Descartes on the causal powers of bodies without substantial forms

Kara Richardson
Draft for UNYWEMP, Sunday Oct. 4, 2009

One major difference between Descartes and his Aristotelian

predecessors is his rejection of substantial forms.1 According to some of his
interpreters, this rejection deprives bodies of causal powers. Daniel Garber
puts the point this way:
For the schoolmen, the world God sustains is a world of matter and
substantial forms. These forms are active principles that constitute an
important class of the mediating causes of change that the schools
recognized. But in a physical world whose only constituents are extended
bodies, a world without forms (at least if we set aside human souls), then
this class of mediating causes is not available to press into service. What
Descartes chooses in their place is God, who will act not only as the general
conservator of the world, but as the direct cause of motion and change in
that world.2

The claim that Descartes rejects substantial forms must be qualified in two
ways. First, Descartes sometimes refers to the mind as the form of the
human body or as the form of the human being, e.g., at CSM II 246/ AT VII
356, CSM III 207 /AT III 503 and CSM III 208/ AT III 505). Scholars
disagree about whether his use of Aristotelian language in this regard
indicates that he endorsed a hylemorphic account of the unity of a human
being. Hoffman (1986) argues in favour of this view; Rozemond (1998), ch.
5 argues against it. Second, Marleen Rozemond has shown that Descartes
notion of a principal attribute is a successor to substantial form in the sense
that the principal attributes of extension and thought determine the kinds
of modes found in bodies in general and in minds (Rozemond (1998), p.
117). In this way, it play a role similar to that of a substantial form which
determines the proper accidents of a substance, e.g., the substantial form of
water determines its proper accidents, sc., coldness and moisture.
2
Garber (1992), pp. 274-5. Garber makes the same point in several other
works; see Garber .Gary Hatfield also makes this point; see Hatfield (1979),
p. 113. Michael Della Rocca thinks that Descartes denial of substantial
forms conflicts with his attribution of causal powers to bodies, but defends
Descartes; see Della Rocca (1999).
1

The view that Descartes rejection of Scholastic substantial forms deprives

bodies of causal powers depends in part on the claim that these forms are
active principles. But this claim is ambiguous. Is the substantial form of a
substance a direct source of motion and change? In other words, does a
substantial form make an efficient causal contribution to substantial
activity? Or does it contribute to activity indirectly, by determining the
characteristic features and behaviors of a member of some natural kind? In
other words, does the explanatory value of a substantial form stem solely
from its role as the formal cause of a material substance? Both of these
accounts of the relationship between substantial forms and substantial
activity appear in secondary literature on causation in Late Scholastic and
Early Modern philosophy, but they are not distinguished.3 One aim of this
In a recent article, Robert Pasnau argues that emphasis on the concrete,
causal roles of substantial forms (as opposed to their abstract, metaphysical
roles) is distinctive of the Scholastic notion of substantial form. See Pasnau
(2004), pp. 35-39. He discusses some cases in which substantial forms were
held to play direct efficient causal roles; e.g., he mentions Ockhams and
Suarezs view that the substantial form of water is the cause of heated
waters reversion to coldness (Pasnau (2004), pp. 37-38). Nevertheless, he
summarizes the concrete, causal side of the Scholastic doctrine of
substantial form as follows: [i]n all these texts, the dominant conception of
form is decidedly concrete rather than metaphysical. Substantial forms are
understood as causal agents that would figure centrally in any complete
scientific account of the natural world. They explain why water is cold, why
gold is heavy, why horses have four legs and human beings two, and why
horses merely whinny whereas human beings talk (Pasnau (2004), p. 39).
This summary suggests the view that substantial forms contribute to
substantial activity indirectly, by determining the characteristic features
and behaviors of a member of some natural kind.
Garber identifies substantial forms as active principles and as
mediating causes in the above cited passage from Descartes
Metaphysical Physics, which suggests that they play efficient causal roles.
But earlier in the book, he provides an account of the relationship between
substantial forms and substantial activity which mentions only their indirect
3

paper is to show that the Scholastics themselves disagreed about the

contribution of substantial forms to substantial activity. A second aim is to
show that their disagreements inform Descartes view of the causal powers
of bodies.
This paper has three parts. I focus first on Scholastic debates about
the contribution of substantial forms to substantial activity as reported by
Suarez in his Metaphysical Disputations. Suarez himself defends a robust
account of the efficient causality of substantial forms. He argues that
substantial forms contribute directly to substantial activity in several cases.
And he contrasts his view with that of Thomist Aristotelians who hold that
the influence of substantial forms on substantial activity is limited to their
roles as formal causes. For the latter Aristotelians, substances act directly
through their accidents, not their substantial forms.
In the second part of the paper, I show that Descartes responds to the
Scholastic debates about the relationship between substantial forms and
substantial activity in his letter to Regius of January 1642. I argue that he
role: substantial form is that from which the characteristic behavior of the
various sorts of substances derives, and thus that in terms of which their
behavior is to be explained (Garber (1992), p. 95). The latter kind of
account is fairly common. For example, Steven Nadler claims that [t]he
substantial form of the substance is that from which its essential properties
and characteristic behaviours derive. All motion and change, all causal and
other powers are to be explained by reference to the specific form inhering
in (and individuating) a parcel of matter (Nadler (1993), pp. 2-3). A similar
account is offered by Rozemond (1998), pp. 104-5. A few scholars fairly
clearly identify substantial forms as efficient causes. For example, Cees
Leijenhorst writes that according to the Aristotelians, forms are intrinsic
principles of motion. The substantial form of an earthly body explains
why and how it strives to the centre of the earth (Leijenhorst (2002), p.
138). A similar account is offered in Van Ruler (1995), pp. 134-6.
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there sides with those Aristotelians who hold that the actions of substances
depend directly on their accidents alone, and I argue that this letter reveals
Descartes own view of the causal powers of bodies without substantial
forms. Rather than replacing substantial forms with God to explain activity
in the created world, Descartes reforms the ground for activity in the
created world, by replacing Aristotelian active qualities with Cartesian
ones. In the final part of the paper, I consider an important objection to my
interpretation, sc. that it conflicts with Descartes view that the nature of
body is extension.
1. Suarez on substantial forms as efficient causes
Scholastic substantial forms have their roots in Aristotle who claims
that among the causes of something are its form, i.e., the definition of its
essence (Physics 194b 27-28). To know the form of a thing is to know what
kind of thing it is. This contribution to knowledge is quite different from the
one made by an efficient cause, i.e., by the primary source of the change or
rest (Physics 2.3 194b 30-32). To know the efficient cause of a thing is to
know the mover or shaper who makes it happen or brings it to be.
Nevertheless the two types of cause intersect: what kind of thing X is
determines for the most part what changes X can bring out or suffer.
Efficient causal powers are rooted in the substantial forms of agents, and
their exercise depends on passive powers which are so rooted in patients.
For example, the rational soul the substantial form of human being
determines our powers to nourish ourselves and grow, to reproduce, sense,

