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    The motions of impacting bodies in Descartes' physics are... — Carmelics
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    The motions of impacting bodies in Descartes' physics are determined from an external reference frame, not from the local translation of contiguous neighborhoods.

    CausationPerception
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.In elucidating the fourth collision rule, Descartes states that body B could never move body C 'no matter how great the speed at which B might approach C'.
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    • 2.Only an external perspective, not linked to bodily reciprocity of transfer, could determine that B 'approaches' C.
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    • 3.The use of approach-language in the collision rules therefore presupposes an external reference frame.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Descartes' third law of nature defines collision in terms of bodies mutually resisting one another, grounding impact in reciprocal bodily force, not external observation.
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    • 2.The approach-language in collision rules can be read as shorthand for relative velocity between the two bodies, requiring no privileged external frame beyond their mutual relation.
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    • 3.Garber's analysis in 'Descartes' Metaphysical Physics' shows Descartes consistently grounds motion determinations in body-to-body interactions, not a Newtonian absolute space.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Descartes explicitly defines motion in the Principles as translation relative to contiguous bodies, making the local neighborhood framework his official metaphysics of motion.
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    • 2.If the collision rules implicitly invoke an external frame, this generates a well-documented internal contradiction in Descartes' system, which scholars like Slowik argue is better resolved by distinguishing operational from ontological commitments.
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    • 3.The stronger interpretive principle is to read Descartes' collision rules as consistent with his relational definition of motion rather than as secretly presupposing its negation.
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    Topics

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    Connections

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    Philosophy of Language2 linked

    Related

    Descartes explicitly defines motion in the Principles as translation relative to...Descartes' third law of nature defines collision in terms of bodies mutually res...Garber's analysis in 'Descartes' Metaphysical Physics' shows Descartes consisten...If the collision rules implicitly invoke an external frame, this generates a wel...
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    In elucidating the fourth collision rule, Descartes states that body B could nev...Only an external perspective, not linked to bodily reciprocity of transfer, coul...The approach-language in collision rules can be read as shorthand for relative v...The stronger interpretive principle is to read Descartes' collision rules as con...The use of approach-language in the collision rules therefore presupposes an ext...

    Similar

    An external reference frame that computes the motion of both bodies re...80%Relative motion should be understood only as motion of bodies with res...78%Applying Descartes' collision rules requires an external reference fra...76%A strict relational theory of space and motion does not permit recours...76%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: descartes-physics
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    The problem with this line of reasoning, however, is that it only works if one presupposes that the two bodies are approaching one another, and this is not a feature of the system that can be captured by sole reference to the contiguous neighborhood of each individual body. Even if there is reciprocity of transfer between a body and its neighborhood, it is still not possible to determine which collision rule the impact will fall under, or if the bodies will even collide at all, unless some refer
    Extraction notes

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

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit