The indefinite in the Descartes-More correspondence

British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (3):453-471 (2021)
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Abstract

In this article, I consider Descartes’ enigmatic claim that we must assert that the material world is indefinite rather than infinite. The focus here is on the discussion of this claim in Descartes’ late correspondence with More. One puzzle that emerges from this correspondence is that Descartes insists to More that we are not in a position to deny the indefinite universe has limits, while at the same time indicating that we conceive a contradiction in the notion that the universe has a limit. I reject one attempt to resolve this apparent conflict which appeals to Descartes’ admission to More that divine omnipotence requires that God can create a vacuum in nature, and focus instead on his response to More’s claim that this omnipotence requires the possibility of a completion of the division of matter that results in atoms. Finally, I distinguish Descartes’ indefinite from two other kinds of infinity with which it might well be confused. The first is an essentially incomplete ‘potential infinity’ that Descartes discusses in the Third Meditation, and the second is the sort of quantitative infinity that Leibniz – contrary to Descartes – denies can constitute a completed whole.

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Citations of this work

Henry More in René Descartes.Matjaž Vesel - 2024 - Filozofski Vestnik 45 (3).

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References found in this work

New Essays on Human Understanding.G. W. Leibniz - 1981 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (3):489-490.
Descartes Against the Skeptics.Edwin M. Curley - 1978 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Descartes on the creation of the eternal truths.Harry Frankfurt - 1977 - Philosophical Review 86 (1):36-57.
The Hypercategorematic Infinite.Maria Rosa Antognazza - 2015 - The Leibniz Review 25:5-30.
Supertasks.J. B. Manchak & Bryan W. Roberts - 2022 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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