move about, imagine and understand. These powers are either active or
passive, and Scholastic philosophers disagreed about which were which: for
example, Aquinas held sensation to be a passive power acted on by the
object of sense, e.g., sight is a passive power acted on by colour, whereas
Suarez held it to be an active power on the ground that sensation requires
attention on our part. But they agreed on the general point that the
substantial form of a substance determines what it can do or suffer. Viewed
from this perspective, substantial forms play a role in natural action, but
this role is indirect.
The view that substantial forms play direct efficient causal roles was
controversial in the Middle Ages. Suarez holds that they do in at least two
kinds of ways.4 First, he argues that a substantial form is the efficient cause
of accidents appropriate to it, e.g., an animal soul is the efficient cause of
the powers of sensation and locomotion, which are accidents appropriate to
an animal soul.5 Likewise, the substantial form of water is the efficient
My account focuses on Surez discussion of efficient causality in
Disputationes Metaphysicae (DM) 17-19 and on his discussion of formal
causality in Disputationes Metaphysicae 15. Disputations 17-19 are
available in English translation by Alfred Freddoso: Surez, Francisco. On
Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17, 18, and 19, trans.
Freddoso. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Disputation 15 is
translated into English by John Kronen and Jeremiah Reedy: Surez,
Francisco. On the Formal Cause of Substance: Metaphysical Disputation
XV, trans. Kronen and Reedy. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press,
2000. Unless otherwise noted, quotations of Surez in English are taken
from these translations.
5
DM 15.1, DM 18.3. In DM 15.1, Suarez uses the example of water to
support the claim that we must posit substantial forms. He says if water,
for example, is heated, and later the external cause of the heat is removed,
the water returns to its original coldness because of an intrinsic force, as
experience attests. This is a sign, therefore, that there is in water a certain
4

cause of the reversion of heated water to coldness, which is an accident

appropriate to the watery form. Second, substantial forms make direct
efficient causal contributions to substantial activity. For example, the soul
has a direct influence on vital actions, including relatively lowly ones such
as digestion, as well as nobler acts such as sensation and, in the human
case, intellection.6 And substantial forms are direct efficient causes of the
generation of new corporeal substances. In all of these cases, Surez
defends the view that substantial forms play genuine efficient causal roles
against Thomist Aristotelians, who attribute to substantial forms roles
that fall short of genuine efficient causality. I will focus primarily on the last
of these cases sc., the causal role of substantial forms in generation
because Surez discussion of it is especially instructive with respect to the
difference between his own robust view of the efficient causality of
substantial forms and the different view of his opponents.
In Disputationes Metaphysicae 18.2, Suarez aims to determine the
principle by which one substance generates another, i.e., he aims to
determine which of Xs metaphysical constituents sc., form, matter and

inner principle from which an increase of cold flows anew after all external
obstacles have been removed. That principle which returns water to its
original temperature, however, cannot be anything other than the
substantial form (DM 15.1, Kronen (trans.), p. 22). Suarez continues by
refuting alternative explanations of this phenomenon, which do not employ
the claim that the principle which returns water to its original temperature
is the substantial form (DM 15.1, Kronen (trans.), pp. 22-25). He cites the
example of water in DM 18.3 as support for the claim that the substantial
form has a certain power for having its proper accidents emanate from it
(DM 18.3, Freddoso (trans.), p. 93).
6
DM 18.5.
6

accidents is that in virtue of which X generates Y.7 Suarez rules out

matter immediately, since matter itself is nonactive. He then argues that no
accident is a principal principle of a substance:
a principal cause must be either more noble than, or at least no less noble
than, the effect. For since no one gives what he does not have, how can an
imperfect form have within itself or communicate to its suppositum a
principal power for effecting a more perfect form, a form which it is unable
to contain either formally or eminently? But an accidental form is more
imperfect than a substantial form. Therefore, an accidental form cannot be
a principal principle for educing a substantial form.8
The argument depends on a causal principle familiar to readers of
Descartes Third Meditation: the effect cannot be more perfect than the
cause. It also relies on an ontological hierarchy in which substantial forms
e.g., George the monkeys soul are more perfect than accidental ones, e.g.,
Georges height, weight etc. Finally, it assumes that in generation, a new
substantial form is educed from the potentiality of matter by some agent or
agents. The causal principle, coupled with the ontological hierarchy, yields
a fairly simple argument against the view that the generation of a new thing
could be the work of accidents alone: since accidents are less perfect than

More precisely, he discusses the principle by which one created substance

generates another. Suarez is here concerned with the causal powers of
creatures in cases of substantial generation. He aims to defend the view
that new substances are educed from the potency of matter through natural
processes. His main target is Avicennas view that new substantial forms
are bestowed by a separate intelligence (DM 18.1, pp. 597-98, Freddoso
(trans.), pp. 48-49). He attributes a view of this sort to Plato, Philoponus
and Themistius as well. Philoponus is said to identify the form-giver as the
Universal Craftsman of nature; Themistius is said to identify it as the
world soul (DM 18.2, p. 602, Freddoso (trans.), p. 60).
8
DM 18.2, p. 599; Freddoso (trans.), p. 52.
7

