Tad M Schmaltz
Biographic Data
| ID | 459941 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tad M Schmaltz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tad M |
| FAMILY NAME | Schmaltz |
| SIGNATURE | SCHMALTZ T M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Cartesian Brain: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives
International audience
The indefinite in the Descartes-More correspondence
In this article, I consider Descartes’ enigmatic claim that we must assert that the material world is indefinite rather than infinite. The focus here is on the discussion of this claim in Descartes’ late correspondence with More. One puzzle that emerges from this correspondence is that Descartes insists to More that we are not in a position to deny the indefinite universe has limits, while at the same time indicating that we conceive a contradict…
Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life
Descartes offers a view of the material world that identifies matter with indefinitely divisible extension. Such a view also eliminates the various substantial forms that, for his Scholastic contemporaries, serve to distinguish the natural substances of our experience, the paradigmatic instances of which are living things. These contemporaries countered that this view presents the world as a barren desert landscape, devoid of the variety of every…
Gueroult on Spinoza and the Ethics
Cet article concerne l’application de la méthode « dianoématique », ou « étude des doctrines », dans le commentaire important de Martial Gueroult aux deux premières parties de l’ Éthique de Spinoza. Gueroult met l’accent sur deux affirmations distinctes dans les deux volumes de ce commentaire. La première affirmation, tirée du premier volume, est que Spinoza adopte une version du monisme dans la première partie de l’ Éthique selon laquelle Dieu, …
Gueroult on Spinoza and the Ethics
Introduction: Material Substance and Quantity, from Suárez to Leibniz
Quantity and Extension in Suárez and Descartes
This paper compares the development of the notion of continuous quantity in the work of Francisco Suárez and René Descartes. The discussion begins with a consideration of Suárez’s rejection of the view – common to ‘realists’ such as Thomas Aquinas and ‘nominalists’ such as William of Ockham – that quantity is inseparable from the extension of material integral parts. Crucial here is Suárez’s view that quantified extension exhibits a kind of impen…
The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism
A collection of fifty essays on Descartes and his influence in the seventeenth century. The first section is devoted to various aspects of Descartes’s philosophy (biography, epistemology, metaphysics, natural philosophy (science), mathematics, philosophical theology, etc.). The second section is devoted to Descartes’s influence, especially Cartesians and the Cartesian movement, in France, the Netherlands, Italy, England and elsewhere. The third s…
Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism
The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism comprises fifty specially written chapters on Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and Cartesianism, the dominant paradigm for philosophy and science in the seventeenth century, written by an international group of leading scholars of early modern philosophy. The first part focuses on the various aspects of Descartes's biography (including his background, intellectual contexts, writings, and correspondence)…
Pierre-Daniel Huet, Skeptic Critic of Cartesianism and Defender of Religion
Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) was Cartesianism’s most implacable critic ever. And more than any other critic, he raised the Cartesian issues that have been of perennial interest: the method of doubt, the cogito , clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth, the natural light, the circularity of the Meditations , proofs of God’s existence, etc. Moreover, under the term Cartesianism his Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae (1689) attacks both Descar…
The Condemnations of Cartesian Natural Philosophy Under Louis XIV (1661–91)
The interdiction of the teaching of Descartes’s natural philosophy pronounced by Louis XIV in 1671 was followed by a wave of official condemnations. The first part of this chapter gathers together the facts that led some historians to speak of the persecution of Cartesianism. In the second part, it is argued that various causes explain these condemnations, first by relativizing the importance of the doctrinal question of the Eucharist, second by …
Descartes on the Metaphysics of the Material World
It is a matter of continuing scholarly dispute whether Descartes offers a metaphysics of the material world that is “monist” or “pluralist.” One passage that has become crucial to this debate is from the Synopsis of the Meditations, in which Descartes argues that since “body taken in general” is a substance, and since all substances are “by their nature incorruptible,” this sort of body is incorruptible as well. In this article I defend a plurali…
Causa sui and Created Truth in Descartes
The Problem of Universals in Early Modern Philosophy
The ancient topic of universals was central to scholastic philosophy, which raised the question of whether universals exist as Platonic forms, as instantiated Aristotelian forms, as concepts abstracted from singular things, or as words that have universal signification. It might be thought that this question lost its importance after the decline of scholasticism in the modern period. However, the fourteen contributions to this volume indicate tha…
