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This paper proposes new ways of characterizing eighteenth-century French Cartesianism. Besides two widely-accepted elements—the belief in "strict mechanism" and the idea that to demonstrate in physics does not involve mathematics, but reference to mechanical models—I add two more, hitherto neglected, features. First, a strong emphasis on experimentalism, namely the view that experiments are crucial to natural-philosophical practice. Second, an epistemological thesis that I call "conjecturalism," which consists in doubting that natural philosophy would attain an ultimate truth on the nature of things. To explore these facets of Cartesianism, I focus on the works of the Jesuit Noël Regnault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I argue that Descartes and the Cartesians are likely in agreement that logic is an ars cogitandi (that is, an art of thinking well) whose aim is to perfect the ingenium (or wit) by the exercise of its operations: ideating, judging, discoursing, and ordering. We can see that these elements are the underpinning of both the Regulae and the Discourse on Method, and thus, like Adrien Baillet and others in the seventeenth century, we can understand these two works as embodying Descartes' "logic," despite Descartes' notorious anti-logic Renaissance rhetoric in both writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I address two questions prompted by the discussion in Roger Ariew's Descartes and the First Cartesians. The first is whether the sort of scholasticization of Cartesianism to which First Cartesians draws attention is merely a matter of packaging, or whether it indicates rather a substantive connection between Cartesianism and Aristotelian scholasticism. The second question is whether the French Cartesians Ariew emphasizes played a central role in the transition from the widespread condemnation of Cartesian doctrines in France in the decades following Descartes's death to the widespread acceptance of Cartesianism within the French universities by the beginning of the eighteenth century. In response to the first question, I focus on the deviation in later Cartesianism from Descartes's own rejection of scholastic syllogistic logic. In response to the second, I offer some reasons to question the significance of the influence of the figures that Ariew highlights, and I argue that Cartesians such as Pourchot and Malebranche had a relatively greater impact on the teaching of Cartesianism in French universities in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author comments on the various criticisms about his book "Descartes and the First Cartesians," particularly from such critics as Lucian Petrescu, Domenico Collacciani, and Sophie Roux. Also cited are such topics as 17th-century scholasticism, the works and theories of French philosopher Rene Descartes, and the philosophy of Cartesianism.

The article discusses the scholastic logic or Scholasticism and Cartesian logic or Cartesianism. Topics covered include the importance of syllogism in the study of philosophy, French philosopher Rene Descartes' work titled "Regulae," and Decartes' adversaries like the Aristotelians and anti-Aristotelians such as Pierre de la Ramee.

Descartes repeatedly refers to a "principle of life" and appears to make grand claims for its role in his natural philosophy. These claims have been taken at face value in the literature. This paper argues that there is no single principle underlying the operation of the Cartesian body. I show that Descartes's account of physiology explains the operation of the living body through multiple interdependent systems, with no one system more fundamental than any other. As such, Cartesian physiology is incompatible with a hierarchical conception of a body whose operations are driven by a single underlying principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventeenth-century atomist David Gorlaeus rejects Aristotelian forms and real universals in things while accepting components of Aristotelian accounts of knowledge including sensible species, the immateriality of the intellect and key features of realist theories of universals. To resolve two puzzles raised by his theory of knowledge I interpret Gorlaeus' claims about universals in light of a contemporaneous Aristotelian view. Whether the puzzles are adequately resolved or not, they create a problem space within which figures like Descartes and Locke developed their views on the role of universals in scientific knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the reactions to Descartes' account of the heartbeat expressed by the Leuven professors Fortunatus Plempius and Libertus Fromondus, reactions that also involved the Utrecht professor Henricus Regius. I show that the letters exchanged between Descartes and the two Leuven professors in 1637-1638 stirred a continuous debate, followed through a series of publications, up to the condemnations of Cartesianism in 1662-1663. I investigate the extent to which the reception of Descartes' account of the heartbeat contributed to the initial rejection of Cartesianism in Leuven and how physiological arguments were motivated by theological concerns throughout these exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]