substantial forms, they cannot by themselves effect substantial forms. 9

Note that Suarez holds the conclusion of the argument sc., that no
accident is a principal cause of a substance to be uncontroversial: he says
that [o]n this almost everyone agrees.10 This could be due to the influence
of the argument itself, which is not original to Suarez. It appears at least as
Suarez claim that no accident is a principal efficient cause of a substance
is compatible with his later claim that accidents are instrumental causes in
cases of substantial generation. In brief, he holds that accidents play
genuine efficient causal roles in generation as instruments of the principal
principle of generation, i.e., the substantial form of the generator. Suarez
distinguishes a principal efficient cause from an instrumental efficient cause
in DM 17.2. He defines a principal cause as a cause which through a
principal power that is, a power that is more noble than, or at least as
noble as, the effect influences the action whereby such an effect is
produced (DM 17.2, p. 591; Freddoso (trans.), p. 30). A principal cause
operates through its own power, not only because it has an intrinsic and
innate power to act but also because it has a power that is per se
proportionate to the effect and does not stand in need of any elevation
(Ibid.). An instrument is said to operate in the power of the principal
agent not because it doesnt require its own intrinsic power, but rather
because its intrinsic power is not proportionate or sufficient, and the
instrument has the ability to operate only according to the measure of the
principal agents power and elevation (DM 17.2, p. 591; Freddoso (trans.),
p. 31). To illustrate the distinction Suarez uses the stock example of a saw,
which is an instrumental cause of an artifact produced by a craftsperson
who uses the saw as her tool. One problem with the example is that it is
easy to overlook the fact that genuine causal power is attributed to
instruments, e.g., the power to cut is attributed to the saw. The saw is an
instrumental cause only with respect to the production of the artifact
produced by the craftsperson; it is more like a principal cause with respect
to cutting. Suarez puts the point as follows: [a] saw, for instance, is an
instrument for making a given artifact. By striking the middle parts [of the
wood] and moving them locally, this instrument proximately effects only a
division [of the wood] and is related to this effect more as a principal cause.
But what results from this in the form of the artifact, to which the saw is
related as an instrumental cause. For it does not attain to this form
immediately by its own action; rather, the form merely results from the
prior effect(MD 17.2, p. 587; Freddoso (trans.), p. 30).
10
DM 18.2, p. 599, Freddoso (trans.), p. 52. He continues as follows: [f]or
even though John Major, Sentences 4, dist. 12, is commonly cited in favor of
the contrary opinion, he does not deny this point; nor does anyone else I
9

early as Aquinas De Potentia, where it is presented as an objection to his

claim that corporeal agents can generate new corporeal substances.11
Since Suarez has ruled out both matter and accidents as candidates
for the role of the principal principles by which one created substance
produces another, he concludes that this role must be played by the
substances substantial form. He holds this conclusion to be
uncontroversial as well, in part because once an enumerative induction has
been made, nothing else remains and also because it too seems to be
accepted by the common consensus of everyone.12 But Suarez report of
have looked at (Ibid.).
11
In De Potentia 3.8, Aquinas raises and responds to the following objection
to his claim that natural agents generate their progeny. The objection
employs the claim that the active principles of natural agents are accidents,
e.g., fire acts by heat, which is an accident. The objector argues that since
an effect cannot excel its cause, and since a substantial form excels an
accident, an accident cannot be the active cause of a substantial form
(Aquinas. De Potentia 3.8, Marietti 9th rev. ed., vol. 2, p. 60; Dominican
Fathers (trans.), Book 1, p. 138). Aquinas argues in response that since
[a]n accidental form acts by virtue of the substantial form whose
instrument it isit is not unreasonable if the action of an accidental form
terminate in a substantial form (Ibid.). In other words, when fire is
generated by fire, the heat of the generating fire acts in virtue of its
substantial form and for this reason is up to the task of bringing about a
new substance. In DM 18.2, Suarez argues that this response succeeds only
if substantial forms are genuine efficient causes of generation. Aquinas
claim in De Potentia 3.8 that an accidental form acts by virtue of the
substantial form (in virtute formae substantialis) is ambiguous with respect
to this issue. We will see that Suarez attributes to Thomists in general the
denial that substantial forms are genuine efficient causes.
12
DM 18.2, p. 599; Freddoso (trans.), p. 52. The reason Suarez cites for this
consensus is the principle that operation follows upon esse: since this is so
and since the substantial form is the principal act of the suppositum and
that which principally gives it esse, it must also be the principal principle of
operating (Ibid.). Freddoso notes that the principle that operation follows
upon esse is a scholastic adage (Ibid., n. 6). Is this the same principle
which grounds Aquinas argument for the subsistence of the human soul in
Summa Theologiae 1.75.2? Aquinas argues there that only what subsists
9

consensus in these matters elides an important dispute about the way in

which the substantial form is a principal principle in generation.13 This
dispute has to do with whether the substantial form has an immediate
influence in generation or whether it has only a remote and, as it were,
originating influence.14
Suarez himself argues that the substantial form has an immediate
influence in generation. He attributes the alternative view sc., that the
substantial form has a merely remote and originating influence to the
Thomists, but he also says that it seems to be the common position of the
Peripatetics and cites Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Averroes as
its proponents.15 One argument for the alternative view relies on the claim
that a substantial form is not per se immediately active but is instead
active through a power, which is a quality distinct from it.16 This claim is
evident by induction: we see that any substance whatsoever uses accidents
for all its other actions.17 And it derives support from the following
argument: a substantial form is of itself determined only to giving esse as a
formal cause, whereas with respect to its actions it is an indeterminate

per se can operate per se on the ground that as a thing operates, in that
way it is (Aquinas. Summa Theologiae 1.75.2, p. , Pegis (trans.), p. 685).
Since the human intellect performs an operation per se sc., understanding
it follows that the human intellective soul subsists per se.
13
DM 18.2, p. 599; Freddoso (trans.), p. 53.
14
DM 18.2, p. 599; Freddoso (trans.), p. 53.
15
DM 18.2, p. 601, Freddoso (trans.), p. 58.
16
DM 18.2, p. 601, Freddoso (trans.), p. 59.
17
DM 18.2, p. 602, Freddoso (trans.), p. 54.
10

principle, since it is almost always able to effect several actions to which it

is determined by its accidents.18
In these arguments, the contribution of a substantial form to the
actions of a substance is restricted to its role as a formal cause which gives
being to the composite. The substances actions are achieved by means of
its accidents. Experience confirms the latter claim, but it can also be
deduced from the fact that the form itself is not determined to any one
action. For example, a maple tree has the powers to nourish itself and to
grow, to produce seed and to produce sap. Its substantial form makes it be
by making it be something, namely, a maple tree. And the various powers of
the maple tree are powers which it has in virtue of what it is. But since the
substantial form confers upon this substance a variety of powers, the
substantial form is not itself determined to any one action (apart from the
act of giving being). Rather, the accidents of the maple tree are determined
to specific actions. So, properly speaking, the accidents of the maple tree,
not its substantial form, are the immediate principles of its activities.
Suarezs argument against the alternative view depends in part on the
claim that his opponents attribute to the substantial form an influence
which falls short of genuine efficient causality. He argues for this claim as
follows:
Nor is it sufficient to reply that efficient causality is attributed to
[substantial] forms because the qualities through which alone they exercise
all their actions emanate from them. For, as we explained above, this is not
proper and per se efficient causality but rather only remote and originating
18

DM 18.2, p. 601, Freddoso (trans.), p. 59.

11

efficient causality, since an action that arises immediately from an

accidental form alone likewise depends per se and essentially on it alone as
on a proximate principle. (I am here leaving to one side the concurrence of
a universal cause.) An indication of this is that if God conserves, say, the
heat [without the fire], then every action that proceeds proximately just
from the heat can be conserved, too as the authors of the contrary position
also acknowledge. Therefore, this is an indication that the substantial form
is not a per se principle of any such action.19
Suarezs claim that remote and originating efficient causality is not
genuine efficient causality is persuasive. But it is not immediately clear that
this argument serves as support for his view that substantial forms play
genuine efficient causal roles. Couldnt his opponents simply embrace the
denial that substantial forms are efficient causes? After all, it seems
obvious that heat conserved apart from the fiery form will scorch, melt,
blacken and so on just as well as heat conserved with the fiery form. In that
case, there is no need to attribute an efficient causal role to substantial
forms. Suarez discounts this response due to the problem at hand, sc., that
if substances act by their accidents alone, then they are without any
principle sufficient for generation: remember, the lower cant effect the
higher. The claim that substantial forms are genuine efficient causes
safeguards the view that generation occurs through natural processes.20
Whether or not Suarez can succeed against his Thomist and
Peripatetic opponents need not be determined here. I want instead to focus
DM 18.2, Freddoso (trans.), p. 71.
But the claim isnt necessarily ad hoc. As mentioned earlier, Suarez holds
that substantial forms play efficient causal roles in a variety of cases. The
scope of their efficient causal contributions is probably a source of Suarezs
confidence in his own view. I do not mean to suggest that I think that
Suarezs identification of substantial forms as efficient causes is justified.
This issue requires a more detailed treatment than I can offer here.
19
20

12

on a view of the causal powers of bodies which his argument against these
opponents suggests. Suarez claims that qualities or accidents conserved
(by God) apart from substantial forms will do whatever they do when
conserved with these forms. Suarez illustrates his point with the example of
heat, a single quality. But there is no reason why God couldnt conserve
collections of qualities or accidents apart from the substantial forms which
are supposed to give rise to these collections in nature.21 Say God
conserves the tart, white flesh of the apple apart from its form. It is clear,
Suarez thinks, that these qualities would act on our senses in just the way
they do when conserved with the form of apple.22 This account of the
actions of qualities or accidents conserved by God apart from substantial
God conserves collections of accidents apart from substantial forms in the
mystery of the Eucharist, i.e., he conserves the accidents of wine and bread
apart from their substantial forms. Thus, one of the questions Suarez must
determine in DM 18.2 is whether the separated accidents of wine and bread
act apart their substantial forms. He thinks that it is obvious that they do;
however, he denies that the separated accidents of wine have sufficient
power to convert a drop of water into wine. Such a conversion is a
substantial generation and requires the aid of a higher power (DM 18.2.29,
Freddoso (trans.), p. 77).
22
What, then, is the difference between a collection of qualities and a
collection of qualities plus a substantial form? According to Suarez, one
difference is that a collection of qualities lacks the unity which is required
to constitute a natural thing (DM 15.1.7). Another is that the substantial
form which unites the collection may also be needed for cooperative efforts
amongst members of collection. For example, Suarez argues that the
various powers of my human soul, e.g., sight, imagination and
understanding, cannot interact with one another directly. Their apparent
interaction requires that they are connected in some common principle
sc., my soul which is the substantial form of my body (DM 18.5.3,
Freddoso (trans.), p. 123). This aspect of the efficient causality of
substantial forms is the focus of Marleen Rozemonds Suarez and the Unity
of Consciousness (2008). So Suarez identifies interesting and important
differences between aggregates and aggregates unified by substantial
forms.
21

13

forms suggests that bodies without substantial forms could have causal
powers, and that the ground for these powers would be qualities or
collections of qualities. In the next Section, I will argue that Descartes
adopts a similar view.

2. Descartes on substantial forms and activity

Descartes most often attacks the Scholastic doctrine of substantial
forms by arguing that we do not need to posit them in order to explain
natural phenomena. We see this strategy at work in his account of how
flame burns wood in his early physical treatise, The World. There he says:
When flame burns wood or some other similar material, we can see with the
naked eye that it sets the minute parts of the wood in motion and separates
them from one another, thus transforming the finer parts into fire, air and
smoke, and leaving the coarser parts as ashes. Others may, if they wish,
imagine the form of fire, the quality of heat, and the process of burning to
be completely different things in the wood. For my part, I am afraid of
mistakenly supposing there is anything more in the wood than what I see
must necessarily be in it, and so I am content to limit my conception to the
motion of its parts.23
The conclusion of this attack is of course compatible with the existence of
substantial forms, and Descartes does not claim that there are no
substantial forms.24

One of the reasons Descartes cites for his adoption of

this strategy is political: he thinks that to deny substantial forms is to court

controversy. So he admonishes his disciple Regius for openly rejecting
them:
Do you not remember that on page 164 of my Meteorology, I said quite
expressly that I did not at all reject or deny [substantial forms] but simply
23

CSM I 83/AT XI 7.

24

Garber, Rozemond

14

found them unnecessary in setting out my explanations? If you had taken

this course, everybody in your audience would have rejected them as soon
as they saw they were useless, and in the mean time you would not have
become so unpopular with your colleagues.25
Given the uproar at the University of Utrecht which followed Regius
decision openly to reject substantial forms, the political reason for
Descartes less confrontational approach appears to have been wellfounded. Nevertheless, Descartes comes to the aid of his beleaguered
student in his letter of January 1642 which marshals arguments Regius can
use against his Aristotelian opponents.
In one of these arguments against substantial forms, Descartes
exploits the terms of Scholastic debates about the causal roles of substantial
forms. He says,
[i]t would certainly be absurd for those who believe in substantial forms to
say that these forms are themselves the immediate principle of their
actions; but it cannot be absurd to say this if one does not regard such
forms as distinct from active qualities. Now we do not deny active qualities,
but we say only that they should not be regarded as having any degree of
reality greater than that of modes; for to regard them so is to conceive of
them as substances. Nor do we deny dispositions, but we divide them into
two kinds. Some are purely material and depend only the configuration or
other arrangement of the parts. Others are immaterial or spiritual, like the
states of faith, grace and so on which theologians talk of; these do not
depend on anything bodily, but are spiritual modes inhering in the mind,
just as movement and shape are corporeal modes inhering in the body.26
Here Descartes rejects as absurd the view that Scholastic substantial forms
are immediate principles of their action, and claims that the absurdity of
this view is avoided by those who conflate substantial forms with active
qualities. Thus there is absurdity in holding that active qualities are
25
26

CSM III 205/AT III 492.

