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Divine Activity and Motive Power in Descartes's Physics

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09608788.2011.583415

1469-3526

Andrew R. Platt,

Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies

Abstract This paper is the first of a two-part reexamination of causation in Descartes's physics. Some scholars – including Gary Hatfield and Daniel Garber – take Descartes to be a `partial' Occasionalist, who thinks that God alone is the cause of all natural motion. Contra this interpretation, I agree with literature that links Descartes to the Thomistic theory of divine concurrence. This paper surveys this literature, and argues that it has failed to provide an interpretation of Descartes's view that both distinguishes his position from that of his later, Occasionalist followers and is consistent with his broader metaphysical commitments. I provide an analysis that tries to address these problems with earlier `Concurentist' readings of Descartes. On my analysis, Occasionalism entails that created substances do not have intrinsic active causal powers. As I read him, Descartes thinks that bodies have active causal powers that are partly grounded in their intrinsic natures. But I argue – pace a recent account by Tad Schmaltz – that Descartes also thinks that God immediately causes all motion in the created world. On the picture that emerges, Descartes's position is both continuous with, and a subtle departure from, the Thomisitic theory of divine concurrence. Keywords: DescartesOccasionalismcausationlaws of physics Notes 1Gary Hatfield, 'Force (God) in Descartes' Physics', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 10 (1979) No. 2: 113–40, reprinted in John Cottingham (ed.), Descartes, Oxford Readings in Philosophy Series (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) 281–310. Page references will be to the 1998 reprint. Daniel Garber, Descartes' Metaphysical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992) 299–305 and 'Descartes and Occasionalism', in Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by S. Nadler (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1993) 9–26, especially 12–15. George Boas, Dominant Themes, A History (New York: Ronald Press, 1957) 104–5, also seems to suggest this reading. Other authors have attributed body–body Occasionalism to Descartes on grounds other than those advanced by Hatfield and Garber. See for example Jonathan Bennett, Learning from Six Philosophers (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) vol. 1, 99–101, and Geoffrey Gorham, 'Cartesian Causation: Continuous, Instantaneous, Overdetermined', Journal of the History of Philosophy, 42 (2004) No. 4: 389–423, especially 400–3. 2Kenneth Clatterbaugh, 'Cartesian Causality, Explanation and Divine Concurrence', History of Philosophy Quarterly, 12 (1995) No. 2: 195–207, and The Causation Debate in Modern Philosophy, 1637–1739 (New York and London: Routledge, 1999), especially 32–42, passim 52–66; Michael Della Rocca, '"If a Body Meet a Body": Descartes on Body–Body Causation', in New Essays on the Rationalists, edited by Rocco J. Gennaro and Charles Huenemann (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 48–81; Alan Gabbey, 'Force and Inertia in the Seventeenth Century: Descartes and Newton', in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics, edited by Stephen Gaukroger (Brighton and Totowa: Harvester, 1980) 230–320; Martial Guéroult, 'The Metaphysics and Physics of Force in Descartes', in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics, edited by Stephen Gaukroger (Brighton and Totowa: Harvester, 1980) 196–229; Helen Hattab, 'The Problem of Secondary Causation in Descartes: A Response to Des Chene', Perspectives on Science, 8 (2000) No. 2: 93–118, and 'Concurrence or Divergence? Reconciling Descartes' Physics with his Metaphysics', Journal of the History of Philosophy, 45 (2007) No. 1: 49–78; Andrew Pessin, 'Descartes Nomic Concurrentism: Finite Causation and Divine Concurrence', Journal of the History of Philosophy, 41 (2003) No. 1: 25–49. 3'A New System of Natures', in Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, translated and edited by Leroy E. Loemker, 2nd edn (Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel, 1976) 453–61, at 457; Leibniz, G.W. Leibniz: Die philosophischen Schriften, edited by C. J. Gerhardt (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1960–1) vol. IV, 483. 