Philosophical Review

Descartes on Mind-Body Interaction and the Conservation of Motion

Author(s): Peter McLaughlin
Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Apr., 1993), pp. 155-182
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review
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ThePhilosophical
Review,
Vol. 102,No. 2 (April1993)

Descartes on Mind-Body Interactionand the

Conservationof Motion
PeterMcLaughlin
1. Introduction

One centralelementof the standardreading of Descartes on mindbody interaction (and one of the firstthings many of us ever
learned about Descartes) is thatthe quantity
ofmotionin the world is
conserved,thatthe mindcan neithercreate motionnor remove any
of it fromthe world but can change the directionof the motionof
the body. Bernard Williamstellsus in theEncyclopedia
ofPhilosophy,
"consonantwith[Descartes's]viewson the conservationof motion,
it is only the direction,and not the speed, of movementof these
[animal] spiritsthat is affectedby the soul."' The locusclassicus,so
to speak, forthisreading is paradoxicallynot in a workof Descartes
himself at all, but rather is found in ?80 of the Monadologyof
Leibniz. There Leibniz reports,
Descartesrecognizedthatsoulscannotgiveforceto bodiesbecause
offorceis alwaysconservedin matter.He believed,
thesamequantity
thatthesoulcouldchangethedirection
ofthebody.Butthis
however,
wasbecausethelawofnaturewasstillunknownin hisday,according
to whichmatterconservesalso the same totaldirection.If he had
noticedthis,he wouldhavefallenupon mysystem
of pre-established

harmony.2

'Bernard Williams,"Descartes,"in Encyclopedia

ofPhilosophy
(New York:
Macmillan, 1967), 2:353.
2G. W. Leibniz, GP 6:620-621; PPL, 651. I shall use the followingconventionalabbreviations:AT = Descartes,Oeuvres,ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery (Paris: Vrin, 1964-74); K =Descartes, PhilosophicalLetters,ed. and
trans. A. Kenny (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970); CSM =Descartes, The PhilosophicalWritingsof Descartes,trans.J. Cottingham,R. Stoothoff,and D.
Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 2 vols.;
ed. Gerhardt(Berlin, 1875-90);
GP = Leibniz, Die Philosophischen
Schriften,
PPL = Leibniz,Philosophical
ed. L. Loemker (Dordrecht:
Papersand Letters,
Reidel, 1969).
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

Leibniz expressed thisview,whichimpliesthatthe consistencyof

Descartes's metaphysicsdepends significantly
on the failingsof his
physics,on dozens of occasions fromaround 1687 onwards;3 and
itis typicalof the historicalliteraturethatan extensivediscussionof
Descartes's position on this issue is more likelyto be found in a
work on Leibniz than in one on Descartes himself.This state of
affairsis perhaps best illustratedby ErnstCassirer,who at the end
offersus the
of the chapter on Descartes in his Erkenntnisproblem
offhandremarkthat"itis well known"thatDescartes held thisview
and refersus in a footnoteto his book on Leibniz for details.4
Much recent literaturehas, however,cast doubt on thisreading
of Descartes. For instance,Daniel Garber has assertedthat"a close
examinationof Descartes' writingsgives us good reason to believe
that he never held the positions that Leibniz attributedto him,
neitherthe change of directionaccount of mind body interaction
nor the universalityof the laws of motion."Garber appeals further
to the purported "lack of any clear and positivestatementof the
change-of-directionaccount in any of the numerous writingsthat
survive."5Peter Remnant,in a similarvein though somewhatmore
3See, for example, GP 2:94, 3:122, 467-68, 568, 607; 4:497; 5:64, 208;
6:135-36, 540-47, 621.
4ErnstCassirer,Das Erkenntnisproblem,
vol. 1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1962), 504. In his Leibniz'Systemin seinenwissenschaftlichen
Grundlagen(Darmstadt: WissenschaftlicheBuchgesellschaft,
1962), 58-67, to which he refersthe reader, he presents the Leibnizian
reading in some detail, but he nowhere indicates any text in which Descartes explicitlystatesthe view attributedto him.
5Daniel Garber, "Mind, Body and the Laws of Nature in Descartes and
8 (1983): 105-33 (see 111 and 115);
Leibniz," MidwestStudiesin Philosophy
"Understanding Interaction: What Descartes Should Have Told Elisabeth," Southern
JournalofPhilosophy
21 (suppl.) (1983): 15-32; "How God
Causes Motion: Descartes, Divine Sustenance and Occasionalism,"Journal
ofPhilosophy
84 (1987): 567-80. See also Roger Ariew,"Mind-Body Interaction in Cartesian Philosophy: A Reply to Garber," Southern
Journalof
Philosophy
21 (suppl.) (1983): 33-37; Peter Machamer,"The Harmonies of
Descartes and Leibniz," MidwestStudiesin Philosophy8 (1983):135-42;
"Causality and Explanation in Descartes' Natural Philosophy,"in Motion
and Time,Space and Matter,ed. P. Machamer and R. Turnbull (Columbus:
Ohio State UniversityPress, 1976); Gary C. Hatfield, "Force (God) in
Descartes' Physics,"Studiesin Historyand Philosophy
of Science 10 (1979):
113-40; "Science, Certainty,and Descartes,"PSA 1988, vol. 2, ed. A. Fine
and J. Leplin (East Lansing: Philosophy of Science Association, 1989).
Some of the argumentscan be tracedback to Norman Kemp Smith,Studies
in the CartesianPhilosophy[1902] (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962).
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

