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History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps
HoP 476 What He Should Have Said: the Early Cartesians
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Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in munich. Online@historyofphilosophy.net Today's episode what he should have Said the Early Cartesians what should Descartes have told Elizabeth when she pressed him to explain the interaction of mind and body? Well, we've already seen one suggestion from modern day Descartes scholar Dan Garber. As we saw, he has pointed to evidence that for Descartes, motion in bodies is caused by God. When the Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka scores a goal, it's not the impact of the ball that makes the back of the net ripple, but God. In fact, it's also God who makes the ball move when Sokka's foot hits it. By contrast, it would be Sokka himself, or rather his soul, who moves his foot by manipulating the pineal gland in his brain, which is connected to his leg through his nervous system. But either way, it is always a mind, whether divine or human, that gives rise to motion. So Elizabeth should not have been puzzled by the mind's moving the body, or at least no more puzzled by this than by the apparent motion of one body by another. This is a clever proposal on Garber's part, though as I also mentioned at the time, it is not one shared by all interpreters. In fact, there are passages where Descartes seems unequivocally to be saying that one body does move another, albeit within the laws laid down by God. Alternatively, Descartes may have thought that when the ball hits the back of the net, both the ball and God cause the net to move. God would then be a concurrent cause, meaning that he cooperates with created causes to bring about the effects we observe. This debate over Descartes intentions and over the role of God in causing events in the created world goes back to the immediate reception of his works. It became one of the central issues, if not the central issue, in early Cartesianism. I suspect that one reason for this may be the religious context. Since the outbreak of the Reformation, in fact, even longer than that, theological dispute had been raging over the closely parallel question of how God is involved in human actions. To what extent does our free will allow us to act independently of God, and to what extent is his help needed if we are to act at all, or at least to act righteously? The standard Catholic position was that human choice and divine grace work together to produce good actions, which would correspond to the concurrentist theory of events in the world more generally. By contrast, making God the sole author of all events would be more like the Calvinist position on predestination and grace. Now, I'm not saying that the philosophical debate over causation is simply an extension of the theological debate over grace, but I think it cannot be a coincidence that this more general inquiry into the extent of divine participation in worldly events emerged at this place and time. In fact, there's an inevitable connection between the theological and philosophical problems. Anyone who suggested that God causes everything to happen would surely be challenged on the grounds that this would make God the cause of some things that would be better off not happening, especially the sinful acts that are apparently performed by us fallible humans. This is exactly what happened to Louis de Lafroge. A student named Jacques Gousset reported having a conversation with him in 1658 in which La Forge claimed that all bodily and even all mental actions are produced by God. When Gousset made the obvious objection, just mentioned that this would mean God is the cause of sin, La Forge simply said that he couldn't comment on that because he was not a theologian. If Gousset's story is accurate, then at this date La Forge was expressing a particularly thoroughgoing version of the theory that has come to be known as occasionalism. The name derives from a distinctive aspect of the theory, namely, that what seem to be causes in the created world are merely occasions for God to make things happen. Thus, when Bukayo Saka strikes the ball, he his foot hitting its surface is just a kind of cue or signal for God to create motion in the ball which duly arcs through the air and beats the Tottenham goalkeeper at the far corner. The ball's reaching the back of the goal is then likewise the occasion for God to create a rippling motion in the net. So next time your sports team wins, you can say thank God and really mean it. But according to the Occasionalist, it's not only really important and gratifying things and that God brings about, like Arsenal beating Tottenham, it's literally everything we see happening in the world around us. Occasionalism is a position most commonly associated with Nicolas Malebranche, but it seems to have emerged first among thinkers who were closer to Descartes and responsible for