4Georg Bernhard Bilfinger (1693–1750) calls Malebranche's followers 'occasionalistas' in his Dilucidationes Philosophicae, edited by Jean Ecole et al. (Tübingen, 1725), reprinted in Christian Wolff: Gesammelte Werke, Materialien und Dokumente (Hildeshiem: Georg Olms, 1982) vol. 18, 351. Kant seems to have coined 'Okkasionalism' in the Critik der Urtheilskraft, §81 (1st edn Berlin and Libau: Lagarde & Friederich, 1790; 2nd edn Berlin: F. T. Lagarde, 1793), where he contrasts it with 'Prästabilism'; see Kant's gesammelte Schriften, edited by Könglich-Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1910–) vol. 5. In the Critik der reinen Vernunft (Riga: Hartknoch, 1781) 389–90, Kant had called Occasionalism the 'system of supernatural assistance'; see Kant's gesammelte Schriften, vol. 4, 422. 5Occasionalism also persisted well into the eighteenth century – most notably in Berkeley, whom Alfred Freddoso groups with Malebranche as a 'representative' example of a modern Occasionalist in 'Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case Against Secondary Causation in Nature', in Divine and Human Action, edited by Thomas V. Morris (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988) 74–118, at 76; for further discussion of Berkeleyian Occasionalism see Charles McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) 211–17. 6Aquinas is referring to Islamic authors who followed the tradition of Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari (c. 873–c. 935), in particular Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111). See Al-Ghazali, The Incoherence of the Philosophers = Tahāfut al-falāsifah: A Parallel English–Arabic Text, edited and translated by Michael E. Marmura (Provo, UT: Brigham Young, 1997) 170–81. 7 DM 18.1.1. (See end of article for abbreviations of source citations.) Suárez associates Occasionalism with Pierre d'Ailly (1350–1420) and Gabriel Biel (c. 1420–95), who were influenced by Nicholas of Autrecourt (c. 1295–1369). See Nicholas of Autrecourt, Second Letter to Bernard, in Nicholas of Autrecourt: His Correspondence with Master Giles and Bernard of Arezzo, translated by L. M. de Rijk (Leiden and New York: J. Brill, 1994) 58–75; Pierrre d'Ailly, Questiones super libros sententiarum, lib. IV q. 1 a.1 (Strasburg, 1490; facsimile edition Frankfurt: Minerva, 1968); Gabriel Biel, Epitome et collectorium ex Occamo circa quatour sententiarum libros, lib. IV dist. 1 ques. 1 art. 3 (Tübingen, 1501; facsimile edition Frankfurt: Minerva, 1965). For the connection between these authors and Malebranche see Steven Nadler, '"No Necessary Connection": The Medieval Roots of the Occasionalist Roots of Hume', Monist, 19 (1996): 448–66, at 448–9. 8One difference between how Aquinas states Occasionalism in SCG and the way Suárez and Leibniz describe it is that in SCG Aquinas states Occasionalism as a claim only about natural agents. Interestingly he does not place this restriction on Occasionalism in ST I q. 105 art. 5. This restriction is relevant to the question of how Occasionalism is consistent with free will; I will be bracketing this issue. For further discussion, see Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume IV, Modern Philosophy: Descartes to Leibniz (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1960; reprinted New York: Doubleday, 1994) 190–6; Tad Schmaltz, 'Human Freedom and Divine Creation', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2 (1994) No. 2: 3–50; David Scott, 'Malebranche on the Soul's Power', Studia Leibnitiana, 28 (1996): 37–57; and Andrew Pessin, 'Malebranche's Doctrine of Freedom/Consent and the Incompleteness of God's Volitions', British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 8 (2000): 21–53. 