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Dennis Des Chene
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Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Perspectives on Science (2003) 11 (4): 410–420.
Published: 01 December 2003
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In aid of understanding mechanistic explanation and its limits in the 17th century, I examine the views of Pierre Sylvain Régis on generation. Régis departs from Descartes' theories on one key point. Living things, though they do not differ in nature from nonliving things, and are, as Descartes said, machines, are directly created by God, who forms the seeds of all living things at creation. Preformationism gives Régis not only a means of accounting for seeds and for specific differences among living things, but also a basis for attributing purposes to them, and thus for defining health and disease in soulless creatures.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Perspectives on Science (2000) 8 (2): 144–163.
Published: 01 June 2000
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From the topics discussed by Hattab and Menn, I examine two of special importance. The first is that of active powers: does the Cartesian natural world contain any, or is the aparent efficacy of natural agents always to be referred to God? In arguing that it is, I consider, following Hattab, Descartes' characterization of natural laws as “secondary causes.” The second topic is that of ends. Menn argues, and I agree, that in late Aristotelianism Aristotle's own conception of an “art in things” has been abandoned. The point is reinforced when one considers the general divine ends which must be invoked in cases of aborted action. In them no individual agent attarns its end. Yet Nature as a whole continues to act toward ends. I suggest that those general ends, to which Suarez, for example, refers, may have served later philosophers, especially Malebranche, in combining the Cartesian notion of law with a teleological interpretation of nature that Descartes, for his part, rejected.
Journal Articles
Publisher: Journals Gateway
Perspectives on Science (1995) 3 (4): 534–581.
Published: 01 December 1995