disseminating his ideas. Along with La Forge, the other man most important in this story was Gerard de Caudemois. Cotemont, originally trained as a lawyer, but started frequenting the philosophical discussions that were being held at private houses across Paris in the 1650s. In this context, he met Jacques Rohol, who was especially interested in physics and would hold forth on this subject at a salon in his own home on Wednesday evenings. According to Claude Clersollier, who took over as Descartes literary executor after the death of Mersenne Claire, Raoul was the most learned exponent of Cartesian science. He also wrote a treatise on physics that became a standard reference for Cartesian views on this discipline for generations to come. The commitment of these men to carrying on the master's views is shown by the fact that, according to Descartes biographer, Ballet Placeillier arranged for Rohol to marry his own daughter solely out of consideration for the philosophy of Monsieur Descartes. I bet the daughter had some pretty clear and distinct ideas about that. In any case, through this salon culture, Cordemoit too was drawn into the circles pursuing the new philosophy and became a fixture of the Cartesian movement. When Descartes treatise the World appeared posthumously in 1664, the edition included a piece by Codomont on bodily actions and a work about heat by Rollin. One of Cotimois projects was the defense of Descartes religious orthodoxy. In 1668, he wrote a letter to a Jesuit correspondent arguing that Cartesian physics was compatible with the Bible. Cordemoy laid it on pretty thick, claiming rather implausibly that Descartes only seems to have become a philosopher by reading Moses. But you cannot blame him, because the whole development of early Cartesianism was threatened by charges of impiety. The method of radical doubt used in the Meditations was deemed suspicious, since it seemed to involve setting aside doctrines we should accept by faith and believing in them only once they are proven by philosophical argument. That's a pretty risky strategy from a religious point of view, especially given that Descartes arguments seemed open to objections at many points. Then too, Descartes had rather incautiously offered an opinion about this Eucharist, suggesting how the transformation of bread into the body of Christ could be explained with his new physics. Since Christ's body, like any body, is mere extension, it could simply exist underneath incidental properties or modes that make it look and taste like bread. As Antoine Arnaud commented, this was contrary to all that has been taught in the church for 600 years. When yet another Cartesian, Robert de Gabet, who wrote in favor of Descartes account, it provoked the Archbishop of Paris to lay down a ban on teaching Cartesian ideas. When that happened, in 1671, it was only the latest in a series of attempts to restrict the spread of Cartesianism, for instance, an earlier prohibition laid down by the Vatican in 1663. The Cartesians fought back, as when Placeillier solicited testimonies in favor of Descartes Orthodoxy in 1667 on the occasion of the reburial of his remains in Paris. This was not the public relations success Cresselier had in mind. The chancellor of the University of Paris was invited to speak, but then forbidden to do so because Descartes was such a controversial figure. Such concerns would continue to appear. In 1682, one critic said bitterly that Descartes philosophy was appealing because it was much easier than Aristotelianism, but it completely destroys ordinary philosophy and undermines Catholic doctrine. In light of these worries, it's ironic that the occasionalism of Lafarge and Coeur de Moi might well seem to go too far in recognizing the omnipotence and majesty of God. But the rationale they offered was not theological or biblical. Rather, they were led to their conclusions by the principles of the Cartesian system. To understand how, we should first note that we are in a way dealing with four questions here, and not just one. As we know, Descartes metaphysics recognizes only two kinds of substance other than God, namely mind and body, with mind characterized purely by thought and body purely by extension. So causation between two substances could come in four possible a body interacting with another body, the body having an effect on the mind, the mind having an effect on the body, and the mind somehow operating on itself. So, for instance, we have Bukayo Soka's foot apparently making the ball move. That's a body body interaction. A body mind interaction would be like the contact of the ball with Sokka's foot, making Sokka's mind feel the impact. The other way around, a mind body interaction would be, for example, Sokka choosing to move his foot so as to strike the ball. Finally, ideas in Saka's own mind can influence one another, as when his knowledge of the goalkeeper's positioning dictates his decision of which corner to aim at. The reason I go through these four options is that a philosopher might make