9Leibniz's characterization of Occasionalism has cast a long shadow on the historiography of Occasionalism. His reading of Occasionalism was repeated in Wolff, then in German historians like Bilfinger, and then in Kant. This tradition helped cement the tradition of describing Occasionalism as an intended 'solution' to the mind–body problem. See for example Robert Adamson, The Development of Modern Philosophy (Edinburgh: W. Blackwood, 1903) vol. I, 39–40; Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, 2nd edition (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1937) 140; Boas, Dominant Themes, 103–4, 106, 115–16; Copleston, Descartes to Leibniz, 176–7; and Bernard Williams, Descartes: The Project of Pure Inquiry (Atlantic Heights, NJ: Humanities Press, 1978; reissued London and New York: Routledge, 2005) 273. Page reference is to the 2005 reissue. More sympathetic expositors have argued (rightly I think) that Occasionalism was motivated by more general theoretical considerations. See for example Martial Guéroult, Malebranche (Paris: Aubier, 1955–9) vol. 2, 210–11; Ferdinand Alquié, Le Cartésianisme de Malebranche (Paris: J. Vrin, 1974) 253–4; Thomas Lennon, 'Occasionalism and the Cartesian Metaphysics of Motion', Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplement 1 (1974): 29–40; Louis Loeb, From Descartes to Hume (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1981) 210–28; and Steven Nadler, 'The Occasionalism of Louis de la Forge', in Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Steven Nadler (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1993) 57–73. 10See Search, Elucidation XV LO 663–7, passim 678–80, where Malebranche explicitly contrasts Occasionalism with the view defended by Aquinas; see also Search VI.2.3 (LO 450), where Malebranche argues for Occasionalism by arguing against the Thomistic theory. 11 ST I q. 105 art. 5. Freddoso's 'Medieval Aristotelianism and the Case Against Secondary Causation in Nature' is a particularly helpful account of the medieval background of Occasionalism: much of what I will say below follows Freddoso's analysis. I am also indebted here to conversations with Robert Sleigh. For a more recent summary of this background see Tad Schmaltz, 'The Scholastic Context', in Descartes on Causation (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) 9–48. 12Later Scholastics associated this view with Durand de Saint-Pourçain (1270–1332). See for example Suárez, DM 22.1.2. 13See SCG III.65ff, and ST I, q. 8 art. 1, and q. 105 art. 5. There was broad agreement on this point among medieval and early modern authors. See for example Suárez, DM 21; Descartes, Third Meditation (AT VII 49; CSM II 33) and Principles I.21 (AT VIIIA 13; CSM I 200); Malebranche, DMR VII.vii (R XII 156–7, 160; JS 112, 115); and Leibniz, Theodicy, art. 385, translated by A. Farrer (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1951; reprinted Chicago: Open Court, 1990) 355. Page reference is to the 1990 reprint. 14 SCG III.70.8. See also DM 22.1.22. 15 DM 22.1.22. 16It follows that divine concurrence is not a kind of over-determination: God chooses to let creatures help bring about events, and created substances could not produce their effects without God's concurrence, so neither God's concurrence nor the creature's action is individually casually sufficient for the effect. See SCG III.70.6–7. 17 DMR VII.xiii (R XII 165–6; JS 120). Suárez notices this feature of Occasionalism when he says in DM 18.1.1 that for the Occasionalists 'action is attributed to fire, water, and so on … because God has resolved, as it were, to produce certain effects only in the presence of such things'. 18 Search VI.2.3 (LO 448) is a typical example of how Malebranche states Occasionalism: 'there is only one true cause because there is only one true God … [and] all natural causes are not true causes'. 24This is similar to R. Harré's definition of a causal power in 'Powers', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 21 (1970): 81–101, at 85. While the Scholastics think that causal powers are themselves intrinsic properties, Harré thinks that they are dispositional properties that have an intrinsic basis. 19In comments on an earlier version of this paper presented at the Midwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy at Marquette University in November 2008, Thomas Lennon pointed out that this dispositional analysis of powers does not fit the case of volitional agency. The will is clearly an example of a 'power' for medieval and early modern authors. Yet it is false that, if placed in given circumstances, a free agent will (automatically) bring about a certain effect. I take this to be a problem with the analysis of volitional agency, and not a counterexample to describing causal powers (free or otherwise) as dispositions. That is, I think it is the task of a philosopher who (i) thinks that actions involve the exercise of a power and (ii) thinks that some actions are free, to explain how some powers are exercised only pending the free choice of the will. In what follows, I will be interested only in the actions of 'natural agents', for whom the exercise of causal powers is not dependent on or controlled by the will. In these cases I think this dispositional analysis applies unproblematically. 