CSM III 208/AT III 503-4.
15

immediate principles of their actions. And Descartes himself embraces

active qualities and dispositions. While the terms active quality and
disposition are Aristotelian in origin, Descartes does not mean to suggest
that he agrees with his predecessors about the character or nature of these
things. For example, while Aristotelians of all stripes consider heat an
active quality, Descartes considers it an obscure sense impression which
arises in part from the size and speed of bits of matter and in part from an
idea in the mind. But he does mean to suggest that he holds that created
substances have active powers, so long as these are understood to be
modes.
By rejecting the view that substantial forms are immediate principles
of action, and by identifying active qualities as the direct principles of
substantial activity, Descartes affirms one of the Scholastic views mentioned
above, namely, that substances act through their accidents alone. For in
Scholastic ontology, active qualities are accidents. Descartes letter to
Regius indicates that he considers his denial of substantial forms to be
compatible with the claim that bodies have causal powers. So this letter
tells against Garbers claim that Descartes replaces substantial forms with
God as the direct source of motion and change in the created world. And it
illuminates Descartes view of the ground of activity in bodies without
substantial forms. His view echoes a Scholastic model, which Suarez
illustrates in his example of the action of the active quality heat when

16

conserved apart from the fiery form. On this model, activity in the created
world depends on accidents alone.
Descartes employs the model on several occasions. One prominent
example is his account of how fire burns wood in Le Monde. There he
argues that in the absence of the form of fire and the quality of heat, that is,
in the absence of those entities which ground Scholastic causal powers, the
changes we observe when wood burns could be caused by some power
which puts its finer parts into violent motion and separates them from the
coarser parts.27 He then explains what constitutes this power in the body
of the flame:
Now since it does no seem possible to conceive how one body could move
another except through its own movement, I conclude that the body of the
flame which acts upon the wood is composed of minute parts, which move
about independently of one another with a very rapid and very violent
motion. As they move about in this way they push against the parts of the
bodies they are touching and move those which do not offer them too much
resistance. I say that the flames parts move about individually, for although
many of them often work together to bring about a single effect, we see
nevertheless that each of them acts on its own upon the bodies they touch.
I say, too, that their motion is very rapid and very violent, for they are so
minute that we cannot distinguish them by sight, and so they would not
have the force they have to act upon the other bodies if the rapidity of their
movement did not compensate for their lack of size.28
Flame, according to Descartes, is a body composed of very tiny, very rapidly
moving parts. The size and speed of its parts constitutes its power to burn.
In Principles IV, ss. 187, Descartes boasts that he has penetrated
seeming mysteries such as the properties [proprietates] of magnets and of

27
28

CSM I 83/AT XI 7-8.

CSM I 83/AT XI 8.
17

fire, and how a huge flame can be kindled from a tiny spark in a moment
without appeal to the occult qualities of his predecessors:
In this book I have deduced the causes which I believe to be quite evident
of these and many other phenomena from principles which are known to
all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size, position and motion of
particles of matter. And anyone who considers all this will readily be
convinced that there are no powers in stones and plants that are so
mysterious, and no marvels attributed to sympathetic and antipathetic
influences that are so astonishing, that they cannot be explained in this way.
In short, there is nothing in the whole of nature (nothing, that is, which
should be referred to purely corporeal causes, i.e. those devoid of thought
and mind) which is incapable of being deductively explained on the basis of
these selfsame principles; and hence it is quite unnecessary to add any
further principles to the list.29
Here Descartes replaces Aristotelian occult qualities with mechanistic
properties. Occult qualities were posited by Aristotelians to explain
phenomena seemingly irreducible to mixtures of the four elements (earth,
air, fire, water). Famous examples: magnetism, effects of drugs, e.g., opium.
Descartes boast is perhaps not only about the fact that his explanatory
principles known and admitted by all but also that his most basic principles,
unlike the Aristotelian elements, encompass all natural phenomena caused
by bodies, i.e., he doesnt have to posit hidden powers in certain cases.
The merits of Descartes project of reforming the ground for corporeal
causal powers by replacing Aristotelian forms and qualities with the
mechanistic properties is not addressed here. Others have noted that
Descartes own explanations are often flawed, unsatisfying. I aim only to
show that Descartes does not consider bodies devoid of forms to be bodies
without activity, and that his basic model for corporeal causal powers
29

CSM I 279/AT VIIIA 314-15.

18

derives from a Scholastic view that bodies act directly through their
accidents. I also think that the model supports Descartes very frequent
claims that bodies are causes by identifying the ground of their activity. 30
But the occasionalist interpretation of body-body causation in Descartes
also finds support in his claim that the nature of body is extension. If a body
is simply an extended thing, then it has no features which could constitute
active powers.

This objection is the focus of the next Section.

Descartes very frequently refers to bodies as causes. See his discussion of

change in Le Monde, where he claims first that change in the created world
happens in accordance with the laws of nature, and then that by nature
here I do not mean some goddess or any other sort of imaginary power.
Rather, I am using this word to signify matter itself, in so far as I am
considering it taken together with all the qualities I have attributed to it,
and under the condition that God continues to preserve it in the same way
that he created it. For it follows of necessity, from the mere fact that he
continues thus to preserve it, that there must be many changes in its parts
which cannot, it seems to me, properly be attributed to the action of God
(because that action never changes), and which therefore I attribute to
nature. The rules by which these changes take place I call the laws of
nature (CSM I 92-3/AT XI 37). Here Descartes explains change in the
world by pointing to matter taken together with the qualities he has
attributed to it, namely, that its parts have had various different motions
from the moment they were created, and furthermore that they are all in
contact with each other on all sides without there beings any void between
any two of them (CSM I 92-3/AT XI 37). So Descartes thinks that change in
the world depends on the motion of bodies, coupled with the absence of
empty space. It is important to notice that Descartes also claims that
change must be attributed to matter in motion on the ground that the action
of an unchanging God cant explain change.
Della Rocca argues that Descartes identifies bodies themselves as the
particular causes of motion in his discussion of the third law of motion in
Principles, Part 2 at CSM I 240/AT VIIIA 61 (Della Rocca (1999), pp. 52-54).
He notes, and I agree, that this passage provides important evidence
against the occasionalist interpretation of Descartes view of body-body
causation, since the passage is one in which Descartes is giving us his
official account of the causation of motion, rather than speaking loosely or
casually about bodies as causes as even an occasionalist might do in
nontechnical passages (Della Rocca (1999), p. 52).
30