Universals and Individuals in Malebranche’s Philosophy
In Malebranche’s work, universals are identified with God’s ideas, which are the same ideas by means of which human beings know the world. However, because Malebranche states, at least in his mature writings, that all ideas are universal, general, and infinite, the knowledge of particulars appears problematic. This chapter addresses this question by showing that a consideration of the medieval sources of Malebranche’s theory of knowledge—the visi…
Galileo and Descartes on Copernicanism and the cause of the tides
Efficient Causation: A History
"This volume is a contribution to the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series, the main goal of which is to provide historical accounts of the development of central philosophical concepts. Among these concepts would seem to be that of efficient causation (or, today, simply causation). Causation is now commonly supposed to involve a succession that instantiates some law-like regularity. This understanding of causality has a history that includes var…
Malebranche on Natural and Free Loves
Descartes on Causation
Cartesian causation: Body–body interaction, motion, and eternal truths
What Has Cartesianism to Do with Jansenism
What Has Cartesianism To Do with Jansenism? Tad M. Schmaltz My title is modeled on the famous query of the third-century theologian, Tertullian: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian’s question asks what pagan Greek learning has to do with the theology of the early Church. By comparison my question asks what philosophical Cartesianism has to do with theological Jansenism, and more specifically what these movements had to do with each…
Malebranche's Theory of the Soul: A Cartesian Interpretation
Descartes and Malebranche on Mind and Mind-Body Union
I n a famous pair of letters sent in 1643 to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Descartes responded to queries concerning interaction of human mind and its body when he noted that this sort of mind is united in a special way to such a body. Notoriously, recent commentators agree neither on whether mind-body interaction constitutes a problem for Descartes, nor on whether his remarks to Elisabeth concerning mind-body union even address this problem. Cr…
Platonism and Descartes’ View of Immutable Essences
Cartesian causation: Body–body interaction, motion, and eternal truths
What Has Cartesianism to Do with Jansenism
What Has Cartesianism To Do with Jansenism? Tad M. Schmaltz My title is modeled on the famous query of the third-century theologian, Tertullian: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian’s question asks what pagan Greek learning has to do with the theology of the early Church. By comparison my question asks what philosophical Cartesianism has to do with theological Jansenism, and more specifically what these movements had to do with each…
Platonism and Descartes’ View of Immutable Essences
Descartes and Malebranche on Mind and Mind-Body Union
I n a famous pair of letters sent in 1643 to Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, Descartes responded to queries concerning interaction of human mind and its body when he noted that this sort of mind is united in a special way to such a body. Notoriously, recent commentators agree neither on whether mind-body interaction constitutes a problem for Descartes, nor on whether his remarks to Elisabeth concerning mind-body union even address this problem. Cr…
Malebranche's Theory of the Soul: A Cartesian Interpretation
What Has Cartesianism to Do with Jansenism
What Has Cartesianism To Do with Jansenism? Tad M. Schmaltz My title is modeled on the famous query of the third-century theologian, Tertullian: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Tertullian’s question asks what pagan Greek learning has to do with the theology of the early Church. By comparison my question asks what philosophical Cartesianism has to do with theological Jansenism, and more specifically what these movements had to do with each…
Cartesian causation: Body–body interaction, motion, and eternal truths
Descartes on Causation
Malebranche on Natural and Free Loves
Efficient Causation: A History
"This volume is a contribution to the Oxford Philosophical Concepts series, the main goal of which is to provide historical accounts of the development of central philosophical concepts. Among these concepts would seem to be that of efficient causation (or, today, simply causation). Causation is now commonly supposed to involve a succession that instantiates some law-like regularity. This understanding of causality has a history that includes var…
Galileo and Descartes on Copernicanism and the cause of the tides
Causa sui and Created Truth in Descartes
The Problem of Universals in Early Modern Philosophy
The ancient topic of universals was central to scholastic philosophy, which raised the question of whether universals exist as Platonic forms, as instantiated Aristotelian forms, as concepts abstracted from singular things, or as words that have universal signification. It might be thought that this question lost its importance after the decline of scholasticism in the modern period. However, the fourteen contributions to this volume indicate tha…
Universals and Individuals in Malebranche’s Philosophy
