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    Other Cartesians have made an error by conflating bodies ... — Carmelics
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    Other Cartesians have made an error by conflating bodies and matter.

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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Descartes himself defines body (corpus) as extended substance, while matter (materia) refers to the totality of extension—these are not coextensive.
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    • 2.Cordemoy's atomism requires that simple, indivisible bodies are the fundamental units, making matter a derivative aggregate rather than a primary substance.
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    • 3.Conflating body with matter commits the mereological fallacy of attributing properties of wholes to parts and vice versa, undermining causal explanations.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Leibniz independently criticized Cartesian matter-body conflation, arguing it renders bodies infinitely divisible and thus strips them of genuine unity.
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    • 2.If matter just is body, then dividing matter produces more matter of the same kind, leaving no principled account of what constitutes a discrete, countable individual body.
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    • 3.Cordemoy's distinction anticipates the Leibnizian demand that genuine substances must be simple, showing the conflation produces metaphysical incoherence within Cartesianism itself.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Bodies and matter are two distinct things: bodies are simple substances, matter is a collection of bodies.
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    • 2.Treating matter and bodies as the same thing obscures this distinction.
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    2 topics

    Modality & Possibility1 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Bodies and matter are two distinct things: bodies are simple substances, matter ...Conflating body with matter commits the mereological fallacy of attributing prop...Cordemoy's atomism requires that simple, indivisible bodies are the fundamental ...Cordemoy's distinction anticipates the Leibnizian demand that genuine substances...
    +4 moreShow less
    Descartes himself defines body (corpus) as extended substance, while matter (mat...If matter just is body, then dividing matter produces more matter of the same ki...Leibniz independently criticized Cartesian matter-body conflation, arguing it re...

    Similar

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: cordemoy
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    With regard to body, Cordemoy warns that we must be careful to avoid the mistake made by other Cartesians, who have conflated what are in fact two distinct things, namely, ‘bodies’ and ‘matter’. The former are, according to Cordemoy, the true extended substances, while the latter are assemblages, or collections, of the former. The key point is that as substances, bodies must be simple: if bodies had parts, they would depend on those parts to be what they are, and in this way the parts would thre
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Treating matter and bodies as the same thing obscures this distinction.
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit