Abstract
After reconstructing some features of the Scholastic treatment of contingency in natural philosophy, this paper draws a comparison between Descartes’ treatments of the issue of the laws of nature in Le Monde (1629–1633) and in the Principles of Philosophy (1644). On the basis of this comparison, it argues that elements of the Scholastic understanding of contingency as due to the impediment provided by matter are still present in the former. While in the Principles Descartes appears to equate contingency with an epistemological limitation in our understanding of the complexity of natural phenomena, in conclusion I argue that some elements of his previous approach to the issue remains in his treatment of curvilinear motion.
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Notes
- 1.
In Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy, on the basis of an analysis of Gassendi’s and Descartes’ natural philosophies and methodologies, Osler claimed that the adhesion to intellectualist and voluntarist theology was at the root of the emergence of divergent “scientific styles”—rationalism and empiricism respectively (see Osler 1994). An implication of this claim is that, since Gassendi believed the order of nature to be contingent on God’s will, first causes cannot be solidly sized and therefore man shall rely solely on empirical knowledge. However, as Osler recognized, Gassendi emphasized (also in reaction to Epicurus’ notion of chance) the presence of a natural order due to God’s general providence (see 54–55). Moreover, his assessment of the issue of fortune appears to rule out the presence of merely contingent events in the world, for he attributes the cause of fortuitous events to concourses of causes that, while unaccountable to men, are known to the eye of God. (See Gassendi 1964, 840: “Quippe dici uno verbo potest, licere tam Fatum, quam Fortunam defendere, si concesseriums Fatum esse Voluntatis divinae decretum, praeter quod nihil omnino fiat; Fortunam vero concursum, vel eventum esse, qui cum improvisus hominibus sit, provisus tamen a Deo fuerit; & ipsi causarum, seu Fati seriei innexus […] Ex quo vides, cum vox Fortunae ex ante dictis, duo indicet, concursum causarum, & praeviam ignorationem eventus; posse Fortunam propter posterius, hominum respectu, non Dei, admitti; & propter prius, nihil obstare, quo minus dicamus Fortunam partem esse non modo Fati, sed divinae etiam Providentiae, quae tam praevisa hominibus, quam non praevisa complectatur.”) This is also in line with what Gassendi’s medieval theological and philosophical sources (at least those identified by Osler) ultimately claimed. As Roques clarifies in Chap. 3 of this book, medieval voluntarists, though emphasizing God’s power to change the course of nature at any moment, contended that, eventually, such possibility was mostly virtual. It follows that statements on the contingency of the natural world were mostly independent from the inquirer’s concrete approach to the study of nature. Moreover, as noted by Wilson (1997) in her review of Divine Will, Osler’s claim infers a connection between Gassendi’s and Descartes’ theological beliefs and their epistemological approaches, though there is no causal connection between the belief that God is more or less bounded to his creation and the idea that we can or cannot obtain a priori knowledge of nature. Wilson’s claim about the lack of connection between theological and epistemological stances is corroborated by Harrison’s analysis of Newton voluntarism. See Harrison (2004); Harrison also claims that the categories of voluntarism and intellectualism were not as defined in the early modern period as they were in the Middle Ages but that, on the contrary, they tended to blur. See Harrison (2002).
- 2.
Spinoza (1985), 433.
- 3.
Ibid.,, 436.
- 4.
Boyle (1996), 101: “…I think it becomes a Christian philosopher to admit in general that God does sometimes in a peculiar, though hidden way, interpose in the ordinary phenomena and events of crises; but yet that this is done so seldom, at least in a way that we can certainly discern, that we are not hastily to have recourse to an extraordinary providence - and much less to the strange care and skill of that questioned being called nature - in this or that particular case, though perhaps unexpected, if it may be probably accounted for by mechanical laws and the ordinary course of things.”
- 5.
Ibid.,, 101: “…it seems more allowable to argue a providence from the exquisite structure and symmetry of the mundane bodies, and the apt subordination and train of causes, than to infer from some physical anomalies that things are not framed and administered by a wise author and rector. For the characters and impressions of wisdom that are conspicuous in the curious fabric and orderly train of things can with no probability be referred to blind chance, but must be [ascribed] to a most intelligent and designing agent. Whereas on the other hand, besides that the anomalies we speak of are incomparably fewer than those things which are regular and are produced in an orderly way; besides this, I say, the divine maker of the universe being a most free agent and having an intellect infinitely superior to ours, may in the production of seemingly irregular phenomena have ends unknown to us, which even the anomalies may be very fit to compass.”
