The Cartesian destiny of form and matter

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 300-325

  Ariew, Roger ^a   Grene, Marjorie ^a  

^a VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 34547615399     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338297X00168     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. Our thesis could be taken as a more general version of the thesis that Vincent Carraud proposes with respect to Ockhamism and the reception of Cartesianism by Arnauld, in "Arnauld: From Ockhamism to Cartesianism", in Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies, ed-R. Ariew and M. Grene (Chicago, 1995), 110-128.
2. Aristotle, Physics, I, 190b28-30.
3. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics, I, lectio 13.
4. For example, F. Toletus, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in octo libros de physica auscultatione (Venice, 1589), quaestio 13, "An materia sit substantia", quaest. 14, "An potentia sit de essentia materia", quaest. 16, "An materia sit ingenerabilis et incorruptibilis", quaest. 17, "An materia appetat formam", quaest. 20, "An materia sit cause corruptionis, an forma"; Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Summa Philosophica Quadripartita (Paris, 1629), pars III: Physica, Book I, disp. 2, quaest. 2, "Quid sit materia, et quare sit admittenda", quaest. 3, "Quaenam et qualia sit potentia materiae", quaest. 4, "Quaenam sint praecipuae proprietates materiae";
5. Abra De Raconis, Summa philosophia (Paris, 1651)
6. Tertia pars, Physica, Tractatus de Principiis, disputatio secunda, art. 3, memb. 5, "Utrum materia sit pura potentia Metaphysica", memb. 6, "Utrum materia sit pure potentia physica." Many of these issues are discussed in detail by D. Des Chene, Physiologia: Philosophy of Nature in Descartes and the Aristotelians (Ithaca, NY, 1995).
7. For example, S. Dupleix, La physique [1603] (Paris: Fayard, 1990), chap. 5: "Resolution des argumens qui concluent qu'il n'y peut avoir de matiere premiere separée des formes"
8. See, for example, Dupleix, La physique, book II, chap. 2;
9. Eustachius, Summa, III. 1. 2, quaest. 6-7.
10. See also D. Sennert, Epitome naturalis scientiae (Wittenberg, 1618), English trans., Thirteen books of natural philosophy (London, 1659), book I, chap. 3. Sennert goes a step further than the usual textbook writer. He accepts the standard account, that neither matter nor form are generated, only the compound of matter and form, but when he comes to the scholastic phrase that forms are drawn out of the aptitude or potentiality of matter, he says that he hears the sound of the words, but that his mind hears nothing. Ultimately he accepts Toletus's rejection of the opinion that there was something of form in matter before its introduction therein.
11. Th. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, quaest. 7, art. 2.
12. D. Scotus, Opus Oxoniense, II, dist. 12, quaest. 1. W. of Ockham also holds a similar doctrine.
13. Scotus, Opus Oxoniense, II, dist. 12, quaest. 2.
14. Toletus, Physica, quaest. XIII: An materia sit substantia, fol. 34 verso.
15. Toletus, Physica, ibid.
16. See Th. Bouju, Corps de toute la philosophie (Paris, 1614), vol. I, pp. 315-16
17. Abra De Raconis, Physica, Tractatus de Principiis, disp. 2, memb. 4, "Utrum materia sit pura potentia metaphysica", pp. 35-39.
18. "On ne doit pas pourtant nier que Dieu ne puisse conserver la matiere sans aucune forme, puis que ce sont deux estres distinguez, qui ne dependent pas d'avantage l'un de l'autre, que l'accident de la substance, qui se voit separé d'elle dans l'Eucharistie." R. De Ceriziers, Le philosophe français, (Paris, 1643), chap. 3, 51-52.
19. P. Gaultruche, Philosophiae ac mathematicae totius clara, brevis, el accurata inslitutio, 5 vols. (Caen, 1665), vol. 2, Physica Universalis, 27.
