Ontological dependence is a relation—or, more accurately, a family of relations—between entities or beings. For there are various ways in which one being may be said to depend upon one or more other beings, in a sense of “depend” that is distinctly metaphysical in character and that may be contrasted, thus, with various causal senses of this word. More specifically, a being may be said to depend, in such a sense, upon one or more other beings for its existence or (...) for its identity. Some varieties of ontological dependence may be analyzed in modal terms—that is, in terms of distinctly metaphysical notions of possibility and necessity—while others seem to demand an analysis in terms of the notion of essence. The latter varieties of ontological dependence may accordingly be called species of essential dependence. Notions of ontological dependence are frequently called upon by metaphysicians in their proposed analyses of other metaphysically important notions, such as the notion of substance. (shrink)

The thirty chapters work through various fundamental metaphysical issues, sometimes focusing more on scholastic thought, sometimes on the seventeenth century.

'Ontological dependence' is a term of philosophical jargon which stands for a rich family of properties and relations, often taken to be among the most fundamental ontological properties and relations. Notions of ontological dependence are usually thought of as 'carving reality at its ontological joints', and as marking certain forms of ontological 'non-self-sufficiency'. The use of notions of dependence goes back as far as Aristotle's characterization of substances, and these notions are still widely used to characterize other concepts and to (...) formulate metaphysical claims. This paper first gives an overview of the varieties of these notions, and then discusses some of their main applications. (shrink)

This essay provides an opinionated survey of some recent developments in the literature on ontological dependence. Some of the most popular definitions of ontological dependence are formulated in modal terms; others in non-modal terms (e.g., in terms of the explanatory connective, ‘because’, or in terms of a non-modal conception of essence); some (viz., the existential construals of ontological dependence) emphasise requirements that must be met in order for an entity to exist; others (viz., the essentialist construals) focus on conditions that (...) must be satisfied in order for an entity to be the very entity it is at each time at which it exists; some are rigid, in the sense that they concern a relation between particular entities; others are generic, in the sense that they involve only a relation between an entity and some entities or other, which bear certain characteristics. I identify three potential measures of success with respect to which these different definitions of ontological dependence can be evaluated and consider the question of how well they in fact meet these desiderata. I end by noting that certain challenges face even the most promising essentialist construals of ontological dependence. (shrink)

This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide range, A. W. Moore's (...) study refutes the tired old cliché that there is some unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy and philosophy of other kinds. It also advances its own distinctive and compelling conception of what metaphysics is and why it matters. Moore explores how metaphysics can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new. (shrink)

In her first book, Marleen Rozemond explicates Descartes's aim to provide a metaphysics that would accommodate mechanistic science and supplant scholasticism.

Physiologia provides an accessible and comprehensive guide to late Aristotelian natural philosophy; with that context in hand, it offers new interpretations of major themes in Descartes’s natural philosophy.

This book revives a neglected but important topic in philosophy: the nature of substance. The belief that there are individual substances, for example, material objects and persons, is at the core of our common-sense view of the world yet many metaphysicians deny the very coherence of the concept of substance. The authors develop an account of what an individual substance is in terms of independence from other beings. In the process many other important ontological categories are explored: property, event, space, (...) time. The authors show why alternative theories of substance fail, and go on to defend the intelligibility of interacting spiritual and material substances. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Descartes's Novel Conception of the Mind Dualism, Substances, and Principal Attributes Thinking Without a Body Principal Attributes and the Nature of Body Conclusion References and Further Reading.

ne of the leading problems for Cartesian dualism is to provide an account of the union of mind and body. This problem is often construed to be one of explaining how thinking things and extended things can causally interact. That is, it needs to be explained how thoughts in the mind can produce motions in the body and how motions in the body can produce sensations, appetites, and emotions in the mind. The conclusion often drawn, as it was by three (...) of Descartes's illustrious successors, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz, is that mind and body cannot causally interact.' I mention this problem of the interaction between thinking things and extended things only to distinguish it from the problem concerning the union of mind and body which I wish to discuss. Some commentators, such as Daisie Radner, maintain that the.. (shrink)