- 6.
Boyle, 101.
- 7.
Voltaire (1772), 9.
- 8.
Boyle, 102–3.
- 9.
Maier (1949).
- 10.
Ibid., 222–223: “Jede anorganische Ursache, jedes ‘agens a natura’ wirkt nach Aristoteles mit Notwendigkeit, d.h. immer und immer in derselben Weisen, ein agens libere (ein agens ab intellectu) dagegen mit Kontingenz derart, daß es unter gleichen Bedingungen einen Effekt hervorbringen oder nicht hervorbringen kann. Es ist das ein fundamentaler Unterschied zwischen den beiden Gruppen von wirkenden Kräften, die die Scholastik unterscheidet: die einen sind causae determinatae, die mit mechanischer Notwendigkeit auf ein bestimmtes Ziel hinwirken und immer wirken (oer wenigstens immer zu wirken besteht sind), während die andern causae intederminatae sind, die ceteris paribus mit einer ‘contingentia ad utrumlibet’ wirken oder nicht wirken können.”
- 11.
Ibid., 223: “…neben dieser Kontingenz der Freiheit gibt es für die Scholastik noch eine zweite, nämlich eine Kontingenz der natürliche Ereignisse. Bei dieser handelt es sich nicht um die Modalität des agere auf Seiten des Ursache, sondern um die Modalität des fieri auf Seiten des Effekts. Denn obwohl jedes agens naturale mit Notwendigkeit wirkt, tritt der Effekt nicht immer mit Notwendigkeit ein, sondern kann per accidens durch andere Ursachen oder durch die mangelnde Disposition im patiens oder sonst irgendwie vereitelt werden. In diesem Fall spricht man von ‘kontingenten’ Ereignissen, wobei das Wort Kontingenz nicht mehr die Undeterminiertheit des Wirkens, sondern die Unsicherheit im Zustandekommen der Wirkung bezeichnet. Der Gegensatz zu dieser Kontingenz ist die Modalität derjenigen Effekte, die schlechthin immer und unvermeidlich eintreten, wenn die sie anstrebenden Ursachen gegeben ist.”
- 12.
Aristotle (1995), 52: “Having made these distinctions we next point out that ‘to be possible’ is used in two ways. In one it means to happen for the most part and fall short of necessity, e.g. a man’s turning grey or growing or decaying, or generally what naturally belongs to a thing (for this has not its necessity unbroken, since a man does not exist forever, although if a man does exist, it comes about either necessarily or for the most part). In another way it means the indefinite, which can be both thus and not thus, e.g. an animal’s walking or an earthquake’s taking place while it is walking, or generally what happens by chance; for none of these inclines by nature in the one way more than in the opposite” (I, 32b4–32b13).
- 13.
“Science and demonstrative deductions are not concerned with things which are indefinite, because the middle term is uncertain; but they are concerned with things that are natural, and as a rule arguments and inquiries are made about things which are possible in this sense. Deductions indeed can be made about the former, but it is unusual at any rate to inquire about them (Ibid., 32b14–32b22).”
- 14.
“[…] those things are natural which, by a continuous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive at some end: the same end is not reached from every principle; nor any chance end, but always the tendency in each is towards the same end, if there is no impediment (Physics II, 199b14–199b18).” 340.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
One can find an influential example of the conception of contingency in Scholasticism in Thomas Aquinas’s commentary to Aristotle’s Physics. Here, Aquinas characterizes contingent phenomena as those that can be impeded, in contrast with necessary ones, which cannot be impeded at all. He says: “… someone defines to be necessary what does not have any obstruction; and also contingent for what concerns things that happen for most part as what can be impeded in few occasions. But this is not correct. Indeed, they say necessary is defined as what by nature cannot not be; contingent or for the most part, what can not be. Rather, what can have or not have impediment is contingent. Nature indeed does not dispose an impediment for what cannot not be, for this would be superfluous [Sciendum etiam quod quidam definierunt esse necessarium, quod non habet impedimentum; contingens vero sicut frequenter, quod potest impediri in paucioribus. Sed hoc irrationabile est. Necessarium enim dicitur, quod in sui natura habet quod non possit non esse: contingens autem ut frequenter, quod possit non esse. Hoc autem quod est. habere impedimentum vel non habere, est. contingens. Natura enim non parat impedimentum ei quod non potest non esse; quia esset superfluum (In Physic., lib. 2 l. 8 n. 4. […]−2 Ed. Corpus Thomisticus)].”
- 17.
