Mechanism, Superaddition, and the Proof of God's Existence in Locke's Essay

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10693772
AutoresMarla Ayers (0000-0001-8289-2935, autor de correspondencia), M R Ayers
Año1981
Volumen90
Número2
Páginas210
Fecha de publicación1981-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2184440
OpenAlexW2331117979
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11

Cg echanism was view that laws of physics can be lvi explained, in principle if not by us, by being deduced from attributes possessed essentially by all bodies qua bodies; i.e., from nature or essence of uniform substance, matter, of which all bodies are composed. It is a central tenet of mechanism that essential attributes are actual and perspicuous; i.e., they comprise no powers or occult qualities defined by their effects. For if occult qualities were included in essence, any deduction of laws would be circular, explaining nothing. For mechanism, to treat a power as an essential and therefore irreducible attribute is to revert to Aristotelian pseudo-explanation. For Descartes, chief or essential attribute of matter from which its other necessary properties flow was simply extension or occupancy of space, an attribute entirely free from taint of mere potentiality. Gassendi, however, argued agnostically that space-occupancy cannot be explained as bare extension since, for example, empty space is possible and that, too, is extended. Locke combined agnosticism with a qualified inclination to favor claims of solidity to be simple space-filling attribute, perspicuous to sense, which distinguishes matter from empty space and from which laws of motion and mechanical interaction flow. Any version of mechanism tends to promote a certain conception of relationship between God and his material creation. As Berkeley complained, it encourages believers to hold the world to be a machine like a clock, made and put in motion by God, but afterwards continuing to go of itself.' On such an account God had, first, to create matter of universe and

Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Mechanism (biology) · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical Philosophy and Science · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy