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The French jurist and courtier Géraud de Cordemoy (1622-1684) was one of the leading exponents of early Cartesianism. Although he felt closely connected to René Descartes' philosophy, he corrected it in some central points. Thus he advocates an atomistic phsics and a theory of causation known as Occasionalism, which Leibniz calls the System of Occasional Causes in the "New System". The volume contains selected central passages from Cordemoy's main philosophical writings, which are made accessible here for the first (...) time in a bilingual study edition. These are excerpts from the "Six Discussions on the Difference and Union of Body and Soul" from 1666, and a "Metaphysical Treatise" that appeared posthumously in 1691. (shrink)

This is an examination of the nature and extent of Cordemoy's commitment to the doctrine of occasionalism.

This chapter contains section titled: The Cartesian Origins of the Question Towards the Origins of Occasionalism: Louis de la Forge The Origin of Physical Motion Minds and Bodies Cordemoy and the Cause of Motion Geulincx, Occasionalism and Self‐Consciousness.

Steven Nadler presents the first English translation of a seminal work in the history of early modern philosophy. Géraud de Cordemoy's Six Discourses on the Distinction Between the Soul and the Body offers an account of the mind and the body in a human being. Cordemoy is an unorthodox Cartesian who opts for an atomist conception of body and matter. In this groundbreaking treatise, he also presents one of the earliest arguments for an occasionalist account of causation, with (...) God serving as the true cause of bodily motions in the world and of ideas in the mind. Nadler also includes the first English translation of Cordemoy's short Treatises on Metaphysics, which were probably written soon after the Discourses, and extend his discussion of mind-body union with consideration of human freedom and happiness. The introduction provides a biographical and historical context for Cordemoy's work and a study of his main philosophical doctrines, including his influence on later thinkers. (shrink)

Gerauld de Cordemoy, along with Arnold Geulinx, is a leading forerunner of occasional cause notion. The focal point of this article is the philosopher's views on occasionalism. The solution to this problem is included in his major philosophical work, titled Le discernement du corps et de l'âme en six discours, pour servir à l'éclaircissement de la physique, 1666 [Discrimination between body and soul…]. According to him the capability to move cannot be attributed to body. The philosopher introduced inability to (...) transfer movement from one body to another. Gerauld de Cordemoy considers God to be the fundamental purpose of movement. The article includes a philosopher's combination of Cartesian theory and atomism that he professed. He additionally proposed a definition of matter and body, alternative to the Cartesian one. The following written work elaborates on the role of a scholar in the clarification process of occasionalism, from Descrates to Malebranche. (shrink)

Die Studie untersucht die atomistische Abweichung Cordemoys von den Vorgaben der cartesischen Physik. Sie zeigt, dass sich Cordemoys Atomismus auf eine Metaphysik stutzt, die vorcartesischen Positionen ahnelt. Die im Rahmen dieser Metaphysik vertretene Theorie vom Wesen individueller Substanzen bildet ausserdem die Grundlage von Cordemoys occasionalistischer Kausallehre. Dabei wird der Occasionalismus als physikalisches Erklarungsmodell eingefuhrt und schliesslich auf den Bereich der leib-seelischen Interaktion angewandt. Die Studie verweist wiederholt auf Parallelen und Unterschiede in der Philosophie Cordemoys zu Descartes, Clauberg und Sorel. -/- (...) The study examines Cordemoy's atomistic deviation from the precepts of Cartesian physics. It shows that Cordemoy's atomism is based on a metaphysics that resembles pre-Cartesian positions. The theory of the essence of individual substances advocated within the framework of this metaphysics also forms the basis of Cordemoy's occasionalist theory of causation. Occasionalism is introduced as a physical model of explanation and finally applied to the field of body-soul interaction. The study repeatedly points to parallels and differences in Cordemoy's philosophy to Descartes, Clauberg and Sorel. (shrink)

Among the French Cartesians of the second half of the seventeenth century, Géraud de Cordemoy stands out as the most radical. He was one of the first to argue that Cartesian metaphysics imply occasionalism, and he was alone in arguing that those same metaphysical commitments lead to atomism. This paper addresses the second of these positions. Following a discussion of what is taken to be the strongest version of his argument for atomism, consideration will turn to an objection against (...) Cordemoy, one that was raised in his own day by Gottfried Leibniz and more recently by Steven Nadler. The paper concludes with a response offered on Cordemoy's behalf. (shrink)

This article addresses some Late Scholastic accounts (Suárez, Abra de Raçonis, Gamaches, Ysambert, Arriaga), of the “problem of transduction” in angels, as a possible source for the genesis of early modern occasionalism, particularly La Forge’s and Cordemoy’s. Indeed, if the “problem of transduction” is a structural issue of all the Aristotelian gnoseology, the impossibility of interaction between immaterial and material substance concerns, more generally, all spiritual substances, posing the issue about the principle of "transduction" already at the level of (...) angels, entirely immaterial creatures, unable to any relationship with the bodies. In order to answer to this peculiar version of the 'problem of transduction' Late Scholastic elaborate doctrines that are direct antecedents of occasionalist ones, and which likely directly influenced early modern occasionalism. To follow this investigative path, I will intersect three complementary argumentative lines. First, I will focus on Late Scholastic angelology, to point out how the need to solve the 'problem of transduction' in this peculiar context pushes the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Schools to a proto-occasionalist conception of angelic innatism. Secondly, I will identify in the debate on the angelic locutio of the key places for the elaboration of a model that sees God as the only efficient cause and the only guarantor of the mind's communications and contents. Thirdly, I will stress how the Late Scholastic angelological debates could be an important source for early modern dualism and the seventeenth-century occasionalism, notably for La Forge and Cordemoy. -/- . (shrink)

Geraud de Cordemoy, 1600-1684 -- Clerselier, 1614-1684, and Rohault, 1620-1675 -- Louis de la Chambre, 1594-1669 -- Samuel Sorbière, 1615-1670 -- Louis de la Forge and the critique of substantial forms -- Cartesian doctrine and the animal soul -- Clauberg and the development of occasionalism -- Some historical steps towards parallelism -- Cartesian refutations of Spinoza -- Matter and scientific efficiency -- Man, Thomistic and Cartesian.

This book analyses the concept of scientific explanation developed by French disciples of Descartes in the period 1660-1700. Clarke examines the views of authors such as Malebranche and Rohault, as well as those of less well-known authors such as Cordemoy, Gadroys, Poisson and R'egis. These Cartesian natural philosophers developed an understanding of scientific explanation as necessarily hypothetical, and, while they contributed little to new scientific discoveries, they made a lasting contribution to our concept of explanation--generations of scientists in subsequent (...) centuries followed their lead. (shrink)

One of the more interesting philosophical debates in the seventeenth century concerned the nature and explanation of qualities. In order to understand these debates, it is important to place them in their proper historical-philosophical context. This book chapter starts with theoretical background in the work of Aristotle and the atomists, and then moves on to survey various theories of motion and rest, light, color, and sound, as well as the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, as represented in the work (...) of such figures as Berkeley, Boyle, Charleton, Cordemoy, Descartes, Desgabets, Galileo, Gassendi, Hobbes, Locke, Malebranche, Newton, Régis, Rohault, and Sennert. (shrink)

In a 1687 letter to Arnauld, Leibniz draws on an argument against mind-body causation that is reminiscent of one from Spinoza’s Ethics. According to this argument, mind-body causation is impossible because of the lack of proportion between thoughts and motions. This paper aims to shed light on Leibniz’s use of Spinoza’s argument by reconstructing both its internal structure and its development in Leibniz’s later works. In particular, the reconstruction focuses on the new version of this argument that Leibniz adopts against (...) Stahl’s vitalism as well as on the change that this new version reveals in Leibniz’s attitude towards occasionalism. The possible influence of Cordemoy is also taken into consideration. The epistemological and metaphysical issues surrounding this argument are an essential part of the history of Leibniz’s psycho-physical parallelism. (shrink)