This definition of contingentia ut plurimum is commonplace in Scholastic natural philosophy. To give another example, Nicolas Oresme, in the Questiones super Physicam, claims that phenomena of the sublunary world are intrinsically contingent as they can be impeded from taking place by external constraints. According to Oresme, three kinds of contingency characterize sublunary world: “In a first way, there are phenomena that can be impeded because of their own nature, even if no man can impede them, as in a possible world a stone falls in a contingent way even if no man can impede it, because it can impeded by its own nature, even if no man is there [to impede the fall]. In a second way, [we say to be contingent] what in fact is and can be impeded, as for instance the fall of a stone towards the earth and the course of water, etc. Third, what is in fact impeded through free will, and thus is said to be by chance [‘….est concedendum quod de facto in istis inferioribus multa eveniunt contingenter: quod potest intelligi tripliciter: primo modo, quod sunt impedibilia talia de natura sua, licet nullus homo posset impedire, sicut in terra inhabiltabili lapis cadit contingenter, quia de natura sua hoc posset impediri, si homo esset ibi. Secundo modo, quia est impediri et potest impediri, sicut descensus lapidum in terra habitabili vel cursus aquae etc. Tertio modo, quia de facto impeditur per liberum arbitrium, et tunc dicitur a fortuna. Et tunc dico aliqua. Primum est quod motus celi et que fiunt in superioribus nullo instorum modorum sunt contingentia, quia non sunt impedibilia. Secundo, dico quod quaecumque sunt inferius sunt contingentia primo modo, quia de natura sua sunt impedibilia. Tertio quod aliqua sunt contingentia secundo modo, et aliqua sunt etiam tertio modo.’].” This brings Oresme to separate sharply sublunary from celestial spheres. The latter, as he writes, “are not contingent in any of these ways, because cannot be impeded.” On the contrary, the former “are all characterized by the first way of being contingent, as can by their own nature being impeded. Others are contingent in the second way and others even in the third (see Oresme 255–256).” This description of the contingency of the physical, sublunary world is still widely present in the seventeenth century, as it is testified, for instance, by the Lexicon Philosophicum of Goclenius (“Modi, quo Continges aliquid dicitur, tres sunt: Unus, quo dicitur quid evenire plerunque [sic] seu ut plurimum: Alter, quo pro re nata: Tertius, quo raro, ut fortuna. Primi Modi contingentia per se causas habent, & sunt epistemata, cum sint eorum rationes universales, ut necessariorum, quibus sunt vicina. Secundi et Tertii modi contingentia non habent causas necessarias, sed accidentalis. Itaq; non sunt epistemata. Horum (secundi & tertii modi) causae dicuntur indefinitae, quia effecta possunt efficere, vel non efficere, ita ut incerta sint. Ac Aliae sunt liberae, aliae fortuitae, & casuales. “There are three ways in which something is said to be contingent. First, of what is said to happen for the most part; second, according to circumstances; third, and more rarely, by chance. The contingent things of the first kind have per se causes, and are sciences, because their properties are universal as those of things said to happen by necessity, to which are similar. […].” See Goclenius 1613,169) and by the analogous work of Micraelius (“Contingens ut plurimum, est. quod fit natura, cui quandoque ponitur impedimentum,” “Contingent for the most part is what happens in nature, whenever an impediment is given.” See Micraelius 277).
- 18.
“Respondeo dicendum quod contingentia dupliciter possunt considerari. Uno modo, secundum quod contingentia sunt. Alio modo, secundum quod in eis aliquid necessitatis invenitur, nihil enim est. adeo contingens, quin in se aliquid necessarium habeat. Sicut hoc ipsum quod est. Socratem currere, in se quidem contingens est.; sed habitudo cursus ad motum est. necessaria, necessarium enim est. Socratem moveri, si currit. Est autem unumquodque contingens ex parte materiae, quia contingens est. quod potest esse et non esse; potentia autem pertinet ad materiam. Necessitas autem consequitur rationem formae, quia ea. quae consequuntur ad formam, ex necessitate insunt. Materia autem est. individuationis principium, ratio autem universalis accipitur secundum abstractionem formae a materia particulari. Dictum autem est. supra quod per se et directe intellectus est. universalium; sensus autem singularium, quorum etiam indirecte quodammodo est. intellectus, ut supra dictum est. Sic igitur contingentia, prout sunt contingentia, cognoscuntur directe quidem sensu, indirecte autem ab intellectu, rationes autem universales et necessariae contingentium cognoscuntur per intellectum. Unde si attendantur rationes universales scibilium, omnes scientiae sunt de necessariis. Si autem attendantur ipsae res, sic quaedam scientia est. de necessariis, quaedam vero de contingentibus (I, q. 86, a. 3 arg. 1-2-3 and a. 3 co. See Corpus Thomisticus).”
