Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes and in his Reception

Delphine Antoine-Mahut is Professor of Early Modern Philosophy at the ENS, Lyon. Her research focuses on the tribulations – adventures and misadventures – of Cartesian dualism between the seventeenth and the nineteenth century. She is especially interested by the intersections of metaphysics and physiology.Sophie Roux is Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science at the École Normale Supérieure. She published extensively on natural philosophy in the Early Modern period, but also in philosophy of science (e.g. on thought experiments and on mathematization) and in history of philosophy of science (e.g. on Duhem and on Couturat).

"The strength of this volume lies in its attention to intellectual history of the sort that is not often discussed in Anglophone historiography, but that is given more emphasis in the work of European scholars." – Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

• IntroductionDelphine Antoine-Mahut and Sophie RouxPart I. Historiography1. First Philosophy, Metaphysics and Physics: The Implications of Order in Cartesian and in the Enlightenment PhilosophyMariafranca Spallanzani2. To Replant and Unroot: Typology of the Cartesian Tree of Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century French Histories of PhilosophyDelphine Antoine-Mahut3. Between Fake, Unfortunate, and Actual Dependence: The Tumultuous Relationships of Descartes’ Physics and Metaphysics in the First Half of Twentieth-Century History and Philosophy of ScienceDelphine BellisPart II. Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes’ Time4. Ontology and the Place of Metaphysics: Taurellus, Gorlaeus, Regius and DescartesChristoph Lüthy5. Strange Bedfellows: Physics and Metaphysics in DescartesEmanuela Scribano6. Descartes, A Priori Knowledge, and MetaphysicsDesmond M. Clarke7. A Deflationist Solution to the Problem of Force in DescartesSophie RouxPart III. European Recceptions8. Duplex intellectus et sermo duplex: Method and the separation of disciplines in Johannes De RaeyAntonella Del Prete9. The Materialist Reception of the Cartesian Physics in NaplesPierre Girard10. Physics in the broad senseBoyle, Newton and the Baconian metaphysical physicsPhilippe Hamou11. Continuous Creation, Occasionalism and Persistence: Leibniz on BayleJean-Pascal Anfray12. Sticking to the Middle Course. Intellectual ethics and scientific practice in Leibniz’s metaphysical physicsMogens Lærke