19

3. The causal powers of res extensa

At Principles 1.53, Descartes claims that each substance has one
principal property which constitutes its nature and essence, and to which all
its other properties are referred.31 The principal attribute of corporeal
substance is extension in length, breadth and depth and [e]verything else
which can be attributed to body presupposes extension, and is merely a
mode of an extended thing.32 And in Principles Part Two 23, Descartes
claims that
[t]he matter existing in the entire universe is thus one and the same, and it
is always recognized as matter simply in virtue of its being extended. All
the properties which we clearly perceive in it are reducible to its divisibility
and consequent mobility in respect of its parts, and its resulting capacity to
be affected in all the ways which we perceive as being derivable from the
movement of parts.33
Descartes identification of extension as the principal attribute of body and
his account of the relationship between the principal attribute of a
substance and its other properties are the bases of an important objection
to the claim that Cartesian bodies have causal powers. Hattab puts the
point this way:
[g]iven that all the properties of matter are derived from its divisibility and
the consequent capacity of its parts to be moved, Descartes leaves no room
for active forces or causal powers originating from the nature of bodies.
Properties such as active forces are not ultimately reducible to extension so
they do not belong to body.34

CSM I 210 / AT VIIIA 53.

CSM I 210 / AT VIIIA 53.
33
CSM I 232/AT VIIIA 52
34
Hattab (2000), p. 96.
31
32

20

Notice that Hattab infers the claim that Descartes leaves no room for
active forces or causal powers originating from the nature of bodies from
the claim that he holds that all the properties of matter are reducible to its
divisibility and consequent mobility. So she takes Descartes claim that all
the properties of matter are reducible to its divisibility and consequent
mobility to mean that he holds that all the properties of matter originate
from the nature of body, i.e. extension. But the claim that all the properties
of matter originate from the nature of body conflicts with Descartes central
point in Principles Part Two 23.
Principles Part Two 23 begins with the claim that [a]ll the variety in
matter, all the diversity of its forms, depends on motion.35 Descartes aim
in this section is to explain this point. He notes first that [t]he matter
existing in the entire universe is thus one and the same, and it is always
recognized as matter simply in virtue of its being extended.36 This claim
follows from Descartes assertion that variety in matter depends on motion:
if variety in matter depends on motion, then matter considered in itself is
undifferentiated extension. His next claim explains the relationship
between the nature of matter and the properties which cause variety in
matter: he says that [a]ll the properties which we clearly perceive in
[matter] are reducible to its divisibility and consequent mobility in respect
of its parts, and its resulting capacity to be affected in all the ways which

35
36

CSM I 232/AT VIIIA 52

CSM I 232/AT VIIIA 52
21

we perceive as being derivable from the movement of parts.37 This claim is

primarily a descriptive one. But it has a proscriptive overtone: we should
ascribe to matter only those properties which we clearly perceive to be in
matter and those properties are reducible to its divisibility and consequent
mobility. Since he claims that any variation in matter or diversity in its
many forms depends on motion, he must think that motion is something we
clearly perceive to be in matter and so is something reducible to the
divisibility and consequent mobility of matter.38 But motion is not reducible
to the divisibility and consequent mobility of matter in the sense that it
originates from the divisibility and consequent mobility of matter.39 Given
that Descartes claims in Principles Part Two 23 that all the properties
which we clearly perceive to be in matter are reducible to its divisibility and
consequent mobility and that motion is a property of matter, his claim that
all the properties which we clearly perceive to be in matter are reducible to
CSM I 232/AT VIIIA 52-3
CSM I 232-3/AT VIIIA 52-3
39
Descartes makes this point clear in his hypothetical account of creation in
The World. There Descartes first posits the creation of matter conceived as
a real, perfectly solid body which uniformly fills the entire length, breadth
and depth of his imagined world and then suggests that this matter may
be divided into as many parts having as many shapes as we can imagine,
and that each of its parts is capable of taking on as many motions as we can
conceive (CSM I 91/AT XI 33-4). Finally, he proposes that God really does
divide matter into parts and suggests how he would do so: [i]t is not that
God separates these parts from one another so that there is some void
between them: rather, let us regard the differences he creates within this
matter as consisting wholly in the diversity of the motions he gives to its
parts. From the first instant of their creation, he causes some to start
moving in one direction and others in another, some faster and other slower
(or even, if you wish, not at all); and he causes them to continue moving
thereafter in accordance with the ordinary laws of nature (CSM I 91/AT XI
34).
37
38

22

its divisibility and consequent mobility cannot mean that all of these
properties originate from its divisibility and consequent mobility. By
reducible to he means something other than originate from.
What does reducible to mean, for Descartes in Principles Part Two
23?
1. The properties of matter are reducible to extension in the sense that
the existence of these properties does not require anything over and
above, or other than, a finite parcel of extension. So, e.g., spherical is
reducible to extension in the sense that it is does not require for its
existence anything over and above, or other than, a finite parcel of
extension.
This view seems to accord with an analysis of modes as ways of being
extended: Garber gives such an analysis in Descartes Metaphysical
Physics:
Descartes wants to make all of the properties of body geometrical. And so
for him, modes, the term he comes to choose in preference to accident, are
to be the expression of the very essence or attribute, in his terminology. For
him, no accidents are to be merely tacked onto a substratum; for him all
accidents are to be either propria or accidentia propria, intimately linked to
the essence of the substance: as Descartes put it, all of the modes of body
must be understood through its essence, its principal attribute, extension
(see Pr I 53). And thus, when he claims that the essence of body is
extension, he is not merely saying that all bodies have extension and
necessarily so, as his scholastic contemporaries might have meant such a
claim; he is saying something stronger, that everything that can really be