- 19.
Latin in the note above.
- 20.
Damerow et al. (2014), 5, 3.
- 21.
For details on the dating and history of Le Monde, see, for instance, Gaukroger (1995).
- 22.
On this, see, for instance, Ariew (2011).
- 23.
See the introduction to this volume.
- 24.
Descarte (1897), 145–46: “Mais ie ne laifferay pas de toucher en ma Phyfique plusieurs questions metaphysiques, & particulieremant celle-cy: Que. les vérités mathématiques, lesquelles vous nommés éternelles, ont elle establies de Dieu & en dépendent entieremant, aussy bien que tout le reste des créatures. C’eft en effait parler de Dieu comme d’vn Iuppiter ou Saturne, & l’assuiettir au Stix & aus destinees, que de dire que ces vérités font indépendantes de luy. Ne craignes point, ie vous prie, d’assurer & de publier par tout, que c’est. Dieu qui a establi ces lois en la nature, ainsy qu’vn Roy establist des lois en son Royausme. Or il n’y en a aucune en particulier que nous ne puissions comprendre si nostre esprit se porte a la consyderer, & elles sont toutes mentibus nostris ingenitae, ainsy qu’vn Roy imprimeroit ses lois dans le coeur de tous ses sugets, s’il en auoit aussy bien le pouuoir. Au contraire nous ne pouuons comprendre la grandeur de Dieu, encore que nous la connoissions. Mais cela mesme que nous la iugeons incomprehensible nous la fait estimer dauantage; ainsy qu’vn Roy a plus de maiesté lors qu’il est. moins familieremant connu de ses sugets, pourueu toutefois qu’ils ne pensent pas pour cela estre sans Roy, & qu’ils le connoissent assés pour n’en point douter. On vous dira que si Dieu auoit establi ces vérités, il les pourroit changer comme vn Roy fait ses lois; a quoy il faut respondre qu’ouy, si sa volonté peut changer. — Mais ie les comprens comme éternelles & immuables. — Et moy ie iuge le mesme de Dieu. — Mais sa volonté est. libre. — Ouy, mais fa puissance est. incomprehensible; & generalemant nous pouuons bien assurer que Dieu peut faire tout ce que nous pouvons comprendre, mais non pas qu’il ne peust faire ce que nous ne pouvons pas comprendre; car ce seroit témérité de penfer que noftre imagination a autant d’estendue que fa puissance.”
- 25.
Ibid., see note above.
- 26.
Ibid., 151–152.
- 27.
Eustachius (1626), 61: Total cause is said “…illa dicitur quae sola in suo ordine et genere totum effectum producit, ut equus qui solus traheret currum.”
- 28.
On this, see Garber (1992).
- 29.
Descartes (1985), 240.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
On concurrentism, see Freddoso (1994): 131–156, 134: “Concurrentism, which flourished among the late medieval Aristotelian scholastics and certain figures in the early modern period, occupies a middle ground between what its advocates perceive as the unseemly extremes of occasionalism and mere conservationism. According to concurrentism, a natural effect is produced immediately by both God and created substances, so that, contrary to occasionalism, secondary agents make a genuine causal contribution to the effect and in some sense determine its specific character by virtue of their own intrinsic properties, whereas, contrary to mere conservationism, they do so only if God cooperates with them contemporaneously as an immediate cause in a certain ‘general’ way which goes beyond the conservation of the relevant agents, patients, and powers, and which renders the resulting effect the immediate effect of both God and the secondary causes. This cooperation with secondary causes is often called God’s general concurrence or general concourse.” Scholars have discussed whether individual things in Descartes system hold in fact any causal power. A negative answer to this question seems to result in approaching Descartes to occasionalism. This is the position held, for instance, by Garber (1993) and Hatfield (1979). Schmaltz (2008), on the contrary, argued for a genuine causal relation from body to body.
- 32.
Descartes (1985), 242.
- 33.
On this, see McLaughlin (2000).
- 34.
Descartes (1905), 70: “Sed quia nulla in mundo corpora esse possunt a reliquis omnibus ita divisa, & nulla circa nos esse solent plane dura, ideo multo difficilius iniri potest calculus, ad determinandum quantum cujiusque corporis motus ob aliorum occursum mutetur. Simul enim habenda est. ratio eorum omnium, quae illud circumquaque contingunt, eaque, quantum ad hoc, valde diversos habent effectus, prout sund dura vel fluida […].”
