Descartes' Metaphysical Physics by Daniel Garber

Descartes' Metaphysical Physics by Daniel Garber

In this first book-length treatment of Descartes' important and influential natural philosophy, Daniel Garber is principally concerned with Descartes' accounts of matter and motion—the joint between Descartes' philosophical and scientific interests. These accounts constitute the point at which the metaphysical doctrines on God, the soul, and body, developed in writings like the Meditations, give rise to physical conclusions regarding atoms, vacua, and the laws that matter in motion must obey.

Garber achieves a philosophically rigorous reading of Descartes that is sensitive to the historical and intellectual context in which he wrote. What emerges is a novel view of this familiar figure, at once unexpected and truer to the historical Descartes.

The book begins with a discussion of Descartes' intellectual development and the larger project that frames his natural philosophy, the complete reform of all the sciences. After this introduction Garber thoroughly examines various aspects of Descartes' physics: the notion of body and its identification with extension; Descartes' rejection of the substantial forms of the scholastics; his relation to the atomistic tradition of atoms and the void; the concept of motion and the laws of motion, including Descartes' conservation principle, his laws of the persistence of motion, and his collision law; and the grounding of his laws in God.

Daniel Garber is a Ph.D. candidate. In 1975, he received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University. From 1975 to 2002, he taught at the University of Chicago, and since 2002, he has been a Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University, where he is also an Associate Member of the Program in Science History.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226282190
ISBN 10	0226282198
Title	Descartes' Metaphysical Physics
Author	Daniel Garber
Series	Science And Its Conceptual Foundations Series
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	1992-05-01
Number of pages	404
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.