cautious,characterizesLeibniz's interpretationas "creativeelucidation"6and believes that Leibniz is ratherprojectinghis own principles onto Descartes. Like Garber, Remnant and others go on to
question Descartes's commitmentto the conservationof motionor
at least to its applicabilityto those bodies thatare joined to a soul.
Two argumentsare offeredto persuade us to entertaina radically
differentinterpretationof Descartes:
(1) Descartes does not in factstatethe change-of-direction
position attributedto him by Leibniz (and most other philosophers),
but he does on occasion conceive of the actionof mind on bodies as
increasing(or decreasing) the amount of motion in the body acted
on-at the veryleast the motion of the pineal gland itself.
(2) The assertionof the conservationof the quantityof motionin
the world is a statementabout the constancyof God's action in the
world and not about the causal interactionsof bodies. Since conservationgovernsthe motionsof bodies onlyinsofaras God moves
them, there may be a loophole in the law for motions caused by
human minds.
Both these argumentsare mistaken.Leibniz, as we shall see, was
basically right both on the historicalquestion of what Descartes
meant to say about conservationand change of directionand on
the philosophical question of why he had to mean this. Furthermore,we shall see thatthe textualbasis forhis reading is somewhat
betterthan contemporarycriticsmake it out to be.
I shall deal witheach of these argumentsin a separate sectionof
thispaper. But before I turnto questionsof textualinterpretation
and present the evidence for and against the correctnessof the
Leibnizian reading, I shall firstpresent a somewhatupdated and
more explicitversion of this interpretationand attemptto clarify
what is philosophicallyat stake.
2. The Leibnizian Reading
In dealing with the question of mind-bodyinteractionwe should
firstdistinguishtwo separate problems: (1) the question of the
of interactionbetween mind and body if theyare conintelligibility
6Peter Remnant, "Descartes: Body and Soul," Canadian Journal of
9 (1979): 377-86, at 386.
Philosophy
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

