Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes and in his Reception

Description

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 so 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 these receptions by taking into account not only Cartesianisms but also anti-Cartesianisms, 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 18th, 19th and 20th 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. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Abbreviations......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 Part I Historiography......Page 20 1 First Philosophy, Metaphysics, and Physics: The Implications of Order in Cartesian Philosophy and in the Philosophy of Enlightenment......Page 22 2 To Replant and Uproot. Typology of the Cartesian Tree of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century French Histories of Philosophy......Page 42 3 Between Fake, Unfortunate, and Actual Dependence: The Tumultuous Relationships of Descartes’ Physics and Metaphysics in the First Half of Twentieth-Century History and Philosophy of Science......Page 57 Part II Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes’ Time......Page 92 4 The Metaphysical Roots of Physics, and the Alleged Link Between Taurellus, Gorlaeus, Regius, and Descartes......Page 94 5 Strange Bedfellows: Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes......Page 122 6 Descartes, A Priori Knowledge, and Metaphysics......Page 134 7 A Deflationist Solution to the Problem of Force in Descartes......Page 149 Part III European Receptions......Page 168 8 Duplex Intellectus Et Sermo Duplex: Method and the Separation of Disciplines in Johannes De Raey......Page 170 9 The Materialist Reception of the Cartesian Physics in Naples......Page 184 10 Physics in the Broad Sense: Boyle, Newton, and the Baconian Metaphysical Physics......Page 197 11 Continuous Creation, Occasionalism, and Persistence: Leibniz on Bayle......Page 222 12 Sticking to the Middle Course: Intellectual Ethics and Scientific Practice in Leibniz’s Metaphysical Physics......Page 252 Bibliography......Page 268 Contributors......Page 291 Index Rerum and Nominum......Page 294