Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:54:45.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Descartes’s Indefinitely Extended Universe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2018

JASPER REID
JASPER REID*
Affiliation:
King’s College London
*
*<[email protected]>
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Descartes believed the extended world did not terminate in a boundary: but why? After elucidating Descartes’s position in §1, suggesting his conception of the indefinite extension of the universe should be understood as actual but syncategorematic, we turn in §2 to his argument: any postulation of an outermost surface for the world will be self-defeating, because merely contemplating such a boundary will lead us to recognise the existence of further extension beyond it. In §3, we identify the fundamental assumption underlying this argument by comparing Descartes’s and Malebranche’s respective conceptions of the ontological status of modes of extension.

Descartes croyait que le monde étendu ne se terminait pas par une borne, mais pourquoi? Après avoir expliqué la position de Descartes au §1, en suggérant que sa conception de l’étendue indéfinie de l’univers devrait être entendue comme actuelle, mais syncatégorématique, nous nous penchons sur son argument dans le §2 : toute postulation d’une surface extérieure au monde sera autodestructrice, parce que la simple contemplation d’une telle borne nous conduira à reconnaître l’existence d’une étendue allant au-delà. Au §3, nous identifions l’hypothèse fondamentale qui sous-tend cet argument en comparant les conceptions respectives de Descartes et de Malebranche quant au statut ontologique des modes de l’étendue.

Keywords

Descartesextensionimaginary spacesindefiniteinfinitesyncategorematicmode
Type
Original Article/Article original
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , June 2019 , pp. 341 - 369
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Antognazza, Maria Rosa 2015 “The Hypercategorematic Infinite.” The Leibniz Review 25: 5–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariew, Roger 1987 “The Infinite in Descartes’ Conversation with Burman.” Archiv für geschichte der philosophie 69 (2): 140–163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ariew, Roger 1999 Descartes and the Last Scholastics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle 1984 The Complete Works, edited by Barnes, Jonathan. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Arthur, Richard 2001 “Leibniz on Infinite Number, Infinite Wholes, and the Whole World.” The Leibniz Review 11: 103–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[Babin, François] 1679 Journal ou relation fidelle de tout ce qui s’est passé dans l’université d’Angers au sujet de la philosophie de Des Carthes. No place: no publisher.Google Scholar
Barrow, Isaac 1734 The Usefulness of Mathematical Learning, translated by Kirkby, John. London: Stephen Austen.Google Scholar
Benitez Grobet, Laura 2010 “Is Descartes a Materialist? The Descartes-More Controversy about the Universe as Indefinite.” Dialogue: The Canadian Philosophical Review 49 (4): 517–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broitman, Françoise Monnoyeur 2013 “The Indefinite within Descartes’ Mathematical Physics.” Eidos 19: 106–121.Google Scholar
Clarke, Desmond 2003 Descartes’s Theory of Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cleomedes 2004 Lectures on Astronomy, translated by Bowen, Alan C. and Todd, Robert B.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Cudworth, Ralph 1678 The True Intellectual System of the Universe. London: Richard Royston.Google Scholar
Du Hamel, Jean 1692 Reflexions critiques sur le systeme cartesien de Mr Regis. Paris: Edme Couterot.Google Scholar
Duhem, Pierre 1985 Medieval Cosmology: Theories of Infinity, Place, Time, Void, and the Plurality of Worlds, edited and translated by Ariew, Roger. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fortin, Ernest L., and O’Neill, Peter D. 1972 “Condemnation of 219 Propositions,” in Medieval Political Philosophy: A Sourcebook, edited by Lerner, Ralph and Mahdi, Muhsin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 335–354.Google Scholar
Garber, Daniel 1992 Descartes’ Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Grant, Edward 1969 “Medieval and Seventeenth-Century Conceptions of an Infinite Void Space beyond the Cosmos.” Isis 60 (1): 39–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, Edward 1979 “The Condemnation of 1277, God’s Absolute Power, and Physical Thought in the Late Middle Ages.” Viator 10: 211–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, Edward 1981 Much Ado About Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmer, Adam 2014 “Leibniz on Infinite Numbers, Infinite Wholes, and Composite Substances.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 22 (2): 236–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoffman, Paul 2009 “Cartesian Passions and Cartesian Dualism,” in his Essays on Descartes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 105–124.Google Scholar
Kendrick, Nancy 1998 “Uniqueness in Descartes’ ‘Infinite’ and ‘Indefinite.’” History of Philosophy Quarterly 15 (1): 23–36.Google Scholar
Koyré, Alexandre 1957 From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
La Grange, J.B. de 1675 Les principes de la philosophie. Paris: Georges Josse.Google Scholar
Laporte, Jean 1950 Le rationalisme de Descartes, nouvelle édition revue et augmentée. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G.W. 1969 Philosophical Papers and Letters, edited by Loemker, Leroy E., second edition. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G.W. 2001 The Labyrinth of the Continuum, translated and edited by Arthur, Richard T.W.. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lucretius 1994 On the Nature of the Universe, translated by Latham, R.E., revised by Godwin, John. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Malebranche, Nicolas 1958–1984 Oeuvres completes, edited by Robinet, André. 20 vols. Paris: J. Vrin.Google Scholar
Malebranche, Nicolas 1995 Malebranche’s First and Last Critics, translated by Watson, Richard A. and Grene, Marjorie. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Malebranche, Nicolas 1997 The Search after Truth, translated and edited by Lennon, Thomas M. and Olscamp, Paul J.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nikulin, Dmitri 2002 Matter, Imagination and Geometry: Ontology, Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in Plotinus, Proclus and Descartes. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
[Rochon, Antoine] 1685 Lettre d’un philosophe à un cartesien. Paris: Daniel de la Ville.Google Scholar
Rohault, Jacques 1729 Rohault’s System of Natural Philosophy, illustrated with Dr. Samuel Clarke’s Notes, translated by Clarke, John. Second edition, 2 vols. London: James and John Knapton.Google Scholar
Sepper, Dennis L. 1993 “Ingenium, Memory Art, and the Unity of Imaginative Knowing in the Early Descartes,” in Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes, edited by Voss, Stephen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 142–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilmer, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène 2008 “La véritable nature de l’indéfini cartésien.” Revue de métaphysique et de morale 60: 503–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vilmer, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène 2010 “Descartes et les bornes de l’univers: l’indéfini physique.” Philosophiques 37 (2): 299–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Margaret D. 1986 “Can I Be the Cause of My Idea of the World? (Descartes on the Infinite and Indefinite),” in Essays on Descartes’ Meditations, edited by Oksenberg Rorty, Amélie. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 339–358.Google Scholar