ceived as radically distinctin the way Descartes conceived them,

and (2) the subsequent question raised by the apparent conflict
between mind-bodyinteractionand conservationprinciples.The
firstquestion is symmetricaland musthold equally forthe actionof
the body on the mind and forthatof the mind on the body,thatis,
forboth perception(or emotion)and volition.The second question
is asymmetricinsofaras it is sensiblyraised onlyin connectionwith
the action of the mind on the body; for Descartes introduced a
conservationlaw only for the world of bodies, not for the mental
world: no conservationof mental energy is asserted with which
perception mightinterfere.However, the question of the compatibilityof interactionand conservation can be sensiblydiscussed
only if the connection between mind and body is assumed to be
intelligible,or if compatibilityis simplytaken as an additionalconstrainton an intelligiblerelationship.In any case we should not
confuseargumentsforone thesiswiththoseforthe other.I shall be
dealing here primarilywith the second question, concerningthe
of the actionof the mind on the body withconservation
compatibility
laws.7
As far as compatibilityis concerned, the modern mind-body
problem generallytaken to have been inventedby Descartes may
be characterizedby the followingset of propositions:8
(1) The material(corporeal) world is causally closed.
(2) The mind is nonmaterial.
(3) The mind acts upon the body (thatis, makes a differencein
the materialworld).
The mind-bodyproblem arises inasmuch as these three propositionsseem to be incompatible.Any philosopherwho attemptsto
"solve" the problem must deny, relativize,or in some way get
around one of these propositions.Leibniz denied (3); Hobbes de7For a discussionof Descartes on the question of intelligibility
itself,see
Eileen O'Neill, "Mind-Body Interactionand MetaphysicalConsistency:A
Defense of Descartes,"JournaloftheHistory
ofPhilosophy
25 (1987): 227-45;
and Margaret D. Wilson, "Descartes on the Origin of Sensation," PhilosophicalTopics 19 (1991): 293-323.
81 take this presentationof the mind-bodyproblem to be uncontroversial; this particularversion is derived from Peter Bieri's introductionto
Analytische
Philosophiedes Geistes(Meisenheim: Hain, 1981), 37.
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

nied (2); but hardly anyone who takes modern science seriously
the modern
wantsto deny (1). Descartes can be said to have invented
mind-bodyproblem (as opposed to having simplyoffereda solution to it), insofaras he was not only the firstto formulate(1) but
also the first(and perhaps the only) philosopherever to have subscribed to all three propositions.9
How did Descartes manage this withoutobvious contradiction?
Leibniz, in the passage from the Monadology(?80) quoted above
and in many other places, maintainsthatDescartes was able to do
thisonlybecause he had a mistakennotionof the "force"conserved
in the world and of the constraintsplaced on causal closure by a
secondconservationlaw unknownto him. This preventedhim from
realizing that (3) cannot be reconciled with (1), given (2). Had
Descartes realized this, he would, says Leibniz, have denied (3).
Leibniz is right.WhetherDescartes would have gone on to propose
preestablishedharmony is of course another question, especially
since Descartes,as opposed to Leibniz, did not considermind-body
interactionto be primafacieunintelligible.But let us note thatLeibniz was quite able to distinguishand employ two differentarguments: (1) mind-bodyinteractionis unintelligibleand thus cannot
be asserted,and (2) mind-bodyinteractionis incompatiblewiththe
conservationlaws on which physicsis based and thus cannot be
asserted. When arguing against Cartesians,he understandablyoften preferredthe second argument.
According to Leibniz, Descartes was able to consider the above
three propositionsto be consistentbecause he defined the causal
closure of the material world by only a single conservationlaw,
namely,the conservationof the totalamount of causal power and
causal action, a scalar quantitythat he called "force" or "motion"
and measured (wrongly)by ImvI.10This allowed him to countenance purely directionalchanges in the vector of motion, which
9Garber,Remnant,etc. in principledeny thatDescartes asserts(1), and
thus implythat he neitherinventednor offereda solutionto the modern
mind-bodyproblem. On Descartes's role in the historyof the mind-body
Mind,Brain,Behavior
problem,see MartinCarrierand JurgenMittelstrass,
(Berlin: De Gruyter,1991), 16-27.
"0The fact that Descartes's measure of scalar "force"was ImvI(or more
precisely,the product of sizeand speed)instead of mV2(as Leibniz corrected
it) is importantforthe constructionof his physicsbut is not relevantto the
question at hand here.
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

