In Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671, Robert Pasnau compares the medieval and early modern approaches to the material-immaterial divide and suggests the medievals held the advantage on this issue. I argue for the opposite conclusion. I also argue against his suggestion that we should approach the divide through the notion of a special type of extension for immaterial entities, and propose that instead we should focus on their indivisibility.

Henry More and Nicolas Malebranche, each in his own way, drew a distinction between two kinds of extension, the one indivisible and the other divisible. Spinoza also drew a comparable distinction, explaining that, insofar as extended substance was conceived intellectually, it would be grasped as indivisible, whereas, when it was instead depicted in the imagination, it would be seen as divisible. But, whereas for Spinoza these were just different views on one and the same extended substance, More and Malebranche's two (...) kinds of extension were supposed to be really distinct from one another. Consequently, neither of them could identify Spinoza's substance with both of his own non-identical kinds; and so they faced a choice over which one they would associate it with. The intriguing thing is that here they diverged. More felt that Spinoza's substance was actually divisible, and consequently material. Malebranche felt that it was actually indivisible, and consequently ideal and divine. In each case, they felt that the other kind of extension—whichever that might be—was simply absent from Spinoza's system. This article explores this divergence between More and Malebranche's interpretations of Spinoza's metaphysics, and it seeks an explanation for it in their own respective epistemologies. (shrink)

I argue that Plato thinks that the soul has location, surface, depth, and extension, and that the Timaeus’ composition of the soul out of eight circles is intended literally. A novel contribution is the development of an account of corporeality that denies the entailment that the soul is corporeal. I conclude by examining Aristotle’s objection to the Timaeus’ psychology and then the intellectual history of this reading of Plato.

The era of the Baroque witnessed a fierce debate over the interpretation of some experiments about the vacuum. It was riddled with fear of annihilation. My focus will not lie on the development of...

According to the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, individual spirits--the souls of humans and non-human animals--are extended but cannot be physically divided. His contemporaries and recent commentators have charged that More has never given an explication of the grounds on which the indivisibility of spirits is based. In this article, I suggest that exploring the usage that More makes of the analogy between spirits and light could go some way towards providing such an explication. More compares the relation between spirit and (...) matter to the relation that, according to Aristotelian theories of light, holds between ?intentional species? and matter. I will argue that the purpose of his comparison is to highlight that both intentional species and spirits are existentially independent from matter. The existential independence of intentional species from matter expresses itself in the fact that light is not moved through the motion of the illuminated body. The existential independence of spirits from matter expresses itself in the fact that when a body that is coextensive with a spirit is divided, the spirit is not thereby divided but rather contracts into the remaining living organism. (shrink)

In the history of seventeenth-century philosophy, the distinction between material and immaterial extension is closely associated with the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614–1687). The aspect of More’s conception of immaterial extension that proved most influential is his theory of absolute divine space. Very plausibly, the Newtonian conception of space owes a great deal to More’s views on space. More’s views on space in turn were closely linked to his views on the nature of individual spirits—the souls of brutes and humans, (...) as well as the intelligences of the angels. It has been acknowledged that More’s theory of absolute space was not without precedents. Most importantly, Francesco Patrizi da Cherso (1529– .. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses Samuel Colliberʼs theory of the soul in its philosophical and theological setting. His reflections on the soul have not been studied methodically, but, as I hope to show, they deserve more attention for at least two reasons. First, Colliber appropriates a set of terms, concepts and views from Lockeʼs Essay, but he modifies them for the sake of his own scheme in historically interesting ways. He provides a closed list of cognitive acts or operations, claiming (...) that they are all modes of sensation or perception proceeding from a single unitary faculty. He contends that some of these operations depend on the body while others, most notably internal sensation, do not. Second, Colliber applies this account to the post-mortal states of the soul in a systematic manner. He argues for the distinction and separability of soul and body and gives a fairly detailed description of the capabilities and operations of the soul in its separate state. At the same time, he distances himself from the Cartesian view that the soul is an immaterial substance whose essence excludes everything corporeal. He holds that the natures of soul and body are different but not completely disparate. (shrink)