Table Of ContentPHYSIOLOGIA
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PHYSIOLOGIA
Natural Philosophy in
Late Aristotelian and
Cartesian Thought
'i
Dennis Des Chene
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
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PUBLICATION OF THIS BOOK WAS ASSISTED BY A GRANT
FROM THE PUBLICATIONS PROGRAM OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT
FOR THE HUMANITIES, AN INDEPENDENT FEDERAL AGENCY.
Copyright© I996 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for briefquotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not
be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information,
address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 5I2 East State Street, Ithaca, New York I485o.
First published I996 by Cornell University Press
First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2000
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Des Chene, Dennis.
Physiologia : natural philosophy in late Aristotelian and
Cartesian thought I Dennis Des Chene.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-8oi4-3072-o (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN o-8oi4-8687-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Physics-Philosophy. 2. Aristotle-Influence. 3· Descartes,
Rene, I596-I65o-Influence. 4· Philosophy, Medieval. 5· Philosophy
ofnature. I. Title.
QC6.D43 I995
II3--<iC20
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Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations and Orthographical Conventions xi
Introduction
1. Interpretations of Nature 1
2. Aristotelianism 7
3· Leitfaden 1 1
PART 1 Vicaria Dei
1. Natural Change
2. Motus, Potentia, Actus 21
2.1. Potentia and Actus 24
2.2. Independent Existence of Motus 34
2.3. Action and Passion 40
2.4. Active and Passive Potentim 46
3· Form, Privation, and Substance 53
3.1. Principles of Change 55
3.2. Substantial Form and Prime Matter 64
3·3· Form as Substance 76
4· Matter, Quantity, and Figure
4.1. The Essence of Matter 83
4.2. Quantity and Prime Matter 97
4·3· Figure and Other Qualities 109
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[vi] Contents
5· The Structure of Physical Substance 1 2 2
5.1. Matter and Form Distinguished 124
5.2. Substantial Union 134
5·3· Conditions for the Reception of Form: Dispositions 138
5-4- Substantial Form and Active Powers 157
6. Finality and Final Causes 168
6.1. Varieties of End 171
6.2. Existence of Ends 177
6.3. Character of the Final Cause 186
6.4. Teleological Reasoning 200
7· Nature and Counternature 212
7.1. The Uses of Nature 213
7.2. Individual Natures 227
7·3· Artifacts, Human and Divine 239
PART n: Bodies in Motion
8. Motion and Its Causes 2 55
8.1. The Definition and Mode of Existence of Motion 25 7
8.2. Persistence, Conatus, and Quantity of Motion 272
8.3. Natural and Divine Agency: The Problem of Force 312
g. Parts of Matter 342
9.1. Extensive Quantity and the Nature of Matter 345
9.2. Substance and Space 354
9·3· Physical Questions: The Sufficiency of Extension 377
10. World without Ends 391
Bibliography 399
Primary Sources 399
Secondary Sources 406
Index
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Preface
I
t sometimes happens that the book one sets out to write is not the
book one eventually writes. So it was with this book: what began as an
introductory pair of chapters in a book on Aristotelian and Cartesian
psychology augmented itself into a book devoted to Aristotelian and
Cartesian philosophy of nature. There was, it turned out, no compendious
study of the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Aristotelian philoso
phers who, at least until the time of Locke, dominated the teaching of the
universities of Europe. Despite the efforts of Gilson and some of his suc
cessors, their commentaries and cursus, immense and forbidding, have re
mained largely unknown territory. Especially among analytic philosophers,
the Latin world of the early modern period has until recently been all but
forgotten. This work is an initial effort to make that world more familiar.
The disadvantages of ignorance are several. It is impossible to discern
what is new and what is not in Descartes's work without a thorough knowl
edge of those earlier works from which he first learned his metaphysics and
natural philosophy. Or rather, since a distinction of new and old is too
crude, itis impossible to assess his use ofthe resources available to him; nor
can one securely divine from the Cartesian corpus alone the significance to
be attached to terms and propositions whose intended audience often con
sisted ofAristotelians. Itis, moreover, on any but the most naive view of the
timelessness of philosophical questions and solutions, fruitless to evaluate
his arguments without such knowledge. I would add, finally, that the Aristo
telians, contrary to the caricatures often painted of them by their oppo
nents, were careful and serious thinkers; some, like Suarez, are worthy of
study independent of their importance to later philosophers.
