According to the Monist Interpretation of Descartes, there is really only one corporeal substance—the entire extended plenum. Evidence for this interpretation seems to be provided by Descartes in the Synopsis of the Meditations, where he claims that all substances are incorruptible. Finite bodies, being corruptible, would then fail to be substances. On the other hand, ‘body, taken in the general sense,’ being incorruptible, would be a corporeal substance. In this paper, I defend a Pluralist Interpretation of Descartes, according to which (...) there are many corporeal substances. In particular, I show that none of the claims in the Synopsis about incorruptibility and substance entail either that finite bodies are not substances, or that the only corporeal substance is the entire plenum. (shrink)

Within the paradigm of political liberalism, Hobbes’s legal philosophy has the peculiarity that individual property rights are treated as conditional and derived from the State’s absolute property rights, and thus common, State and individual property are explicitly recognised as three different juridical realities. Through determining the place that Hobbes’s few references to common property hold within his legal philosophy, it is possible to turn the thought of this classic author into a very useful theoretical tool for thinking the possibilities and (...) limits of a political strategy betting for common property against State property. (shrink)