During the seventeenth century there were different ways of opposing the new mechanical philosophy and the old Aristotelian philosophy. Remarkably enough, one of this way succeeded in becoming stable beyond the moment of its formulation, one according to which Descartes would be the benchmark by which the works of other natural philosophers of the seventeenth century fall either on the side of the old or the new. I consequently examine the French debate where this representation emerges, a debate that took (...) place along with the development of a Cartesian propaganda in the 1660s and the ensuing official condemnations of the philosophy of Descartes, which was said to constitute a danger for the mystery of Eucharist. But these condemnations pronounced in the name of theology, as numerous and radical as they were, were not considered to be sufficient. They were assisted by numerous polemical works, the audience of which were learned companies of courteous honnêtes gens, and the object of which was to defend a certain way of proceeding in natural philosophy. I consequently concentrate on two correlated questions, the question of what kind of ontological entities are necessary for the establishment of a good physics, and the correlated question of what norms should be adopted in natural philosophy. I show quite systematically that the criticisms of Cartesian philosophers by the Oratorian Jean-Baptiste de La Grange, the bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet, and various Jesuits, Ignace Pardies, Antoine Rochon, Louis Le Valois, Gabriel Daniel, René Rapin, and Honoré Fabri respond to the mockeries of Gérauld de Cordemoy, Jacques Rohault, Louis de La Forge, Bernard Lamy, Nicolas Malebranche or Antoine Arnauld concerning the scholastic entities. Not only do I contrast their philosophical arguments concerning ontological entities and the norms to be respected in physics, but also their ways of defining the philosophical enterprise and its public. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the analyses of the Cartesianism that was the most important direction in the philosophy and science of the XVII and first half of the next century. Reception, expansion and modification of the Descartes’ doctrine was going in the concrete social and cultural context. Author shows than Cartesianism is the unique synthesis of the tradition and innovation in the epoch of scientific revolution. His coming-to-be had passed in the sharp struggle with the peripatetic Scholasticism. The different (...) currents in the Cartesianisn such as the occasionalism (Clauberg, Cordemoy, Laforge, Geulincx) are considered by the author. In addition to this Fontenelle`s doctrine of the plurality of worlds and others contributions of Cartesianism in the philosophy and European culture are considered too. (shrink)

En prenant appui sur des textes de Descartes et de philosophes post-cartésiens comme Géraud de Cordemoy, ou encore des théoriciens de Port-Royal, tels Lancelot, Arnauld et Nicole, nous nous intéressons au statut double et paradoxal que revêt la parole dans la philosophie classique, au moment où se construit la question de l’union psychophysique et où sont proposées diverses « réponses » à cette question, dans la perspective d’une conceptualisation nouvelle d’une identité humaine rendue problématique. Le paradoxe tient au fait (...) que l’activité de langage est d’abord manifestation de la pensée, indice publiquement observable ou témoignage extérieur de l’existence d’un esprit à l’origine des actes linguistiques, conformément à la théorie cartésienne à ce sujet ; mais la parole dénote aussi, dans la philosophie même de Descartes, une faculté spécifiquement humaine, propre au « vrai homme », en tant qu’il est indissolublement esprit et corps. Nous tentons de montrer que ce qui est en jeu dans les études brèves et éparses que Descartes consacre au langage, puis dans les développements ultérieurs de la Grammaire générale et raisonnée et de la Logique de Port-Royal, à travers la théorie du signe linguistique et de la signification, c’est la compréhension de la relation, nécessairement postulée et pourtant constamment renvoyée à l’ordre d’un lien contre-nature, et par là arbitraire, fruit d’une institution, entre la parole comme phénomène physique et la parole comme activité symbolique par excellence ; si bien que le prodige du phénomène humain du langage, comme expression publique des pensées, donne la mesure de l’énigme que constitue l’unité en l’homme du corps et de l’esprit. (shrink)

In this article, I revisit Leibniz's early views on physical causation, more specifically, his relation to physical occasionalism focusing on the period from 1668 to 1676. An in-depth analysis of the Confession of Nature against the Atheists taken together with the Catholic Demonstrations, Leibniz's correspondence with Jakob Thomasius from 1668/69, and the Pacidius Philalethi (1676) serve as evidence that his position leads to physical occasionalism. This receives further confirmation by taking into account Leibniz's familiarity with Weigel's occasionalism in contrast to (...) Leibniz's later encounter of French occasionalism à la Cordemoy, La Forge, or Malebranche. Leibniz's exposure to Weigel's occasionalism, in turn, helps us better understand Leibniz's later critical reaction to occasionalism and how occasionalism helped him develop his own distinct views on causation as expressed in his mature philosophy. (shrink)