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Le Beau Roman de la physique cartésienne et la science exacte de Galilée (review)
- Journal of the History of Philosophy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 20, Number 1, January 1982
- pp. 95-96
- 10.1353/hph.1982.0001
- Review
- Additional Information
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BOOK REVIEWS 95 is the final cause without which explanation is incomplete. Now ultimately this orientation should be expressible in physiological terms, and it could then be presented as part of a wider efficient-causal system of great complexity and plasticity. There is evidence that Epicurus was thinking along these lines, for the Lucretian "fittingtogether of movements" (mot~ convenientes) explains how animal forms are controlled by stable complexes of atoms (Lucr. 9. 7o7-17). But even if Aristotle had classified the teleological control as part of the whole efficient cause (which he did not), he would still have had to explain it over and above the simple actions of elements. Nussbaum's interpretation attributes animal development to "self-maintenance" without explaining this cybernetic effect. I may, however, have misunderstood because, although the book is mostly so well written and free from jargon, in this connection it has slipped into some fashionable but misleading usages, such as "under another description" where Aristotle would say "due to another cause." Again, aitia does not mean "reason" nor "explanation" (both of which are closer to logos), but "cause." The weaker modern expressions lend themselves to the notion that Aristotle's four causes are alternative descriptions of the same factors; but that is not so. D. M. BALME University of London Emile Namer. Le Beau Roman de la physique cart~sienne et la science exacte de Galilee. Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, x979. Pp. 172. This is an undergraduate introduction to the thought of Descartes and Galileo, including a third part consisting of selected texts from their works. Namer is generally critical of Descartes on such grounds as that he was something of a philosophical reactionary wanting to substitute his own geometical scholasticism for the syllogistic one of the Schoolmen, that he was something of an anachronism in his own time for failing to appreciate Galileo's new method of philosophizing, and that it is ironical that the Cartesian emphasis on clear and distinct ideas in his explicit pronouncements should be accompanied by a considerable obscurantism in practice, shown by his acting and speaking as if he had nothing to learn from anybody (Pascal, Snell, etc., besides Galileo), except God himself who had chosen Descartes for a revelation in his famous dreams. I found Namer's arguments supporting his criticism generally convincing and his choice of a contrast with Galileo particularly appropriate historically and instructive philosophically. In fact, in spite of the present science-philosophy dichotomy that makes Descartes "the father of modern philosophy " and Galileo "the father of modern science," I think that both were primarily concerned with what may be called natural philosophy, as is shown for the case of Descartes by the content of his Principia Philosophiae. The philosophical relevance is that Cartesianism is very much alive today, if we describe it as essentially the idea that "those who search for the right road to truth should concern themselves with 96 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY no topic of which they cannot have a certainty equal to that of arithmetical and geometrical demonstration" (quoted on p. 1o, from Regulae 2). I do not think it would be right to accuse Namer of a "genetic fallacy" for wanting to undermine Cartesianism by criticizing its originator. Namer is right to emphasize in Galileo, not a one-sided empiricism in opposition to Cartesian apriorism, hut rather the judicious synthesis between speculation and observation that so much impressed Kant. He is also right in claiming (p. lO6) that the evidence often given to attribute a Platonistic mathematicism to Galileo is taken out of context. But when Namer emphasizes Galileo's balancing of mathematization with observation, he misses the opportunity of defining a distinct type of Galilean synthesis (besides speculation-cum-observation), namely, the balancing of mathematical quantification with qualitative considerations. Hence the emphasis on "exact science " in the book's title may be misleading, if it gives the impression that exactness is essential in Galileo. Similarly, thoughout his discussion, Namer emphasizes Galileo's abandonment of the causal explanation of motion. Though it is indeed proper to contrast this with Descartes's causal obsession, one may easily get the image of Galileo as a positivist, whereas his interest in...