This is the first book-length study of Descartes's metaphysics to place it in its immediate historical context, the Late Scholastic philosophy of thinkers such as Suárez against which Descartes reacted. Jorge Secada views Cartesian philosophy as an 'essentialist' reply to the 'existentialism' of the School, and his discussion includes careful analyses and original interpretations of such central Cartesian themes as the role of scepticism, intentionality and the doctrine of the material falsity of ideas, universals and the relation between sense and (...) understanding, causation and the proofs of the existence of God, the theory of substance, and the dualism of mind and matter. His study offers a picture of Descartes's metaphysics that is both novel and philosophically illuminating. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I explore the relations among distinctness, separability, number, and non-identity. I argue that Descartes believes plurality in things themselves arises from distinction, so that things distinct in any of the three ways are not identical. The only exception concerns universals which, considered in things themselves, are identical to particulars. I also argue that to be distinct is to be separable. Things distinct by reason are separable only in thought by means of ideas not (...) clear and distinct. In the second part I argue that the notion of separability in Descartes’s account of real distinction between mind and body is subject to five different interpretations. I claim that the heart of Cartesian dualism concerns the separability of the attributes thought and extension. It does not require that mind and body are separable in the sense that each can exist without the other existing. (shrink)

In recent years more and more scholars of early modern philosophy have come to acknowledge that our understanding of Descartes’s thought benefits greatly from consideration of his intellectual background. Research in this direction has taken off, but much work remains to be done. Dennis Des Chene offers a major contribution to this enterprise. This erudite book is the result of a very impressive body of research into a number of late Aristotelian scholastics, some fairly well known, such as Suárez, others (...) quite obscure. Two thirds of the book is devoted to the Aristotelians, with occasional references to Descartes; the last third focuses on Descartes, although there still much Aristotelian ground is covered. Des Chene indicates three major themes for his book: natural change and agency, the structure of material substance, and finality. (shrink)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Breakdown of C i M phy " artes an eta sacs RICHARD A. WATSON WITHIN CARTESIANISMthere arose many problems deriving from conflicts between Cartesian principles. Inadequate attempts to solve these problems were crucial reasons for the breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The major difficulties derived from the acceptance of a dualism of substances seated in a system which included epistemological and (...) causal likeness principles plus an ontological framework in which the categories of substance and modification were exhaustive. The major solutions involved either denying the likeness principles or altering the ontological framework. The first led to unintelligibility ; the second, culminating in Hume, opened the way to non-Cartesian metaphysics. The first section of this study contains a characterization of late seventeenth -century Cartesian metaphysics. The second is an exposition of Foucher 's four major criticisms of this system. In the third section, monistic solutions suggested in Descartes and by Spinoza, Foucher, Leibniz, and Locke are considered; in the fourth, the dualistic solutions of the orthodox Cartesians Rohault, R~gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Le Grand, and Arnauld; and in the fifth, the occasionalist solution of Malebranche. The sixth section is an analysis of these orthodox and occasionalist solutions, showing how each ultimately fails because of dependence upon the ontology of substance and modification. The seventh section is a consideration of Berkeley and Hume in the Cartesian context. A consideration of their systems as offering solutions to Cartesian problems illuminates in new light both the systems and the problems. In broad terms, this study moves from a consideration of problems arising from an ontology of two substances, to a consideration of problems arising from the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The Cartesians were concerned with relationships between two substances, but they saw no difficulties connected with the relationship between a substance and its modifications (or properties). Berkeley's treatment (deriving from Male- [177] 178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY branche) of the relationships between mind and idea, and between mind and notion, is illuminated by a consideration of the extent to which he took these relationships for granted in the Cartesian way, and of the extent to which he saw difficulties in the relationship between substance and modification. The Berkeleian solution to Cartesian problems, like that of Malebranche before him, was not successful; Malebranche belittled, and Berkeley denied the dualism of substances, but neither philosopher could break entirely with the ontological pattern of substance and modification. The final breakdown of Cartesian metaphysics came with Hume, who, in providing the culmination of a most important trend in modern philosophy, opened the way to new metaphysics and became the father of contemporary philosophy. I A model late seventeenth-century Cartesian metaphysical system. The last grand expositor of the Cartesian philosophy was Antoine Le Grand who in 1694 published An Entire Body of Philosophy. The characterization of the late seventeenth-century Cartesian system given below follows Le Grand's exposition more closely than others, but it also incorporates elements from those of Rohault, R6gis, Desgabets, La Forge, Malebranche, and Arnauld.1 None of these philosophers professed a system of exactly the sort this characterization pictures, nor is it implied here that they do. The guide and rationale for drawing from them such a model Cartesianism is the polemical writing of Simon Foucher. Foucher's series of attacks upon Cartesianism (of which the second is his criticism of Malebranche of 1675, Critique de la Rdcherche de la veritd) give clearly the most important objections against Cartesian metaphysics.2The system outlined below, while more com1Le Grand, Antoine, An Entire Body of Philosophy According to the Principles of the Famous Renate des Cartes (London, 1694); Rohault, Jacques, Traitd de physique (Paris, 1671); R6gis, Pierre-Sylvain, Syst~me de philosophie, contenant la logique, la mdtaphysique, la physique et la morale (Lyon, 1690); Desgabets, Robert, Critique de la Critique de la Recherche de la veritd, oCt l'on decouvre le chemin qui conduit aux connoissances solides. Pour servir de rdsponse gtla Lettre d'un academicien (Paris, 1675); La Forge, Louis de, Traitd de l'dme humaine, de ses facultds et fonctions et de son union avec le corps, d'apr~s les principes de... (shrink)