23

attributed to body as such must be some way of another of being an

extended thing.40
Objection to 1.:
Spherical and moving might both be ways of being an extended thing,
but spherical does not require for its existence anything over and above or
other than a finite parcel of extension. But motion does require for its
existence something over and above or other than a finite parcel of
extension. So ways of being extended cant mean reducible to extension
where being reducible to extension means not requiring for existence
anything over and above or other than a finite parcel of extension. And
being reducible to extension does not mean requiring nothing for
existence over and above or other than a finite parcel of extension, since
this view is incompatible with the claim that motion is a mode of matter.
2. The claim that the properties of matter are reducible to extension in
Principles 2.23 expresses the same point made in Principles 1.53 where
Descartes says that the properties of matter presuppose and are referred to
extension. Descartes there explains the point in epistemological terms: he
says that the properties of matter are unintelligible except in an extended
thing (Principles 1.53).41
Garber, Descartes Metaphysical Physics, p. 69.
Why the reduction language in Principles 2.23? N.B. the Latin verb is
reducere, but see the French: Il n'y a donc qu'une mme matire en tout
l'univers, et nous la connaissons par cela seul qu'elle est tendue; parce que
toutes les proprits que nous apercevons distinctement en elle, se
rapportent ce qu'elle peut tre divise et mue selon ses parties, et qu'elle
peut recevoir toutes les diverses dispositions que nous remarquons pouvoir
arriver par le mouvement de ses parties. Perhaps the reduction language
40

41

24

If 2. is correct then Descartes can attribute causal powers to bodies even if

those powers dont originate from the nature of extension, or if they require
something over and above, or other than, a finite parcel of extension.
A fundamental corporeal causal power in Descartes natural
philosophy is a moving bodys power to move another body. (I say that this
power is a fundamental one, since a great many other causal powers will
either be reducible to or depend on this one.) At Principles 2.43. Descartes
identifies one bodys power to move another with the formers power of
continuing to move. So we must determine whether it makes sense to
attribute to a body the power of continuing to move.
Descartes claim that the changes in motion which occur when a
moving body collides with another body are due to the moving bodys power
of continuing to move gives rise to a different objection to the view that
Cartesian bodies can have genuine causal powers, which has to do with the
source of a bodys power of continuing to move. Hattab cites Descartes
claim in the Second Meditation that self-motion doesnt belong to the nature
of bodies as support for the general conclusion that [b]odies are inert on
their own, requiring an external source of motion to begin to move and
echoes the methodological reduction advocated in Rules for the Direction of
the Mind, 5ff. Reduce involved questions to the simplest question whose
answer is required by the more involved questions. E.g., what properties
can matter have? is reduced to the question what is matter? The latter
question is simple since there is no more basic question that can be asked.
And we can intuit the answer. Then we build our account of the properties
of matter based on our intuition of the nature of matter as extension.

25

continue to move.42 In the Second Meditation, Descartes reports his

conception of the nature of bodies prior to engaging in methodological
doubt. He says that he understood a body to be something which can be
moved in various ways, not by itself but by whatever else comes into contact
with it. For, according to my judgement, the power of self-movement, like
the power of sensation or of thought, was quite foreign to the nature of
body.43 But he retracts this claim in the Fifth Set of Replies:
You also question my statements that I had no doubts about what the nature
of body consisted in, and that I attributed to it no power of self-movement,
and that I imagined the soul to be like a wind or fire, and so on; but these
were simply commonly held views which I was rehearsing so as to show in
the appropriate place that they were false.44
Furthermore, in his letter to Mersenne of October 28, 1640 he says that [i]t
is a big mistake to accept the principle that no body moves of itself. For it is
certain that a body, once it has begun to move, has in itself for that reason
alone the power to continue to move.45
Notice that Descartes says in his letter to Mersenne that a body, once
it has begun to move, has in itself for that reason alone the power to
continue to move.46 This suggests that he holds that a bodys power to
continue to move is constituted by its being in motion. Since being in
motion is a property that presupposes and is referred to extension, the
property is compatible with Descartes account of the relationship between
42
43
44
45
46

Hattab (2000), p. 96.

CSM II 17/AT VII 26
CSM II 243/AT VII 351
CSM III 155/AT III 213
Ibid.
26

the nature of matter and its properties in Principles 1.53 and 2.23. But why
should we agree that bodies have in themselves the power to continue to
move if they are in motion? This claim finds support in Descartes first law
of nature: each thing, in so far as it is simple and undivided, always
remains in the same state, as far as it can, and never changes except as a
result of external causes.47 In other words, we know by the first law of
nature that a body in motion will remain in motion unless checked by
something else. Since it is the case that a body in motion will remain in
motion unless checked by something else, we should agree that bodies have
in themselves the power to continue to move if they are in motion. The
principle at work here seems to be the following: (1) X has the power to
continue to if (a) X is actually ing and (b) X will cease to only if
something else makes it cease.48 Note that Descartes does not need to
CSM I 241/AT VIIIA 63
We might think that if Descartes really does endorse this principle, then
his claim that creatures depend on God for their existence so long as they
exist is in trouble. For the principle as applied to existence yields the
following claim: X has the power to continue to exist if (a) X is actually
existing and (b) X will cease to exist only if something else makes it cease.
In the Fifth Set of Objections Gassendi raises an objection along these lines
against Descartes claim that creatures depend on God for their existence
(CSM II 210/AT VII 301-2). Descartes responds to Gassendis objection as
follows: You say that we have a power which is sufficient to ensure that we
shall continue to exist unless some destructive cause intervenes. But here
you do not realize that you are attributing to a created thing the perfection
of a creator, if the created thing is able to continue in existence
independently of anything else (CSM II 255/AT VII 371). What is interesting
about this reply is that Descartes does not attack Gassendis line of
reasoning, i.e. he does not deny that it makes sense to hold that an existing
thing has the power to continue to exist if it will continue to exist in the
absence of a destructive cause. Rather, he points out that this view
misattributes to a creature a perfection that belongs to creators alone.
What is the perfection that belongs to creators alone? Descartes might
47