20The counterfactual analysis of dispositions is a matter of controversy in contemporary philosophy. For an example of the standard analysis, see J. L. Mackie, 'Dispositional Statements', in Truth, Probability and Paradox (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973) 120–33; for objections to the standard analysis, see C. B. Martin, 'Dispositions and Conditionals', Philosophical Quarterly, 44 (1994): 1–8, and R. K. Shope, 'The Conditional Fallacy in Contemporary Philosophy', Journal of Philosophy, 75 (1975): 397–413; see also David Lewis, 'Finkish Dispositions', Philosophical Quarterly, 47 (1997): 143–58. Medieval and early modern thinkers were not concerned with these issues, and as such sometimes parse talk of powers in terms of counterfactuals – however, we should not take these instances as evidence that they thought causal powers could be exhaustively analysed in terms of such counterfactuals. 21The Scholastics distinguished between the sense in which a substance is a principle of change and the sense in which a power is a principle of change by saying that a substance is a principium quod – the principle that causes the effect – and a power is a principium quo – the principle by means of which the effect is caused. See for example Suárez, DM 17.2.7. 22'Manifestum est autem hoc principium potentiam quamdam esse: hoc enim dicimus potentiam principium intrinsecum quo agens agit, vel patiens patitur.' Thomas Aquinas, De occultis operibus naturae, in S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia, edited by R. Busa (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980), vol. 3, 590. This point is not explicit in Aristotle, though he clearly thinks that 'natural' substances – that is, substances that are not artefacts – have an intrinsic principle of motion. See Physics II.1 (192b8–22, 192b32–4), and Metaphysics V.4 (1015a14–19). The cases of causation we are discussing would all be classified as natural in this sense. 23Thomas Aquinas, Quaestiones disputatae de potentia, q.1 a.1 co.; Opera omnia, edited by Busa, vol. 3, 186. 25Scholastic authors would not themselves describe these terms as interdefinable; however, I think this provides a charitable reading of their view. For an analogous case of interdefinability in contemporary metaphysics, see David Lewis, 'Extrinsic Properties', in Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1999) 111–15, at 111–12. As I interpret it, the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition takes active causal powers as explanatorily basic, explaining causation and passive causal powers in terms of these active powers. This tradition carries over into (non-Occasionalist) early modern authors, for whom 'power' typically refers to an active causal power. By contrast, contemporary authors typically take causation as explanatorily basic relative to active and passive powers, and consequently do not take the distinction between active and passive causal powers to have much theoretical significance. See for example Mackie, Truth, Probability and Paradox, 121. 26Freddoso suggests the possibility of a version of Occasionalism that says that creatures have causal powers but do not exercise them, and then argues that this view is theologically untenable. So I take it that any real Occasionalist holds that (at least some creatures) not only do not exercise, but also do not have, certain causal powers. See 'The Case Against Secondary Causation', 91–9,passim 105–6. 27 Elucidation XV (R III 204/LO 658). 28 Pace Freddoso in 'The Case Against Secondary Causation', 90–1, for whom the strongest form of Occasionalism denies both active and passive causal powers in creatures. 