanics". I then analyze the consequences of this affirmation. 2. In the second part of this article I provide a step-by-step commentary of the response proposed by Descartes in a letter to Mersenne in July 1638 to the question raised by Beaugrand's Geostatice (...) dissertatio mathematica (1636), that is to say the question of whether a body weighs more when it is farther from the center of Earth than when it is close. Compared with other texts of the Cartesian corpus, this sample of mechanics has been little analyzed (to my knowledge, the only analyses are those of P. Duhem, P. Costabel, A. Gabbey and D. Garber). This text is nonetheless extremely interesting: Descartes responds to the geostatic question in turn in terms of physics, then mathematics; even more interesting, the examination of the details of his procedures allows us to confront Cartesian statics to other writings, whether those of Guidobaldo del Monte, Galileo, Stevin, Mersenne or Roberval. 3. In the third and final section, I analyze the reasons that lead Descartes to exclude velocity from his statics, I examine the difficulties that his explanation of gravity created for statics, and conclude with the confrontation between mechanical philosophy and mechanical science in the case of Descartes. (shrink)