Abstract

There does not seem to be a consistent way to ground the concept of “force” in Cartesian first principles. In this article, I first review the literature on the subject. Then, I offer an alternative interpretation of force—one that seems to be coherent and consistent with Descartes’ project. Not only does the new position avoid the problems of previous interpretations, but it does so in such a way as to support and justify those previous interpretations. *Received June 2007; revised June 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Washington, Box 353350, Seattle, WA 98195; e‐mail: [email protected].