were of course causally relevant,but to conceive them to be dynamicallyneutralin the sense of neitheradding to nor subtracting
fromthe aggregate force (motion) in the world. The concept Descartes introduced for the vector of motion was determination-in
substantival,verbal, and adjectival form this is a technical term
centralto Cartesian physicsthatcan (loosely)be representedby my
considered as a directed magnitude. Determinationis not merely
directionsince it has a quantity
and can be divided into parts,but it
is also not an independent
magnitudesince itsvalue is alwaysfixedby
the body's quantityof motion, of which it is only a mode." To
clarifythis concept, I shall brieflysketch its place in Descartes's
physicsand its connectionto the conservationof motion.12
In book 2 of the PrinciplesofPhilosophy,
which contains the deductivecore of his physics,Descartes firstintroducesthe conceptof
matter (and its contrary,nothingnessor the void) (?? 1-22) and
then one modeof matter,motion and its contrary,rest (??23-35).
He then turnsto the causal aspects of matterin motion(??36-64).
In this last part of book 2 he begins by defining the (minimal)
identity
conditions
forthe systemof the world as a whole in termsof
the two basic conceptsjust introduced: X m = constantand X JmvJ
= constant (where m is the quantityof matterand v the speed).
The material universe is considered to be the same over time as
long as neitheritssize nor the amount of actionor motiongoing on
withinit undergoes change.'3
In ?36 Descartes tells us that God is the primarycause of the
world and of the motionin it and thatby his "ordinaryconcourse"
he preservesit in existenceand motion.There are of course countless changes in the distribution
of the motion throughoutmattersome parts become swifterwhile others become slower; but these

1"Thus, in spiteof whatone oftenreads, it is not the case that"a change

can occur in one withoutany change in the other"(Hatfield,"Force," 118);
on the contrary,any change in the quantityof motionentailsa change in
the (quantity)of determination,though the directionalaspect of determination can change withoutany change in the quantityof motion.
12See Peter Damerow, Gideon Freudenthal, Peter McLaughlin, and
Jurgen Renn, ExploringtheLimitsof PreclassicalMechanics(New York:
Springer, 1992), chap. 2, for an extensiveanalysisof the role of thisconcept in Cartesian physics; see also 293-332 for an English translationof
most of the relevantmaterial.
13AT 8:61-62; CSM 1:240.
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

particularinternalchanges, so long as there is no change in the

sum total,are compatiblewiththe constancyof God's action,which
preservesthe wholeas it is. Reason tells us that since God created
the worldwithcertaindefiningproperties,it willcontinueto retain
precisely those properties that justify us in calling it the same
world, namely,the quantitiesof matterand motion.
Although Descartes anchors thisconservationlaw in the reasonableness of God's constancyand immutability,
the actual argument
as to what it means for the materialworld to be the same world at
twodifferenttimeshas to do withthe natureof matterand motion,
not withthatof God. A formal,second-orderpropertyof God such
as the constancyof his modes of action cannot specifythe content
of the concept of force,forinstance,whetheritsmeasure is ImvI
or
mv2. Leibniz reads Descartes as rightlydemanding a fundamental
conservationlaw to which all laws of nature must themselvesconform,but he disagreeswithDescarteson thecontentof thislaw and
denies thatthiscontentcan reallybe deduced fromthe predicates
ascribed to God. Thus, the standard view of the role of the conservationof motionin Descartes'ssystemis thatitis a metamethodological principle: that "God's nature sets constraintson what the
laws of nature should be, requiringin particularthatthere should
be a conservationlaw."'14
Afterintroducingconservation,Descartes then in the FirstLaw
of Nature (?37) defines what stayingthe same (remainingin the
same state) means for a singlebody:it changes neither of its two
fundamentalmodes, shape or state of motion,of its own accord.
According to the Second Law of Nature (?39), a single body considered separatelyalso retainsthe (second-order)mode or determinationof itsmotion.15Finally,in the Third Law of Nature (??40ff.),
changein the modes of bodies throughinteractionwithother bodies is defined and quantified: the change in motion and/ordeterminationof a body throughinteractionwithanother body occurs
according to certain(impact) rules withinthe constraintsset by the