One aim of this work is to make ignorance of Aristotelianism disreputa
ble. There are indeed obstacles in the way ofanyone now who undertakes to
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[viii] Preface
study the Aristotelians: the language, the disputational format of their writ
ings, the dependence, explicit or not, of later texts upon earlier texts, and
the consequent requirement that one should have also studied the domi
nant Medieval figures. But those obstacles are effectively no more difficult
to overcome than those that present themselves, say, to the student of Kant
or Hegel, and overcoming them opens the way to five centuries ofrich and
profound philosophical argument.
A work whose gestation is lengthy acquires many debts, personal and intel
lectual. One of the pleasures of finishing is to acknowledge those debts.
Every student of Renaissance philosophy will, first ofall, build on the work
of his or her predecessors. Historians like Etienne Gilson, Anneliese Maier,
Charles Schmitt, Tullio Gregory, and Edward Grant have brought to light
and interpreted for modern readers the enormous and complex world of
Medieval and Renaissance philosophy. Closer to home, Gilson, Dan Garber,
Roger Ariew, Alan Gabbey,John Schuster, Genevieve Rodis-Lewis,Jean-Luc
Marion, Pierre Costabel, Jean-Louis Armogathe, and many others have en
larged the horizons of the study of Cartesian philosophy of nature. This
work-and for that matter the idea ofthis work-would have been impossi
ble without theirs.
Among those who have read drafts of the manuscript, or who have pro
vided comments and supports along the way, I thank first my lectrix prima
Mary Des Chene, whose sharp eye no infelicitous phrase evades. She now
has more Aristotelian philosophy than any anthropologist needs. I have
benefited from comments from and discussions with Mark Rigstad, Thanos
Raftopoulos, Mauro Dorato, and Natalie Brender. Natalie has become an
able answerer of obscure queries while assisting me in my research. Ed
Minar's conversation and questions helped me as I was thinking out the
larger project of which this book is the first segment. Ira Singer read and
commented on Part I. Peter Achinstein and Rob Rynasiewicz will, I hope,
see echoes of bygone lunch conversations in Part II. Jerry Schneewind's
belief in the value of a history of philosophy not subservient to present-day
conceptions has reinforced my own. The late David Sachs presented to all
who knew him a day-to-day exemplum ofphilosophical curiosity and rigor; I
regret that he was not able to see his encouragements come to fruition.
Intermittent conversations with Steve Menn have proved fruitful, as has the
reading ofsome ofhis work in manuscript. Roger Ariew and Emily Grosholz
offered knowledgeable advice and criticism. Roger Haydon, the editor for
Cornell University Press, has supported the work since its earliest stages:
sine qua non.
The project from which this book has grown began with work at Stanford
University under Arnold Davidson, Peter Galison, and Stuart Hampshire.
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Preface [ix]
During that time I received support from the philosophy department; a
· fellowship from the Mrs. Giles S. Whiting Foundation in 1986-1987 funded
my fifth year of graduate study. In 1984-1986 a graduate fellowship at the
Stanford Humanities Center yielded a fine office and the intellectual stim
ulation of meeting scholars from diverse disciplines. An Eli S. Lilly Founda
tion teaching fellowship funded one semester's leave-replacement in the
spring of 1993, a crucial time in the writing ofthis book. Jacqueline Mitchell
coordinated the program atJohns Hopkins University; she was, moreover, a
source of encouragement through the year of the fellowship. Research
materials without which this book would have been impossible were ac
quired for me through the alchemical skills ofAlan Braddock and others at
the interlibrary loan office at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. I thank them
for their efficiency and patience.
Earlier versions ofmaterial from §6 were given as talks at the University of
British Columbia and at Yale University. I thank Paul Russell and Paolo
Mancosu for their invitations and hospitality; I have since benefited also
from reading Paolo's work on Descartes's geometry. A version of §8.1 was
presented, at the invitation ofSharon Kingsland, at the History and Philoso
phy of Science Colloquium at Hopkins in the fall of 1993.
DENNIS DEs CHENE
Baltimore, Maryland
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