Descartes on the Metaphysics of the Material World

Bibliographic Data

ID10693432
AuthorsTad M Schmaltz (University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume127
Issue1
Pages1-40
Publication date2018-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00318108-4230047
OpenAlexW2793137828
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited23

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 pluralist reading of this passage, according to which there are indefinitely many bodies-taken-in-general, each of which counts as an incorruptible material substance. However, I also consider some surprising features of the argument in the Synopsis. One is that this argument conflicts with the implication in Descartes that any two “really distinct” substances can each exist without the other existing. Another is that the argument tends to undermine his suggestion that there is room at a fundamental metaphysical level for ordinary material objects

Argument (complex analysis) · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Monism · Physicalism · Pluralism (philosophy) · Reading (process) · Chemistry · Historical Philosophy and Science · History of Medicine Studies · History of Science and Medicine · Philosophy

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