"4BernardWilliams,Descartes:The Projectof Pure Inquiry(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), 269. See Leibniz, Animadversiones
in partemgeneralemprincipiorum
cartesianorum,
GP 4:370-72; PPL, 393-95. See also
Damerow et al., ExploringtheLimits,68-78.
15Most translations-byellipsisor lack of precision-leave the contentof
thislaw completelyunclear. See AT 8:62-65.
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

conservationof motion.16Thus, since the conservationof determination is stipulatedonly forsinglebodies and not forthe systemas
a whole, there is no algorithmdirectlygoverning what actually
happens to a body's determinationin impact,nor is there any necessitythatchange in the determinationof one body be correlated
to an equal and opposite change in some other body.
In the Dioptrics,"determination"is used to analyze the trajectory
of a tennisball collidingwiththe court surface.The determination
of the ball's motion is resolved into component determinations
(verticaland horizontal)according to the parallelogramrule (vector addition). In derivingthe inversesign law of refraction,determinations are added vectoriallyand motions arithmetically.The
resultingproblems constitutethe main subject matterof much of
Descartes's correspondence with Fermat, Hobbes, and Bourdin.
is also theconceptusedtoanalyzetheactionofthemindon
Determination
thebody.The salient aspect of the concept of determinationin this
context is that the determinationof a motion or a change in its
determination(so long as no change in scalar speed is involved)
requiresnoforce.As Descartes wrote to Mersenne,
fromthedetermination
It shouldbe notedthatmotionis different
thatbodieshave to movein one directionratherthananother,as I
forceis onlyneededtomove
and that,properly,
wrotein myDioptrics;
inwhichtheyare tomove.17
thedirection
bodiesand nottodetermine
In the example discussed in the Dioptrics,it is the powerof the
muscles in the arm that produces the motionof a tennisball hit by
a racket;it is thepositionof the racketand then of the courtsurface
this motion in one directionor another. Or as Desthat determines
cartes once answered Hobbes,
theball
Forexample,I throwa ballagainsta wall;thewalldetermines
to returntowardsme,butitis notthecause of itsmotion."8

"6There are also implicitsymmetryassumptionsand an extremalprinciple elaborated only in a later letter to Clerselier (Feb. 17, 1645; AT
4:183-88).
17June 11, 1640; AT 3:75.
Descartes to Mersenne, April 21, 1641; AT 3:355.

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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

The Cartesian mind acts on the body in a forceless manner

analogous to thatof a surfaceon a collidingbody. It neitheradds
nor subtractsmotion; it merelydeterminesit in another direction.
This analogy betweenmind and surfacemayin facthave led to the
transferof the concept of determinationfrom the discussion of
free will to physics.'9 As early as Le Monde (1632), before he had
introducedthe concept of determinationintohis physics,Descartes
was explicitlylooking for an analogy between the abilityof the
of otherbodies to
dispositionof bodies in space to cause the motions
deviate fromthe rectilinearand the abilityof the dispositionof our
willto cause our actionsto deviate fromthe good.20And even in his
mature physicsDescartes leaves open the possibilityof directional
changes by dispositionsof the mind.2' In physiologicalcontexts
Descartes speaks of the animal spiritsas "determining"the muscles
to this or that motion, that is, infinitesimally
triggeringthe force
stored in them: just as the "least conceivable force" can "determine" a weightbalanced on a curved surfaceto fall along various
paths, so too can a muscle be determinedto contractor expand.22
While it may indeed be unclear howthe nonextended soul is supposed to act in a manner analogous to a brick wall or an infinitesimalnudge by the animal spirits,it is certainlyno less intelligible
to assertthatthe mind determines
motionthan thatit causesmotion.
Furthermore,once one has embarked on this route, there is no
reason for stopping or turningback: the motion of the body is
determined,not caused, by thatof the animal spirits;the motionof
the animal spiritsis determined,not caused, by that of the pineal
gland; and the motion of the pineal gland is determined, not
caused, by the actions of the soul. Nothing would be gained in

"9The concept of determinationwas used in discussionsof free will in

the sense that the will determinesitselfto action. See Francisco Suarez,
Operaomnia(Paris, 1856), vol. 10, 459ff.;and Descartes,letterto [?], March
1638; AT 2:36; and Passions?170; AT 11:459.
20AT 11:46-47. In thiscommenton the originalthirdlaw, whichwas to
become the Second Law of Nature in the Principles(conservationof determination),God is taken to be the ultimate
author both of the motions
of
bodies (insofaras theyare rectilinear)and of the actionsof humans (insofar
as theyare good).
2'Principles2, ?40; AT 8:65.
22AT 11:518-19; also 131-32, 176-77, 179, 194.