In Malebranche’s work, universals are identified with God’s ideas, which are the same ideas by means of which human beings know the world. However, because Malebranche states, at least in his mature writings, that all ideas are universal, general, and infinite, the knowledge of particulars appears problematic. This chapter addresses this question by showing that a consideration of the medieval sources of Malebranche’s theory of knowledge—the visi…
Descartes on the Metaphysics of the Material World
It is a matter of continuing scholarly dispute whether Descartes offers a metaphysics of the material world that is “monist” or “pluralist.” One passage that has become crucial to this debate is from the Synopsis of the Meditations, in which Descartes argues that since “body taken in general” is a substance, and since all substances are “by their nature incorruptible,” this sort of body is incorruptible as well. In this article I defend a plurali…
The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism
A collection of fifty essays on Descartes and his influence in the seventeenth century. The first section is devoted to various aspects of Descartes’s philosophy (biography, epistemology, metaphysics, natural philosophy (science), mathematics, philosophical theology, etc.). The second section is devoted to Descartes’s influence, especially Cartesians and the Cartesian movement, in France, the Netherlands, Italy, England and elsewhere. The third s…
Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism
The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism comprises fifty specially written chapters on Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and Cartesianism, the dominant paradigm for philosophy and science in the seventeenth century, written by an international group of leading scholars of early modern philosophy. The first part focuses on the various aspects of Descartes's biography (including his background, intellectual contexts, writings, and correspondence)…
Pierre-Daniel Huet, Skeptic Critic of Cartesianism and Defender of Religion
Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721) was Cartesianism’s most implacable critic ever. And more than any other critic, he raised the Cartesian issues that have been of perennial interest: the method of doubt, the cogito , clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth, the natural light, the circularity of the Meditations , proofs of God’s existence, etc. Moreover, under the term Cartesianism his Censura Philosophiae Cartesianae (1689) attacks both Descar…
The Condemnations of Cartesian Natural Philosophy Under Louis XIV (1661–91)
The interdiction of the teaching of Descartes’s natural philosophy pronounced by Louis XIV in 1671 was followed by a wave of official condemnations. The first part of this chapter gathers together the facts that led some historians to speak of the persecution of Cartesianism. In the second part, it is argued that various causes explain these condemnations, first by relativizing the importance of the doctrinal question of the Eucharist, second by …
Gueroult on Spinoza and the Ethics
Cet article concerne l’application de la méthode « dianoématique », ou « étude des doctrines », dans le commentaire important de Martial Gueroult aux deux premières parties de l’ Éthique de Spinoza. Gueroult met l’accent sur deux affirmations distinctes dans les deux volumes de ce commentaire. La première affirmation, tirée du premier volume, est que Spinoza adopte une version du monisme dans la première partie de l’ Éthique selon laquelle Dieu, …
Gueroult on Spinoza and the Ethics
Introduction: Material Substance and Quantity, from Suárez to Leibniz
Quantity and Extension in Suárez and Descartes
This paper compares the development of the notion of continuous quantity in the work of Francisco Suárez and René Descartes. The discussion begins with a consideration of Suárez’s rejection of the view – common to ‘realists’ such as Thomas Aquinas and ‘nominalists’ such as William of Ockham – that quantity is inseparable from the extension of material integral parts. Crucial here is Suárez’s view that quantified extension exhibits a kind of impen…
The indefinite in the Descartes-More correspondence
In this article, I consider Descartes’ enigmatic claim that we must assert that the material world is indefinite rather than infinite. The focus here is on the discussion of this claim in Descartes’ late correspondence with More. One puzzle that emerges from this correspondence is that Descartes insists to More that we are not in a position to deny the indefinite universe has limits, while at the same time indicating that we conceive a contradict…
Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life
Descartes offers a view of the material world that identifies matter with indefinitely divisible extension. Such a view also eliminates the various substantial forms that, for his Scholastic contemporaries, serve to distinguish the natural substances of our experience, the paradigmatic instances of which are living things. These contemporaries countered that this view presents the world as a barren desert landscape, devoid of the variety of every…
The Cartesian Brain: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives
International audience
Philosophy (21 works) · Epistemology (18 works) · Historical Philosophy and Science (12 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (11 works) · History of Science and Medicine (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Historical and Literary Studies (5 works) · Metaphysics (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Cartesianism (4 works)