How we understand Descartes’s physics rests on how we interpret his ontological commitment to individual bodies, and in particular on how we account for their individuation. However, Descartes’s contemporaries as well as contemporary philosophers have seen Descartes’s account of the individuation of bodies as deeply flawed. In the first part of this paper, I discuss how the various problems and puzzles involved in Descartes’s account of the individuation of bodies arise, and the relevance of these problems for his physics. With (...) an eye toward resolving these puzzles, I argue for an interpretation of the Cartesian ontology in which bodies are not individuated by motion but, instead, are mind-dependent. As part of this reading, I demonstrate the sense in which we can clearly and distinctly perceive bodies, and also the senses in which the real, conceptual, and modal distinctions apply to them. I conclude by explaining how this account of the mind-dependent individuation of bodies is consistent with Descartes’s definition of ‘motion’ and ‘a body’ in Principles, Part II, section 25—the very passage that prima facie entails the most troubling of the individuation puzzles. Finally, I show that this account is consistent with Descartes’s general goal in constructing his physics. (shrink)

Descartes maintained substance dualism, the thesis that no substance has both mental and material properties. His main argument for this thesis, the so-called separability argument from the Sixth Meditation (AT VII: 78) has long puzzled readers. In this paper I argue that Descartes’ independence conception of substance (which Descartes presents in article 51 of the Principles) is crucial for the success of the separability argument and that Descartes used this conception of substance to defend his argument for substance dualism from (...) an important objection. (shrink)

The categorial concepts of substance (thing) and substance (stuff) are described, and the conceptual relationships between things and their constitutive stuff delineated. The relationship between substance concepts, expressed by other count-nouns, and natural kind concepts is examined. Artefacts and their parts are argued to be substances, whereas parts of organisms are not. The confusions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers who invoked the concept of substance are adumbrated.

This essay explores the vexed issue of individual corporeal substance in Descartes' natural philosophy. Although Descartes' often referred to individual material objects as separate substances, the constraints on his definitions of matter and substance would seem to favor the opposite view; namely, that there exists only one corporeal substance, the plenum. In contrast to this standard interpretation, however, it will be demonstrated that Descartes' hypotheses make a fairly convincing case for the existence of individual material substances; and the key to (...) this new found individuation is a long neglected set of passages in the Principles of Philosophy. (shrink)