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PETER McLAUGHLIN

termsof intelligibility
byassumingthatthe mind actuallymoves the
pineal gland, and everythingwould be lost in termsof consistency.
In the PrinciplesDescartes does not assert the conservationof
determinationfor the systemas a whole; only scalar motion is
conserved throughoutall interactions.Leibniz-and classical mechanics-added a second systemconservationlaw for the vector
quantity now called momentum,
so that the causal closure of the
world came to be determined by two laws: the firstasserted the
conservationin the systemof matterof the scalar quantity,vis viva
(energy),the second demanded the conservationin the systemof
matterof the vectorof motion.23This puts additional constraints
on causal closure and prohibitsDescartes's solution:therecould no
longer be a causallyrelevantbut dynamicallyneutralchange in the
directionof motion. If the (nonmaterial)soul is to change the directionof motion,the materialworld is not causally closed.
This is all well and good and may certainlyreflectthe opinion of
Leibniz or Cassirer; but where does Descartes actuallysay anything
of the sort?And where does he replace the wall and the tennisball
with the soul and bodily movements?Where is the concept of dewhichis used to describethe forcelessactionof the wall
termination,
on the ball, also used in a technicalsense to describe the action of
the soul on the body?
3. Does the Mind Cause or Merely Determine Motions?
For those unfamiliarwiththe debates on thissubject in the literature or with the widely scatteredpassages cited from Descartes's
works,it may be helpfulto reviewthembriefly.And it may help to
bring thingsdown to earth if I point out that we are in principle
dealing withabout fifteenpages of Cartesian text,24each of which
contains only a few sentencesthat may plausiblybe asserted to be
both unambiguous and relevantto the question at hand. Thus, not
onlycan anyone who wantsto do it check all the material,but I can
(and will) quote most of it in the course of the next few pages. I

23See, for example, GP 2:94 and 3:568.

24To be precise AT 3:665; AT 5:222-23, 276, 347, 403-4; AT 7:229;
and AT 11:180 and 185, 225-26, 355, 360, 361, 365, 518-19, and 631.
Some other passages (AT 11:131-32, 176-77, 179, 194) are importantfor
the physiologicalmechanismsof emotion and perception.
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

shall deal firstwiththe purported lack of evidence for the Leibnizian reading, and then turn to the textualevidence for the mind's
originatingmotion.
We shall see thattwo or threepassages statemore or less exactly
what Leibniz attributed to Descartes. In four others Descartes
speaks of the mind's movingthe body in termsthatcause genuine
(though not insurmountable)difficultiesfor the Leibnizian reading. In the resthe saysnothingthaton closer examinationcommits
him eitherway. None of the apparent mind-moves-bodypassages
are so central,unambiguous,and compellingthattheycould offer
serious resistance to a hermeneutic regulative principle such as
"Don't interpretDescartes as sayinganythinginconsistentwiththe
conservationof motionin the world!" For Leibniz the formulation
of the conservationof forcewas the greatachievementof Cartesian
natural philosophy,and this hermeneuticrule was thus more or
are apless self-evident.Those interpretingDescartes differently
parentlyguided by a differenthermeneuticprescription,and it
would be interestingto know what it is and why they subscribe
to it.25
3.1 Evidence for the Leibnizian Reading
Let us begin withthe evidence for the Leibnizian reading of Descartes,both textualand contextual.This reading isn'toriginalwith
Leibniz. It seems to have been quite common in Parisian Cartesian
circlesand had everyclaim to orthodoxy.Clerselierand other insiders26had stated it explicitlyin printbefore Leibniz formulated
25I know of no clear statementof the hermeneuticprescriptionguiding
anti-Leibnizianreadings; a suitable candidate mightbe "Interpret Descartesas a representativeof pre-Hobbesian moral psychology,who has the
soul subdue the passions not by means of other passions but by means of
its own force."
deM. Descartes,
26Clerselierin a letterto La Forge, Dec. 4, 1660 (in Lettres
vol. 3 (Paris, 1667), 642) wrote,"mais que la finie [substance spirituelle],
comme l'Ame de l'homme,peut seulementestrecapable de determinerle
movementqui est desia." Johann Clauberg in Corporiset animaein homine
chap. 26, ?4 (originallypart of his Physica,Ampleniusdescripta,
conjunctio
sterdam, 1650) wrote,"Non utique motus in majore aut minore mundo
quantitatemaugendo vel mineundo, . . . sed in alias tantum partes eum
convertendo" (Opera omniaphilosophica(Amsterdam, 1691), vol. 1, 230;
Olms, 1968).
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