God responsible for only some of them and not others. Often it's assumed that occasionalism was motivated by the need to solve the problem of mind body interaction. As Elizabeth pointed out, it is hard to see how an immaterial thing like the mind can make a body do anything, or vice versa. Occasionalism would come to the rescue by saying that Sokka's decision to perform a kicking motion would not be the cause, but only the occasion for God's putting motion into his foot. Likewise, the other way around, when Sokka's foot strikes the ball, that would merely be an occasion for God to create an awareness of the impact and Saka's mind. In other words, God would take care of coordinating the mental events with the bodily ones, and there would be no causal influence across the gap between immaterial and material things. One could say all this, though, while not being an occasionalist about body, body and mind Mind cases. After all, bodies seem ideally suited to cause motion in other bodies, and the mind seems to be able to cause one thought with another, as when the idea of Tottenham Hotspur immediately triggers the idea of condescending pity in the mind of an Arsenal fan. Yet Codemoin and La Forge do also apply occasionalism to causation between bodies, like between foot and ball, or between ball and net. Why would they do this, since there's no problem here of interaction between different kinds of substances? Well, as both observed centuries before, Garver made the same point. For Cartesians, explaining the effect of one body on another is just as hard as explaining the mind's influence on the body. One difficulty is that motion is only a mode belonging to a body. It's hard to understand how one body could simply transfer one of its modes to another one. Nor can bodies cause motion just in their own right. Remember, the only thing that belongs to bodies by their very essence is extension, which is just as compatible with being in rest as it is with being in motion. These points are made by both La Forge and Caudemort in the latter case, within a collection of six discourses he wrote about body and soul. He concludes that there must be some other cause besides body that explains motion. This should be the cause that first started moving them around. And that will of course be God, who in addition sees to it that the total amount of motion in the universe remains the same. Which brings up another if there's never more or less motion overall in nature, then what is happening when one of us makes a spontaneous decision to initiate a motion? It certainly seems like Bukayo Saka could be standing over a free kick, not yet moving, and then choose to step forward and swing his foot at the ball. Doesn't that add a new bit of motion to the universe? No, say our Cartesians. Laforge explains that the human mind never creates motions in bodies, but only redirects motions that already exist, especially by steering the animal spirits first one way and then another, using the pineal gland. But of course, the human decision is not really the cause of the motion anyway. It's only the occasion for God to do the real causing. As for the mind's influence on itself, it seems that here Codomois changed his own mind. He at first made this an exception to his general occasionalism, perhaps to preserve human free will. But eventually he comes around to saying, without further argument, that mental events are caused by God too. As for La Forge, he supposedly adopted this more radical view in that conversation reported by Gousset. But in his written works he allows for the human mind to exert causation on itself, so this would constitute an exception to his more generally occasionalist theory. I keep referring to Cordemont and La Forge as Cartesians, and they would appreciate my doing so. La Forge says that he always argues according to the principles of Descartes without straying from his views, and that where he might seem to be disagreeing with the Master, he's actually just correcting inconsistencies. It is almost, he says, through Descartes own doctrine, that one corrects his faults. These thinkers were, in other words, only willing to diverge from Descartes in order to tell us what he should have said. But that could mean coming into flagrant contradiction with what Descartes in fact said. You'd be hard pressed to find the faithful La Forge doing that. But Codemort openly defended a position that had been explicitly rejected by atomism. Again, the definition of body is relevant here. As I keep saying, its only essential feature is extension, and every extension is infinitely divisible. Therefore, Descartes argued, bodies are not made up of atoms, that is, smallest indivisible parts. In his Six Discourses, Codemoin makes so bold as to disagree, and on what he sees as good Cartesian grounds. If bodies are really substances, then they cannot depend on anything else, not even on their own parts. And if what is essential to them is their extension, they must have that extension whenever they exist. Thus, one