20. C. Frassen, Philosophia Academica, 3rd. ed. (Paris, 1686), 3641;
21. P. Barbay, Commentarius in Aristotelis physicam, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1676), 64-72;
22. J. Vincent, Cursus philosophicus (Toulouse, 1660), 2:74-77..
23. S. Dupleix, La Metaphysique (Paris: Fayard, 1992), 231-232.
24. Cf. Leibniz on the principle of individuation. See the discussion in L. B. McCullough, Leibniz on Individuals and Individuation: The Persistence of Prenodern Ideas in Modern Philosophy (Dordrecht, 1997).
25. Abra De Raconis, Physica, quarta pars, Metaphysica, tract. 4, sec. 2, 4, brevis appendix, "De unitate singulari et numerica, seu principio individuationis", PP. 76-78;
26. Eustachius a Sancto Paulo, Summa, quarta pars, metaphysica, tractatus de proprietatibus entis, disp. 2, de simplicibus proprietatibus Entis, quaest. 4, "Quodnam sit principium unitatis numerica, seu individuationis", pp. 38-39.
27. F. Burgersdijk, Institutionum metaphysicarum (The Hague, 1657), I, chap. 12
28. For a similar movement in the conception of 'idea', from ideas as Forms to ideas as particular images, see R. Ariew and M. Grene, "Ideas, in and before Descartes", Journal of the History of Ideas 56(1995), 87-106.
29. S. Basso, Philosophiae naturalis adversus Aristotelem. In quibus abstrusa veterum Physiologia restauratur, et Aristotelis errores solidis rationibus refelluntur (2nd ed. Amsterdam, 1649), 27;
30. M. Mersenne, L'impiété des Déistes, Athées, et Libertins de ce temps, combattue, et renversée de point en point par raisons lirée de la Philosophie, et de la Théologie (Paris, 1624), 237-238.
31. See also R. Ariew, "Descartes, Basson et la scolastique renaissante", proceedings of Descartes et la Renaissance, forthcoming.
32. See D. Garber, "Descartes, the Aristotelians and the Revolution that Did not Happen in 1637", The Monist 71(1988), 471-486
33. "Formae item omnes substantiales (excepta rationali) non minus absurde defenduntur ab Aristotelicis quam materia, cum per eas intelligant substantias quasdam incompletas, unum per se cum materia substantiale compositum constituentes; materia enim e naturali composito sublata, et formas saltern materiali tolli necesse est. CENSURA: Haec propositio est temeraria, erronea, et hacresi proxima." J. De Launoy, De varia Aristotelis fortuna (2nd ed., Hages-Comitum, 1656), 310-321.
34. This prohibition was renewed in 1671 and became the basis for condemnations of Cartesianism; see R. Ariew, "Damned if you do: Cartesians and Censorship, 1663-1706", Perspectives on Science 3(1994):255-274.
35. M. Mersenne, La verite des sciences (Paris, 1625), 100-101.
36. J.-C. Frey, Cribrum Philosophorum qui Aristotelem superiore et hac aetate oppugnarunt (Paris, 1628), chap. 27.
37. E. De Clave, Nouvelle lumiere philosophique (Paris, 1641), chap. 1 "Du nombre des elemens Peripatetiques"
38. See also N. E. Emerton, The Scientific Reinterpretation of Form (Ithaca, NY, 1984), 60-61.
39. and G. De Boot, Philosophic Naturalis Reformata (Dublin, 1641);
40. W. Pemble, De Formarum Origine ([1628] ed. posthuma, Cambridge, 1650).
41. See AT, 7:434;
42. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (Cambridge, 1985), 2:293.
43. References to this work will be abbreviated CSM, volume, page. See also M. Grene, Descartes Among the Scholastics (Milwaukee, 1991), 38-39.