- 35.
Descartes (1978), 59.
- 36.
Freddoso (1994): 133–34: “According to mere conservationism, God contributes to the ordinary course of nature solely by creating and conserving natural substances along with their active and passive causal powers or capacities. For their own part, created substances are genuine agents that can and do causally contribute to natural effects by themselves, given only that God preserves them and their powers in existence. When such substances directly produce an effect via transeunt action (i.e., action that has an effect outside the agent itself), they alone are the immediate causes of that effect, whereas God is merely an indirect or remote cause of the effect by virtue of His conserving action. Consequently, the actions of created substances are their own actions and not God’s actions, and their effects are their own immediate effects and not God’s immediate effects.”
- 37.
Descartes (1978), 59–61. Emphasis added.
- 38.
Ibid., 75.
- 39.
Galileo, Letter to Ubaldo dal Monte, 29 November 1602, in Galileo (1842), 242: “…when we start to consider matter, the proportions considered in the abstract by geometry begin to alter due to its contingency.”
- 40.
See Koselleck (2002).
- 41.
- 42.
See, for instance, Collegium Conimbricenses (1602) “…every time a stone is thrust upwards by an external force, its form opposes the ascent by a natural striving (‘conatu’) and impulse that urges it downwards; but also the water, when warmed up by the fire, repels actively this form of warmness, because of an innate tendency to cold, and to conserve its coldness as much as it can, even in fire” (Libri v Caput VI, Explanatio: “[…] quandoquidem lapis externa vi sursum propellitur, reluctatur ascensui eius forma naturali conatu, & impulsu, quod deorsum nititur; sed etiam aqua ab igne calefit, eius forma calefactioni active repugnat, per ingenitam ad frigus inclinationem, et quantum potest frigum suum active conservando, et in igne,” 202; Eustachius a Sancto Paulo (1626), III, 121, “Wherever they are, the heavy bodies which are above light ones fall down [‘gravitant’], as well as the heavier which are over the less heavy ones. Similarly, the light bodies that are amongst heavy ones, and the lighter ones amongst less light ones, rise. The truth of this claim is evident from experience: indeed, everywhere heavy bodies are set down, immediately the light or less heavy ones of them, if they are below, are carried up to a higher place. And this would not happen if there was not the reciprocal strivings [‘conatu’] of the heavy bodies to descend, and of the light ones to ascend, which in act [‘actu’] are called gravitating and levitating” (P.3, P2, Q6:. “Corpora gravia supra levia, aut graviora supra minus gravia ubicunque sint gravitant: similiter levia infra gravia, aut leviora inf. minus levia levitant. Cujus assertionis veritas experientia constat: ubicunq. enim gravia ponuntur, cofestim superiorem locum levibus aut minus gravibus, si haec infra sint, deferuntur, quod non sit, nisi mutuo gravium descendentium, levium ascendentium conatu, qui gravitandi et levitandi actu nuncupantur”); Fabri, (1646), 417, “I answer that no impetus is in vain. And it may be that it lacks motion, as one can observe in this innate impetus, whose effect is twofold: that is, gravitation and motion, as we have indicated elsewhere. Similarly, the impetus produced by a motive power […] may have a twofold effect. The first is motion; the second is an exertion [‘nisus’] or striving [‘conatus’] opposed to the extrinsic motion. […] Indeed it always has this innate motion, unless it is hindered by another body […]” (Book X:“Reſp. omnem impetum non eſſe fruſtrà, licèt careat motu, vt patet in ipſo impetu innato, cuius duplex eſt effectum; ſcilicet grauitatio, & motus, vt aliàs iam indicauimus; ſimiliter impetus productus à potentia motrice, […] poteſt duplicem effectum; primus eſt motus; ſecundus eſt niſus ſeu conatus oppoſitus extrinſeco motui; […] enim innatus ſemper habet motum, niſi impediatur ab alio corpore, ita & impotetus organi motricis, nec eſt magna difficultas; immò clariſſima vtriuſque potentiæ analogia”).
- 43.
“…funda hunc effectum impediat, non tamen impedit conatum (AT VIII-1, 109).”
- 44.
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Garau, R. (2019). Descartes’ Physics in Le Monde and the Late-Scholastic Idea of Contingency. In: Omodeo, P.D., Garau, R. (eds) Contingency and Natural Order in Early Modern Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 332. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67378-3_10
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