48

27

establish that (a) and (b) are necessary conditions for (1); his view makes
sense so long as they are sufficient conditions for (1). This principle seems
to me to be unobjectionable. I clearly have the power to continue to
breathe if I am actually breathing and will only cease to breathe if
something else makes me cease.
Gary Hatfield denies that Cartesian bodies have in themselves the
power to continue to move. He thinks that God is directly responsible for

mean that power to continue to exist independently belongs to a creator

alone. Why is this so? Descartes might mean that God, the sole creator, is
the only being with the power to continue to exist independently. If so, then
his response begs the question?? I think that it is more likely that the
perfection that belongs to creators alone is the power to cause the existence
of something. Aquinas defends this view in Summa Theologiae 1.45.5. He
says that to produce being absolutely, and not merely as this or that being,
belongs to the nature of creation (Aquinas. Summa Theologiae. In Basic
Writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, ed. Pegis. Indianapolis: Hackett,
1997, p. 440). Aquinas draws a distinction between producing being
absolutely and producing this or that being in order to distinguish the
creative act, which is proper to God, from the acts of creatures. Only God
produces being absolutely, i.e. only God makes be something from nothing.
Creatures cause changes in things whose existence depends on God. This
means that no creature can keep itself in being, since to be able to keep
something in being is to be able to produce being absolutely. If this is
Descartes point, then his response to Gassendi amounts to the following.
To cause existence is among the perfections of a creator; it is one of the
features which distinguish creators and creatures. To attribute to a
creature the power to continue to exist is to attribute to that creature the
power to cause existence. This response indicates that he does not endorse
without qualification the principle that X has the power to continue to if
(a) X is actually ing and (b) X will cease to only if something else makes
it cease. But this response also suggests that Descartes does not object to
the line of reasoning which grounds the principle itself, but rather to its
application to existence, which stands in need of a creative cause. The
latter belief finds support in the view that to cause the very existence of
something is to create it from nothing. For this reason, I dont think that
Descartes claim that bodies in motion have in themselves the power to
continue to move conflicts with his claim that creatures cant keep
themselves in existence.
28

this power. He reasons as follows. Since Descartes appeals to the first law
of nature to support his claim that bodies have in themselves the power to
continue to move and since the first law of nature is grounded in divine
immutability, it follows that a bodys power to continue to move is grounded
in divine immutability. This means that God is directly responsible for a
bodys power to continue to move. Hatfield makes this point in the
following passage:
Descartes gives no reason why bodies should tend to persist in their own
state other than the immutable nature of the divine action that preserves
bodies at each moment. A fortiori, in explaining the tendency to persevere
he does not appeal to the force that a body has by virtue of its motion.
Indeed, the relation is just the reverse: the force of a body to actis simply
the tendency of everything to persist in its present state, a tendency that
does not follow from any property of matter, but rather from an attribute of
God. Just as with the preservation of the quantity of motion, it is difficult to
see how a tendency to move could be grounded upon the immutability of
God, unless God were directly responsible for the tendency itself. 49
Hatfield cites Descartes claim in Principles, Part Two 43 that a
bodys power to act on another body consists simply in the fact that
everything tends, so far as it can, to persist in the same state, as laid down
in our first law.50 This claim follows from the claims that (1) a bodys
power to act on another body is constituted by its power to continue to
move and (2) a bodys power to continue to move is established by the first
law of nature. Hatfield infers from Descartes appeal to the first law of
nature in claim (2) that God is directly responsible for a bodys power to
continue to move. He justifies this inference on the ground that the first
49
50

Hatfield (1979), p. 126.

CSM I 243/AT VIIIA 66
29

law of nature follows from divine immutability. I think Hatfield is mistaken

in thinking that a bodys power to continue to move does not follow from
any property of matter.51 I think that it is constituted by a property which
belongs to any body which has this power, namely, that bodys property of
being in motion. And I think that Descartes is entitled to attribute to a body
in motion the power to continue to move on the ground that X has the
power to continue to if (a) X is actually ing and (b) X will cease to only
if something else makes it cease.
My position on this issue is prima facie similar to Michael Della
Roccas. Della Rocca defends Descartes claim that bodies have the power
to continue to move and so to move other bodies on the ground that
Descartes holds that what a body tends to do is a function of its nature. If
this is the case, then a bodys tendency to remain in motion belongs to it by
nature. Since Descartes thinks that a bodys power to continue to move
constitutes its power to move other bodies, the claim that a bodys tendency
to remain in motion belongs to it by nature entails that its force or power to
move other bodies belongs to it by nature. Della Rocca notes that
[i]n holding that a bodys nature is the source of what it can do causally,
Descartes, as I have interpreted him, is in agreement with the Aristotelianscholastic tradition. On this tradition, a bodys nature or form is the locus
of causal explanations. Nowthese forms or natures, as they were
traditionally conceived to be, were rejected by Descartes. But in rejecting
this conception of the natures of physical objects, he did not reject the
general view that we should turn to the natures of bodies in order to
account for their causal powers.52
51
52

Hatfield (1979), p. 126.

Della Rocca (1999), p. 67.
30

I think Della Rocca is right that Descartes rejection of substantial forms

does not include a rejection of the view that bodies have genuine causal
powers. But I have shown that he thinks that it is absurd even for
proponents of substantial forms to hold them to be direct principles of
action, and that he endorses the view of some Scholastics that substances
act directly through their accidents alone. So I dont think that he
considers the claim that bodies have causal powers to depend on the claim
that bodies have the tendency to remain in motion by nature. Rather I think
that he considers the claim that bodies have causal powers to depend on the
claim that they have mechanistic properties which constitute such powers.
Chief amongst these is the power to continue to move, which is constituted
by a bodys property of being in motion, as discussed above. So my view
does not result in the problem which Della Rocca raises with respect to his
own: on the view I have attributed to Descartes, the nature of a body
consists in or at least somehow involves its tendency to remain in its current
state. It is not immediately clear how or if this view is compatible with his
view that extension constitutes the nature of a body.53
Della Rocca, Michael. If a Body Meet a Body. New Essays on The
Rationalists, eds. Gennaro and Huenemann. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999, pp. 48-81.
Des Chene, Dennis. Physiologia: natural philosophy in late Aristotelian and
Cartesian thought. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Della Rocca (1999), p. 69). Tad Schmaltz rejects Della Roccas account on
this ground. See Schmaltz (2003), p. 744.
53

31

Gabbey, Alan. Force and Inertia in the Seventeenth Century: Descartes

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Harvester, 1980, pp. 230-320.
Garber, Daniel. Descartes Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: University of
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Garber, Daniel et al. New Doctrines of Body and its Powers, Place and
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Gueroult, Martial. The Metaphysics and Physics of Force in Descartes. In
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Chene. Perspectives on Science, vol. 8, no. 2, 2000, pp. 93-118.
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