and the same substance considered in itself cannot be divided. If its nature is to be capable of extension, then the moment that one conceives of it as extended, one will have to grant that because it is the same in all its extremities, none of these extremities are separable from it. He seems to be thinking that it is essential to each body not just to have some extension or other, but to have a certain determinate size that it cannot lose. When certain people, including Descartes, find themselves thinking that bodies can always be divided, they are confusing body with matter or with mass. Matter is indeed divisible into parts, but that's because it's not really a substance. A body, being essentially just the size it is, would be utterly destroyed if it were divided. Having gone this far, Cotimois goes further still and endorses another idea Descartes had rejected. Where there is no atomic body, there's just empty space or void. If you pack bodies as tightly together as possible, then there will be gaps or pores between them. More faithful Cartesians would reply that there could be bodies in these tiny gaps, to which Cotemont says, yes, quite, but that doesn't mean there has to be anything there. For example, if the space inside a vessel were emptied, that would not automatically mean that the sides of the vessel would collapse in on themselves to prevent any void from forming. Furthermore, certain observations support the postulation of void. How else can light pass through transparent bodies like glass and water? And aren't the various states of water, from frozen to liquid to boiling, best explained by appealing to different ratios of void to the particles in the volume of water? How can Bukayo saka wriggle even through the tightest defensive back line? Despite these appeals to empirical evidence, it should be noted that Cordomois arguments are really metaphysical in nature. His atomism is based fundamentally on the Cartesian definitions of body and substance, not on the impossibility of explaining scientific phenomena. But without postulating atoms and void. Other Cartesians, like Pierre Sylvain Regis and the aforementioned Robert de Gabet, were appalled. They accused Cotemois of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, meaning Pierre Gassandi and his supporters. We haven't gotten to Gossandi quite yet, but when we do, we'll see that he endorsed a version of atomism that found a number of adherents, forming something of an opposition party to the Cartesians. Amongst self styled proponents of the new science, Des Gabet thought the stakes were momentous, writing that Cotimoin's atomism takes away one of the strongest supports from the true philosophy and strengthens notably the side of Monsieur Gossendi, which has already only too much the appearance of supporting itself and of overcoming that of Descartes. Though his may be the only philosophy from which the world can receive a general reformation. While it was an exaggeration to say that Cartesianism might reform the whole world, it was doing pretty well, at least in Europe, apart from France. The biggest impact was felt in the Netherlands, which makes sense because Descartes had spent so much time there. Cartesians became especially dominant at the University of Leiden, though not without stiff opposition, in 1647, a public disputation about Descartes ideas ended in shouting and fist fights. The spokesman for Cartesianism on that occasion was Johannes de Rey, who had studied with Descartes, sometimes wayward ally Regius, and also with Adrian Herebord upon his inauguration as professor of theology. Herebord had promised to free philosophy from the moribund doctrines of the scholastics. He duly criticized Aristotelianism in his teaching, albeit without being so impolitic as to mention Descartes by name. A rival authority. The inspiration was clear, though. Among his Cartesian proposals were an identification of matter with quantity or extension, a corpuscular analysis of light, and the advice to base metaphysics on clear and distinct ideas, since these can never be false. His student de Rais took a somewhat more cautious approach, arguing that Aristotle and Descartes could be reconciled on many issues. Where the two did disagree, though, Descartes was to be preferred. For instance, unlike Aristotle, he had shown how to prove the immortality of the soul, a point often made by partisans of Descartes seeking to establish his religious orthodoxy. Similar moves were made by another Leyton scholar named Florentinus Seul. He translated Descartes treatise on man into Dutch and added his own preface defending the controversial idea that animals are nothing but machines. Seul thought this was another point in favor of Descartes over Aristotle, since it so clearly established a gulf between human and beast which should be welcomed by pious Christians. When Cresselier brought out an edition of the Treatise on Man in France, he added a translation of Seul's treatise, a nice example of the exchange of ideas between