29Martial Guéroult, 'Metaphysique et physique de la force chez Descartes et chez Malebranche', Revue de Métaphysique et du Morale, 59 (1954): 1–37; reprinted in English translation as 'The Metaphysics and Physics of Force in Descartes', in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics, edited by Stephan Gaukroger (Sussex: Harvester, 1980) 196–229. Alan Gabbey, 'Force and Inertia in the Seventeenth Century: Descartes and Newton', in Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics, edited by Stephan Gaukroger (Sussex: Harvester, 1980) 230–320; this paper is a revised version of 'Force and Inertia in Seventeenth-Century Dynamics', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2 (1971): 1–68. Page references to both will be to the text edited by Gaukroger. 30AT VIIIA 66 and AT IXB 88. Cottingham et al. typically translate the relevant term 'power' rather than 'force', as in their translation of Principle II.43 in CSM I 243. 31Martial Guéroult, 'The Metaphysics and Physics of Force', 197–8, where he concludes that 'the forces of rest or motion … are immanent in "nature" or extension'; Alan Gabbey, 'Force and Inertia', 234–8. For Gabbey, force is an attribute of body in the sense relevant here (considered as the cause of a body's existence), but is a mode of body when it is considered under the aspect of a causa secundum fieri. 32AT VIIIA 370; CSM II 255. Here again the relevant term, which CSM translates as 'power', is translated as 'force' in Gabbey, 'Force and Inertia', 235. 33AT VIIIA 369; CSM II 254. 34Martial Guéroult, 'Metaphysics and Physics of Force', 197. 35Alan Gabbey, 'Force and Inertia', 237. 36This identification seems to correspond with the claim of Scholastic Concurrentists that God's act of concurrence and the act of a created, secondary cause are 'one action'. See for example Aquinas, ST I.q105.a5 ad 2, and Suárez, DM 22.3.2–5. Yet the Aristotelian use of 'act' is multiply ambiguous: it can refer (among other things) to the active principle in an agent, to the exercise of that principle, or to the actualization of the patient's potentiality. Suárez concludes that the primary cause and secondary cause have the same 'act' in the patient (in DM 22.3.12), and goes on to argue that they do not act by means of the same active principle. It seems to me that Guéroult and Gabbey take Descartes to think that God and bodies share a single active principle. On this reading Descartes's view would actually differ from Concurrentism as it was understood by Suárez. 37Note however that Suárez explicitly argues in DM 22.2.2–3 that the divine act of concurrence should not be thought of as 'a certain entity that emanates from the First Cause and is received in the secondary cause' or 'something in the manner of a principle and infused power'. 38Guéroult and Gabbey differ in how they understand the different aspects of force. Guéroult, 'Metaphysics and Physics of Force', 197, claims that the force that sustains a body, its duration and its existence are 'one and the same thing … under three different aspects'. By contrast Gabbey appeals to the Scholastic distinction between causa secundum fieri (causes that actualize the potential of a patient, and that need only act initially on the patient to start this process of actualization) and causa secundum esse (causes that must act continuously on a patient to bring about their effect, and whose effect is to maintain the patient in a state) to explain the respects in which the force God imparts to bodies is both the primary and the secondary cause of motion; see 'Force and Inertia', 235–7. On the differences between these accounts, see Tad Schmaltz, Descartes on Causation (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) 117–18. 39 Principles I.53 (AT VIIIA 25; CSM I 210). See Guéroult, 'Metaphysics and the Physics of Force', 198–201, and Gabbey, 'Force and Inertia', 234, passim 239. 40'Metaphysics and Physics of Force', 198–9. 41See Principles I.47–57 (AT VIIIA 22–7; CSM I 208–12), especially Principles I.47, where Descartes says that all extra-mental objects of perception are either 'things or affectations of things', and Principles II.57, where he implies that all attributes or modes are either 'in the very things of which they are said to be attributes or modes', or are 'only in our thought' – i.e. not extra-mental entities. So if a particular determinate force is a mind-independent feature of bodies – which it surely must be for Descartes – then it must inhere in just one substance. 