his position.And PrincessElisabethhad originallyopened her correspondence withDescartes in 1643 by statingpreciselythe viewin
question; in fact,the question she asked in her firstletterwas how
she was supposed to conceive of the abilityof the nonextended and
thus shapeless soul to determine
the motion of the animal spirits.27
In Paris Leibniz moved in circlesof people who had known Descartes personally. He also had access to manuscriptsno longer
available to us; in factone of the passages to be discussed below is
known to us only because Leibniz copied and kept it.28There is,
however,no need to appeal to documentsno longer available to us
that Leibniz might have read in Paris. Elisabeth needed only a
careful reading of the Meditations(and presumablyof the Diotropics). There are clear passages in centralwritingsand in the appropriate sectionsof the Traitede l'homme
and the Description
du corps
humainat the places where he deals withthe technicaldetailsofjust
exactlyhow the mind prevailsupon the pineal gland to change the
course of the animal spiritsso as to bringabout bodilymovements.
Given the structureof Descartes's scientificsystem,a technically
precise explanation of how the mind changes the directionof motion must be couched in termsof determination.
We need a statement by Descartes to the effectthat the mind does not movethe
body but only determines
its motion.
In the Meditations(4th reply) we read,
Thus, even in ourselves,the minddoes not immediately
movethe
externallimbsbut onlydirectsthe [animal]spiritsflowingfromthe
heartthroughthebrainintothemusclesand determines
themto certainmotions,
foroftheirownaccordthesespirits
couldbe appliedjust
as easilyto manydifferent
actions.29

27Elisabethwrote to Descartes, "en vous priant de me dire comment

l'ame de l'homme peut determinerles espritsdu corps, pour fair les actions volontaires"(AT 3:661).
28AT 11:631; this particularpassage will,however,turn out not to be
relevantto the question of mind-bodyinteraction.
29AT 7:229; mytranslationand emphasis. Most translationsI have seen
manage to garble thissentence.The originalreads, "adeo ut nequidem in
nobis ipsis mens immediate moveat membra externa, sed dirigattantum
spiritusa corde per cerebrumin musculos fluentes,eosque ad certosmotus determined,cum ex se isti spiritusad multas actiones diversas aeque
facile applicentur."
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

That is, the mind can change the course or directionof the animal
spiritsas theyflowthroughthe brain directingthem to particular
muscles, and thus by this means it determines these muscles to
certain motions. That the mind does this by means of one particulargland had already been stated in the Sixth Meditation.30
du corpshumainDescartes says,
In the preface to the Description
proceed principally
And even the movementswe call "voluntary"
oftheorgans,sincetheycannotbe excitedwithfromthisdisposition
willtowardsthemwe mayhave,thoughitis thesoul
outit,whatever
themovements.31
thatdetermines
motionsof
In each of these passages the soul is said to determine
the body, and in the firstit is clear thatthisis done by redirecting
the animal spirits.And in many passages in the Traitede l'homme32
"determination"is the technicaltermused to describethe action of
perceptionson the animal spiritsand of the animal spiritson the
brain.
But we stillhave no passage where Descartes explicitlysays that
the mind does not move the pinealgland itselfbut only determines
itsmotion.Peter Remnant,in a rhetoricalflourish,asks,"Are we to
suppose that it [the mind] only changes its [the pineal gland's]
direction,and not speed, of motion-something like a punching
bag in perpetual use?"33The onlyconsistentanswer is, Yes!-with
the reservationthat the punching bag simile is somewhat off the
mark,since it is clear fromthe Third Law of Nature thathowever
the mind acts,itdoes not act byimpact.There seems,however,to be
says what is in facta
no passage where Descartes actuallyexplicitly

30AT 7:86, CSM 2:59-60.

