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

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 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 for 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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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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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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