This article considers complications for the principle in Descartes that effects are similar to their causes that are connected to his own denial that terms apply "univocally" to God and the creatures He produces. Descartes suggested that there remains an "analogical" relation in virtue of which our mind can be said to be similar to God's. However, this suggestion is undermined by the implication of his doctrine of the creation of the eternal truths that God's will differs entirely from our (...) own. The disappearance of analogy is even more evident in Spinoza and Regis. Both linked Descartes's doctrine to the principle that an effect differs from its cause with respect to what it receives from that cause, and both argued from that principle to the conclusion that we differ from God in both essence and existence. (shrink)

Combines historical research and philosophical analysis to cast light on why and how Cartesianism failed as a complete metaphysical system. Far more radical in its conclusions than his 1966 study The Downfall of Cartesianism, Watson argues that Descartes's ontology is incoherent and vacuous, his epistemology deceptive, and his theology unorthodox--indeed, that Descartes knows nothing.

I argue that although in his earlier work descartes thought of the laws of motion as "eternal truths," he later came to think of them as truths whose necessity is of a different type.

It is widely-accepted that Descartes is a substance dualist, i.e. that he holds that there are two and only two kinds of finite substance – mind and body. However, several scholars have argued that Descartes is a substance trialist, where the third kind of substance he admits is the substantial union of a mind and a body, the human being. In this paper, I argue against the trialist interpretation of Descartes. First, I show that the strongest evidence for trialism, based (...) on Descartes' discussion of so-called incomplete substances, is highly inconclusive. Second, I show that a kind of unity (‘unity of nature’), which is had by all and only substances, is not had by human beings. The fact that the proper parts of a human being, namely a mind and a body, are of different natures entails that what they compose has at most a ‘unity of composition’. And a thing cannot be a substance in virtue of having a unity of composition. Therefore, Cartesian human beings are not substances. (shrink)

Indifference, Necessity, and Descartes's Derivation of the Laws of Motion BLAKE D. DUTTON WHILE WORKING ON Le Monde, his first comprehensive scientific treatise, Des- cartes writes the following to Mersenne: "I think that all those to whom God has given the use of this reason have an obligation to employ it principally in the endeavor to know him and to know themselves. This is the task with which I began my studies; and I can say that I would not have (...) been able to discover the foundations of physics if I had not looked for them along that road" . ' As the letter makes clear, knowl- edge of the foundations of Cartesian physics is inextricably linked to the knowledge of God. Unfortunately, Descartes never explains why this is the case, and the relation in which his theistic doctrine stands to his physics remains unspecified. In what follows I wish to clarify that relation by examining some of the problems surrounding Descartes's attempt to locate the metaphysical founda- tions of his physics in his doctrine of God. I begin my analysis with a discussion of the doctrine of divine indifference and argue that this doctrine is of great importance to any interpretation of the foundations of Cartesian physics, insofar as it provides Descartes with a rationale for dismissing the appeal to final causation in scientific explanation. Insofar as this is the case, it supplies an important piece of his justification for mechanism... (shrink)

This article examines the views of René Descartes, Robert Boyle, and John Locke on essence and kinds and outlines the polemical stances that motivate and direct each of their views. It describes the ontological categories to which they subscribed and their own speculative theories about the actual kinds in the world. It categories to which they subscribed and their own speculative theories about the actual kinds in the world and discusses the late-Aristotelian theory of substantial forms.

The categorial concepts of substance and substance are described, and the conceptual relationships between things and their constitutive stuff delineated. The relationship between substance concepts, expressed by other count-nouns, and natural kind concepts is examined. Artefacts and their parts are argued to be substances, whereas parts of organisms are not. The confusions of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers who invoked the concept of substance are adumbrated.

It is difficult now to imagine an intellectual landscape so thoroughly dominated by one figure as was that of the Schools by Aristotle. Except on certain well-known questions, the presumption was that Aristotle, suitably interpreted, was right. Nevertheless Aristotelianism was no frozen monolith. During the four centuries of its predominance, it continued to change, and admitted on all but fundamental points or those on which ecclesiastical authorities had pronounced, a great latitude—within, as in all such frameworks, the limits of its (...) thinkable. (shrink)