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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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

    It is not the case that Treating motion and body as equally fundamental rather than deriving one from the other cannot fully resolve the circularity in Descartes' definitions.

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

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Descartes explicitly deems motion to be a 'mode' of extension, which is a lesser ontological category than extension itself.
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    • 2.A mode is a way that extension manifests itself, or a property of extension (Pr I 53).
      ?

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    • 3.If motion is ontologically subordinate to extension, then motion and body cannot be treated as equally fundamental notions.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Descartes' own definitions are mutually implicating: body is defined via impenetrability, which presupposes resistance to displacement, which presupposes motion.
      ?

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    • 2.A mode that is necessary for individuating its substance cannot be ontologically subordinate to it without collapsing the distinction between substance and mode.
      ?

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    • 3.This structural co-dependence mirrors what Aristotle identified as pros hen equivocity, where neither term is intelligible without the other, precluding any asymmetric grounding.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Even granting the mode-substance hierarchy, Descartes defines extension itself through parts capable of relative displacement, smuggling motion back into the definition of extension (Pr II 25).
      ?

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    • 2.When the definiendum of extension covertly invokes motion, the ontological priority of extension over motion becomes circular rather than foundational, as Garber argues in 'Descartes' Metaphysical Physics'.
      ?

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    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.