42One exception is Kenneth Clatterbaugh, whose account of Descartes's Concurrentism is in many respects sui generis. Clatterbaugh argues (in The Causation Debate, 30–2, passim 45) that motive force is 'ontologically awkward' for Descartes. Clatterbaugh suggests that Descartes's metaphysical theory of causation is incomplete, and fails to account for the way that the force in bodies can be 'redistributed' as they collide with one another. Yet Clatterbaugh goes on to argue (at 52–66) that Descartes's Concurrentism about natural motion can be made sense of if we interpret secondary causes as propositions in a deductive inference, rather than as substances like bodies. On Clatterbaugh's interpretation, then, Descartes's view of causation in physics can be made sense of only by saying that Descartes equivocates between two very different conceptions of a cause – the one a conception of a 'cause-as-thing', the other a conception of a 'cause-as-proposition'. 43This line of interpretation is, I suspect, strongly influenced by the arguments of Hatfield's 1979 paper 'Force (God) in Descartes' Physics' (reprinted in Cottingham's anthology in 1998) and Garber's writings from the early 1990s. Clatterbaugh presents an earlier version of this reading in his 1995 paper 'Cartesian Causality, Explanation and Divine Concurrence'; likewise Desmond Clarke presented a similar view in his 'Causal powers and Occasionalism from Descartes to Malebranche', in Descartes' Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephan Gaukroger, John Schuster and John Sutton (New York and London: Routledge, 2000) 131–48, an earlier draft of which was delivered as a paper in 1995. However Clarke – unlike the authors I list above – does not connect his reading of Descartes with the tradition of Concurrentism. Instead he labels it a form of Occasionalism. 44Denis Des Chene, Physiologia: Natural Philosophy in Late Aristotelian and Cartesian Thought (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1996) 341. 45Ibid. 46Helen Hattab, 'Reconciling Descartes' Physics with his Metaphysics', 49. See also Hattab, 'The Problem of Secondary Causation in Descartes', 95–6. 47Helen Hattab, 'Reconciling Descartes' Physics with his Metaphysics', 53. 48See Michael Della Rocca, 'Descartes on Body–Body Causation', 58–60, and Andrew Pessin, 'Descartes's Nomic Concurrentism', 40–1. 49Della Rocca, 'Descartes on Body–Body Causation', 59–60. Similarly Andrew Pessin writes in 'Descartes' Nomic Concurrentism', 40, 'it remains true [for Descartes] that matter is essentially passive: activity is not part of its essence, and absent the laws it can neither move itself or other matter. But given that in fact, God wills the laws, then even essentially passive matter is in fact contingently empowered.' 50 Elucidation XV (R III 240–1; LO 678–9). 51 Elucidation VIII (LO 589), my emphasis. 52 Search VI.2.3 (R II 314; LO 449), my emphasis. 53The view that Della Rocca and Pessin defend is similar to the view advanced in Desmond Clarke, 'Causal Powers and Occasionalism from Descartes to Malebranche', 131–48. Clarke argues that Descartes is committed to body–body Occasionalism. However he interprets Occasionalism to be the claim that finite causes are real causes that have their causal powers only accidentally, as a result of God's willing certain laws of nature. 54 DMR VII.xiii (R XII 165–6; JS 120). 55 Search VI.2.3 (R III 318; LO 451). See also Search I.1.ii (LO 4), and Search III.2.3 (LO 224–5). 56 Principles II.25 (AT VIIIA 53–4; CSM I 233). 57AT VII 49; CSM II 33; see also Principles I.21 (AT VIIIA 13; CSM I 200). 58See for example Thomas Aquinas, SCG III.65ff, and ST I q. 8 art. 1, and I q. 105 art. 5; see also Suárez, DM 21. 59This does not mean that God acts at a particular time. Rather, God creates finite substances in such a way that they exist at a time. God's volition is eternal, but the content of God's volition includes some reference to time. 60This argument is found more or less explicitly in the Cartesian Occasionalists. See inter alia Louis de la Forge, Traité de l'esprit de l'homme, in Louis de la Forge: Œuvres Philosophiques, edited by Pierre Clair (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974) 240; Antoine le Grand, An Entire Body of Philosophy according to the Principles of the Famous Renate de Cartes I (London: Samuel Rocroft, 1694) Part IV, Chapter XV, 116–17; and Malebranche, DMR VII.vi (R XII 155–6; JS 111–12), Search VI.2.9 (LO 514ff.), and Elucidation I (LO 551–2). 