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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Descartes himself relies on divine conservation to underwrite persistence, making the claim dependent on theological premises rather than a purely mechanistic principle.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Divine conservation may be orthogonal to mechanism—God can sustain a purely mechanistic system without undermining its mechanistic character.
      ?

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    • 2.Descartes's physics operates independently of divine conservation; his laws of motion work whether theologically grounded or not.
      ?

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    • 3.Distinguishing 'theological premise' from 'mechanistic principle' assumes these are competing rather than complementary explanatory levels.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Descartes explicitly invokes God's continuous creative act in Meditations to explain why substances persist moment-to-moment.
      ?

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    • 2.Without divine conservation, Descartes lacks a mechanistic explanation for why matter maintains its identity across time.
      ?

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    • 3.His system requires God as the ultimate cause of persistence because mechanical laws alone cannot generate continuity ex nihilo.
      ?

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