the two countries where Descartes spent most of his career. But the spread of Cartesianism was wider than that. Even in Britain, where no Cartesian school really developed. Descartes works were circulating in European editions already in the 1640s. English translations began to appear at the end of that decade, Discourse on the method in 1649, then passions of the soul in 1650. Perhaps the closest to an English disciple would be Antoine Legrand, who wrote summaries of Descartes ideas. But more original thinkers like Kenem Digby, Henry Moore and Isaac Newton all engaged with Cartesian philosophy too. Meanwhile, over in Germany, an early Cartesian named Johann Clauberg was adopting a strategy not unlike that of presenting Descartes ideas in a less provocative form that might be compatible with more traditional doctrines. For instance, he accepted the Aristotelian idea of prime matter as underlying corporeal extension, the observable properties of bodies could be explained simply as the results of the way that God arranges the extensions. Similarly, when Clauberg encouraged the method of radical doubt, he made the significant exception that religious beliefs should not be suspended. These olive branches held out to the scholastics should not conceal his allegiances. He wrote a defense of Descartes in 1652 and then filled a gap in Descartes system by writing a work specifically dedicated to logic based on Cartesian principles. This anticipates the project of a well known text that came a decade later, the Port Royal Logic, which we'll cover in a future episode. Most likely you haven't heard of the Port Royal Logic either, but take my word for it, it's more famous than Cotemois, La Forge des Gabet, Heribaurd de Rais and Clauberg. Their names are now known only to specialists. But at the time, men like these helped establish Descartes as a philosopher to be reckoned with. And not only men, by the way, we already know about the support and patronage that Princess Elizabeth and Queen Christina offered to Descartes. Other aristocratic women were then involved in the intellectual culture of Paris, where Descartes ideas were so fervently discussed. One of them was Madame de Bonneville, host of a regular salon that attracted Cordemont, among others. One witness said of her, no one ever understood Descartes with more facility than this illustrious woman. What was the effect of all these engagements with his ideas across both national borders and even gender lines? Well, it would be misleading to describe such renowned figures as Malevranch, Spinoza and Leibniz as Cartesians. But still, all of them do need to be understood as reacting to the Cartesian movement. What kind of movement was this though? After all, we've seen many differences between our protagonists. Some, so called Cartesians rejected occasionalism entirely. Some adopted it for only certain kinds of apparent causation, and some applied it across the board. We find Cartesians squabbling over atomism, both dismissing Aristotelianism and trying to reconcile it with the new philosophy. Are there any core ideas shared by all Descartes followers? According to one leading expert, the answer is yes. Stephen Nadler's recent book on La Forge identifies three doctrines as definitive and non negotiable. First, a metaphysics that recognizes only two kinds of substance, which are endowed with essential attributes and non essential modes. Second, the substance, I.e. body, is understood as extension, yielding a mechanistic approach to physics. Third, the other substance, mind, has two aspects, intellect and will, and has access to clear and distinct ideas that can be used as the basis for the rest of philosophy. If you accept all these things, then you just might be a Cartesian too. More likely, you're not ready to become a card carrying member just yet. But you should reserve judgment, since we have yet to explore some of the developments associated with Cartesianism. Around the middle of the 17th century, this movement was intimately involved in the sciences and especially medicine, which is hardly surprising given Descartes own interest in that discipline. Then there's something suggested by the aforementioned involvement of women in Cartesian philosophy. The fact that the relevant works often circulated in vernacular languages and not just in Latin was a help here, as was the open discussion of Cartesianism in the salons of Paris. Then too, there was a philosophical reason for women intellectuals to embrace the movement. Suppose each of us is really a disembodied mind, and suppose that the difference between men and women has to do with the body and not the mind. Wouldn't that be a profound, indeed potentially fatal blow to sexist assumptions about gender? Especially when you add that the Arsenal women's team won the Champions League this year and the men didn't. So let your daughters marry whoever they want and join me for Cartesianism and the early modern gender debate next time here on the History of Philosophy without any gaps. SA.