61As stated this assumes that if God creates a body at a time, then God creates that body at a determinate position. This assumption is made explicit for example in Malebranche DMR VII.vi. Yet it also follows from CR alone that a body does not move unless God re-creates it, because without God's act of re-creation the body would simply cease to exist rather than change its position. 62This line of the argument also assumes that if God creates a body at position p and time t, then the body is at position p at time t. This seems analytic, and I think this is La Forge's point when he says that if God did not put a body where she did, then there would be no force that could move it to that position (Traité, 240). 63Tad Schmaltz, Descartes on Causation (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), especially 76–7, 90–128. See also Tad Schmaltz, 'Cartesian Causation: Body–Body Interaction, Motion, and the Eternal Truths', Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 23 (2003): 737–62. 64 Descartes on Causation, 76–7. 65I am not convinced that this helps clarify Descartes's view. As I see it these two distinctions cut across one another. It is true that God is for Descartes a causa secundum esse of creatures, and also that God is the primary cause of all effects in the created world. Likewise it is true that creatures are for Descartes examples of causa secundum fieri. But there are creatures, such as the sun, that are examples of causa secunda esse, and God can act as a causa secundum fieri. Descartes uses this distinction to explain how God conserves created substances in existence. But he never (that I can tell) uses it to try to explain how the primary cause of motion differs from the secondary causes of motion. 66 Descartes on Causation, 126. 67Ibid., 90–105, passim 118. 68Ibid., 126. As Schmaltz reads him, Descartes thinks that the laws of motion result from forces of motion and rest that inhere in bodies. Contra Della Rocca and Pessin, Schmaltz writes 'Descartes does not hold that God directly creates the laws, which in turn condition matter in motion. Rather, the view that I find in him is that God directly creates matter in motion, and that the laws merely reflect the natures of what God has created' (124). By contrast I think (like Della Rocca and Pessin) that the laws of motion are the direct result of God's act of continual re-creation; however, like Schmaltz I do not think that the powers of bodies supervene on these laws. Rather, the laws of motion and the powers of bodies are on my view independent of one another: they each serve as only part of the full causal explanation of natural motion for Descartes. 69Ibid., 126, where Schmaltz writes, 'We are far here [in Descartes' view] from the concurrentist position in Suárez … Instead, Descartes seems to me to be closer to the mere conservationism of Suárez's opponent Durandus.' 70See also Gorham, 'Cartesian Causation', 407–8. 71Synopsis of the Meditations (AT VII 14; CSM II 10); Principles I.51 (AT VIIIA 24; CSM I 210); and Letter to Hyperaspites, August 1641 (AT III 429; CSMK 193), respectively. See also the Letter to Mersenne, 21 April 1641 (AT III 360; CSMK 180), where Descartes writes, 'I nowhere denied God's immediate concurrence in all things', and claims to have 'explicitly affirmed' this doctrine in the First Replies. The passage to which he seems to refer (AT VII 109; CSM II 79) discusses how finite substances require 'the positive influence of an efficient cause' to preserve them in existence. 72Descartes is either inexact in his use of Scholastic terminology here, confused about the details of the Concurrentist view, or (as Schmaltz thinks) using 'concurrence' in a way that breaks with the Scholastic tradition by rejecting the Thomistic claim that God's immediate concurrence is required for creatures to act. Descartes does not explicitly reject this Thomistic thesis. And there is some reason to think prior to composing the Principles that his memory of the details of the Scholastic view were fuzzy: two of these three passages date from circa 1641, and in September 1640 Descartes writes to Mersenne that he had not read Scholastic philosophy 'for twenty years' (AT III 185; CSMK 153), and asks Mersenne to recommend Scholastic textbooks for him to study. We know that he was reading one of these texts – Eustachius' textbook – as he commenced work on the Principles. Descartes's loose use of 'concurrence' in Principles I.51 – one of these examples from later in the 1640s – precisely echoes Descartes's claim about God's concurrence in the Synopsis of the Meditations, and thus may be a holdover from his loose use of the term in earlier texts. 