Garber on Descartes free essay sample

Rejection and Retention In Daniel Garber’s article, â€Å"Descartes against his teachers: The Refutation of Hylomorphism†, the metaphysics of the early scholastics is presented to show the similarities and differences between what Descartes was taught through scholasticism and what he came to refute. Through analysis of the article I will present what Descartes considered to be the central ideas of scholastic metaphysics, as well as show what he chose reject from that doctrine, why he chose to reject it, and what he chose to retain, in the development of Cartesian metaphysics. The central ideas of the scholastic metaphysics stemmed from Aristotle’s Hylomorphic doctrine, a dualistic body of principles. It was believed that all things were made up of Primary Matter and Substantial Form, together resulting in a complete substance. Primary matter was thought of as a necessary component of all things, something that everything held, but not without the accompaniment of a secondary constituent, Substantial Form. When added to Primary matter, Substantial form gave each object its characteristics, essence, and intrinsic behavior. Each object in the world was thought to have it’s own substantial form, and with that it’s own intention. Descartes also describes what he calls â€Å"real quality†, that which is a necessity â€Å"by virtue of having Substantial form† (96). This concept of â€Å"real qualities† is considered to be â€Å"mentalistic† in nature; take heaviness for example, scholastics believed it had â€Å"the intention to bear the body toward a particular place† (99), rather then just being â€Å"matter in motion† as Descartes believed it to be. Thus, the â€Å"real qualities† of substantial forms â€Å"explain the characteristic behavior of bodies of various sorts† (99). Descartes rejections of the scholastic doctrine have been taken from his written passages, split up into what could be considered three separate arguments, and given the following titles by Daniel Garber: â€Å"the argument from parsimony†, â€Å"the argument from obscurity†, and â€Å"the argument from sterility†. Together these arguments, for the most part, reject the scholastic doctrine. Descartes stands firm in his believe of a mechanistic world, in light of the scientific revolution, deeming the scholastic doctrine, in short, lacking in explanation, obscure, and essentially useless. The first, â€Å"the argument from parsimony†, is a rejection of the scholastics idea of both form and quality under the premise that â€Å"such entities are not needed for explanation†. Descartes felt that he was â€Å"content to conceive here [only] the motion of parts† (107). With the concept of substantial form, it was as if they were imposing â€Å"mind-like forms, tiny souls onto the physical world† (107). The second, â€Å"the argument from obscurity†, rejects the particular scholastic idea of â€Å"real qualities†, finding the idea to be obscure and lacking in explanation. The term â€Å"real quality† is one Descartes would consider a â€Å"common sense attribute†, meaning that they have no other bearing other than being an idea pulled from the senses. As Descartes put it, â€Å"these qualities appear to be in need of explanation† (107). Lastly, in what Garber refers to as â€Å"the argument from sterility†, Descartes deems the scholastic doctrine to be â€Å"useless†, claiming that â€Å"no one has ever made any good use of primary matter, substantial forms, occult qualities and the like† (108). Garber continues to show that Descartes viewed the scholastic doctrine as nothing more than common sense by stating, â€Å"the scholastic world, as Descartes understood it, is simply a metaphysical elaboration of the world of common sense† (102). Although Descartes was opposed to most of what the scholastics taught, there were parts he retained in the formation of his own metaphysical doctrine. To start, he chose to reject primary matter as it was defined, but did agree that all bodies are consisting of the same matter, stating, â€Å"All other bodies are only of the same matter, which is in accord with both the philosophy of the schools and with mine† (103). As for substantial form and the idea of giving extended bodies intention, he believed that pertained to only the explanation of the human soul. As put by Garber, â€Å"the Hylomorphic body of the scholastic philosophers, form and quality joined to matter, is just the image of the Cartesian human being† (99). In addition to the particular examples, Descartes adopted the overall concept of the duality of mind and matter from the scholastics, acknowledging the separation between the two, but applying mind to the human soul, rather than to all extended things. I have now covered the necessary components of scholasticism: the ideas of primary matter, Substantial form, and real qualities. The arguments essentially constructed by Daniel Garber, from the passages written by Descartes, showed primarily what Descartes chose to reject, and why he chose to reject it: parsimony, obscurity, and sterility. Further analysis of the article written by Daniel Garber allowed for an explanation of what Descartes chose to retain. It is now clear that Descartes adopted several terms and some ideas from the scholastic doctrine, while simultaneously rejecting the concepts as a whole. Bibliography: Garber, Daniel. Descartes Against His Teachers: The Refutation of Hylomorphism. Descartes Metaphysical Physics. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992. 94-111. Print.