44. AT, 3:491-2
45. CSM, 3:205.
46. Descartes, Olympica, AT, 10:218;
47. CSM, 1:5.
48. Descartes, Le Monde, AT 10:7;
49. CSM, 1:83.
50. AT, 10:39;
51. CSM, 1:94.
52. Ibid., AT, 10:25;
53. CSM, 1:89.
54. Ibid., AT 10:26;
55. CSM, 1:89;
56. AT, 10:26
57. CSM, 1:89;
58. AT, 10:33
59. CSM, 1:91;
60. AT, 10:34
61. CSM, 1:91;
62. AT, 10:39
63. CSM, 10:94;
64. AT, 10:48
65. The World/Le Monde, trans. M. S. Mahoney (New York, 1979), 79;
66. AT, 10:51-2
67. Mahoney, The World, 83-85.
68. Descartes, Le Monde, AT, 10:35;
69. CSM, 1:92.
70. AT, 8A: 52-3
71. CSM, 1:232-3.
72. AT, 8A: 103
73. CSM, 1:258.
74. Th. Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, 3:22.
75. See V. Carraud, "La matiere assume toutes les formes: note sur le concept d'ordre et sur une proposition thomiste de la cosmogonie cartesienne", La Conception de la Science, ed. J. Gayon, forthcoming. As Carraud also points out, Leibniz rails against the proposition on a number of occasions (for example, see Leibniz's Letter to Molanus, ca. 1679).
76. R. Le Bossu, Parallele des Principes de la Physique d'Aristote et de celle de René Des Cartes, (Paris, 1674; reprint ed., Paris, 1981).
77. See also M. Grene, "Aristotelico-Cartesian Themes in Natural Philosophy: Some Seventeenth-Century Cases", Perspectives on Science 2(1993), 66-87.
78. See Grene, "Aristotelico-Cartesian Themes", 73-77.
79. A. Heereboord, Philosophia Naturalis (ed. posthuma, Oxford, 1668);
80. for Chouet, see M. Heyd, Between Orthodoxy and the Enlightenment. Robert Chouet and the Introduction of Cartesian Science in the Academy of Geneva (The Hague, 1982), esp. chap. 4, 116-144.
81. See the letter to Colvius of 8 April 1642, excerpted in AT, 8B, 197.
82. See also Th. Verbeek, Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy 1637-1650 (Carbondale, 1992)
83. and J. A. Van Ruler, The Crisis of Causality, Voetius and Descartes on God, Nature and Change (Leiden, 1995).
84. A. Heereboord, Meletemata philosophica (ed. nova, Amsterdam, 1680), 162.
85. Rohault's System of Natural Philosophy (London, 1723-24; reprint ed., New York: Garland, 1987), 1:21-22, 102-105.
86. P. S. Régis, Cours entier de philosophie; ou, Systeme general selon les principes de M. Descartes, contenant la logique, la metaphysique, la physique, et la morale (Amsterdam, 1691; reprint ed., New York, 1970), La physique, livre second, chap. 1, "Des Formes des Estres purement materiels en general"; chap. 2, "Examen du 1. Chapitre du 1. Livre de 1'ame, dans lequel on pretend qu'Aristote etablit les formes substantielles"; chap. 3, "De la division des Formes materielles en general"; pp. 390-397.
87. A. Le Grand, Entire Body of Philosophy according to the Principles of the famous Renate Descartes (London, 1694), title page.
88. For more information about Le Grand, see R. A. Watson, Introduction to reprint of A. Le Grand, Entire Body of Philosophy (New York, 1972);
89. see also Grene, "Aristotelico-Cartesian Themes", 80-81.
90. Le Grand, Entire Body, 102.
91. Scholastics (and members of religious orders, in this case, Jesuits and Minims) such as Fabri and Maignan discarded substantial forms: H. Fabri, De plantis et de generatione animalium, de homine (Lyons, 1666)
92. and E. Maignan, Cursus philosophicus (Toulouse, 1653).
93. There were even schoolmen, such as Casimir of Toulouse, who tried to merge Gassendi's atoms with Peripatetic philosophy: Casimir De Toulouse, Atomi peripateticae, sive turn veterum turn recentiorum atomistarum placita ad neotericae scholae methodum redacta (Toulouse, 1674). We should not, of course, forget the Leibnizian reestablishment of matter-form.