73AT VIIIA 61; CSM I 240. 74 Descartes on Causation, 126. 75AT III 372; CSMK 182. 76Schmaltz argues this passage does not show that Descartes is a Concurrentist, because it does not commit him to the claim that the operation or act of a creature is identical with God's act of concurrence. It is not clear to me that this claim is a necessary component of Concurrentism. And even if it were, this passage does not imply that Descartes rejects this claim. The issue here seems to be simply whether or not Descartes says that God's concurrence involves an immediate act. Schmaltz is right to point out that he does not do so in this passage. 77 Letter to Elizabeth, 6 October 1645 (AT IV 314; CSMK 272). Schmaltz discusses this passage in Descartes on Causation, 209ff. He argues that it is consistent with the view that the human will is an efficient cause. However he does not address how Descartes's claim that God is the total cause of every event fits with his suggestion that the inherent forces of bodies cause changes of motion in such a way that they depend on God's concurrence only for the preservation of the bodies in which they inhere. This would, I think, mean that God is only a partial cause of motion. 78My interest in this topic was sparked by a series of graduate seminars taught at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst by Eileen O'Neill, and I am greatly indebted to her guidance and encouragement as I developed this paper, and to her and Vere Chappell for their comments on early drafts of this material.The following abbreviations are used within the paper: AT = René Descartes, Œuvres de Descartes, vols 1–12, edited by Adam and Tannery, revised edn (Paris: Vrin/CNRS, 1964–76), cited by volume and page. As translated in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vols 1–3, translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch and A. Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985–91) [ = CSM I or II for the first two volumes, CSMK for vol. 3]. DM = Francisco Suárez, Disputationes Metaphysicae (Salamanca, 1597), in R.P. Francisci Suarez, e Societate Jesu: Opera Omnia, vols 25–6, edited by C. Berton (Paris: Louis Vives, 1861). As translated by Alfred Freddoso in On Efficient Causality: Metaphysical Disputations 17, 18 and 19 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994) and On Creation, Conservation and Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputations 20–22 (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 2002). DMR = Nicolas Malebranche, Entretiens sur la métaphysique et sur la Religion (1688) in Œuvres Complètes de Malebranche, edited by A. Robinet, vol. 12 [ = R] (Paris: J. Vrin, 1958–76), cited by discourse and section, as well as volume and page. As translated in Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, edited by N. Jolley, translated by D. Scott [ = JS] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). SCG = Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, in S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia, vol. 2, edited by R. Busa (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog, 1980); as translated in V. J. Bourke, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3: Providence (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). Cited by book and chapter. ST = Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica in S. Thomae Aquinatis Opera omnia, vol. 2, edited by R. Busa (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Fromann-Holzboog, 1980); unless otherwise noted as translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Blackfriars), revised edition (New York: Bezinger Bros., 1947–8). Cited by part, question, and article. Search = Nicolas Malebanche, De la recherche de la vérité and Éclarcissements in Œuvres Complètes de Malebranche, edited by A. Robinet, vols 1–3 (Paris: J. Vrin, 1958–76), cited by book and chapter, or book, part and chapter in the cases of books II, III and VI, or for Elucidations by number (I–XVII), and by volume and page of R. As translated in The Search After Truth, translated by T. M. Lennon and P. J. Olscamp [ = LO] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).