3'AT 11:225; my translationand emphasis.
32AT 11:131-32, 176-77, 179, 183, 194; see also 518-19.
33"Bodyand Soul," 380. Kemp Smith(Studies,83n) writes,"But though
Descartes frequentlyspeaks of the motion of the 'animal spirits'as being
merelydirected(not originated)by the movementsof the pineal gland, he
never,so faras we are aware, suggeststhatthose movementsof the pineal
gland, whichare involvedin voluntaryaction,can be explained in a similar
manner as previously existing and merely guided by the mind." Jean
deDescartes(Paris: Presses Universitaires,1950),
Laporte, in Le Rationalisme
asks,"Is the soul limitedto 'determining'an alreadyexistingmotion[of the
gland]? Descartes says nothingof the kind" (247).
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PETER McLAUGHLIN
trivialconsequence of his position. The closest he comes to this is
when he writesthe following:
causes,not countingthe forceof the mind
There are twoprincipal
whichI shalltreatlater,whichcan makeit [theglandH] movein this
wayand whichI mustexplainhere.
amongthesmallparticles
occurring
Thefirst[cause]is thedifference
were
thatproceedfrom[thegland].Forifall thesespirits
ofthespirits
of exactlythesameforceand iftherewereno othercause at all that
themto tendone wayor theother,theywouldflowequally
determined
and immobilein
throughall theporesand keep [thegland]straight
in Fig.40.... The second
cause
thecenterof thehead as represented
themotionsof theglandH is theactionof objects
thatcan determine
thesenses....34
affecting
The manuscriptends some twentypages later, before Descartes
has gottenaround to explaining the thirdcause thatcan make the
gland move thisway or that-the mind. But each of the two physithe gland to tend or move thisway or
cal causes is said to determine
that.That is, the emotions(firstcause), bywayof differencesin the
flow of the animal spirits,determine the motion of the pineal
gland, and external objects (second cause) by way of perceptions
can also determine the motion of the gland. Even though the
manuscriptends before the third (and nonphysical)cause is dealt
with,the structureof explanation is clear: the two causes treated
are causes not of motionsbut of the determinationof motions; at
least the expectationmustbe thatthe thirdcause (the mind) is also
the motion of the gland. That is, passions,
a cause of determining
and
(presumably) volitions all exercise their causal
perceptions,
influenceonly by determiningthe motion of the pineal gland.35
This interpretationof the Traitede l'hommemay receive some
additional historicalsupport fromthe factthat Descartes's imme-

34AT 11:180-85; emphasis added. It should be noted that the first

ellipsis representseightpages of textin the original edition.
3 escartes writesin the Passions,"And the activityof the soul consists
in the factthatsimplyby willingsomethingit bringsitaboutthatthe
entirely
littlegland to which it is closelyjoined moves in the manner required to
produce the effectcorrespondingto thisvolition"(AT 11:360, CSM 1:343;
emphasis added).
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

in fillingin the missingpieces. In

diate disciples had no difficulty
his textbookversionof thisargumentJacques Rohault includes the
missingthirdcause in strictparallel to the other two:
ofthe
Foritis easytoconceive,that,thefigureand particular
agitation
objects
particles
whichcomposethesespirits,or the actionofexternal
to such or such a
upon the sense organs,or, in us, the inclination
toenterone nerverather
thosespirits
motiondetermining
[determinant]
thananother,theywillthenarriveat one particularmusclerather
of all muscles,
thananother;which,due to the commonstructure
makesthetendonpullthatpartof the
swellingand growingshorter,
bodyto whichitis affixedand thuscausesthemotionofour limbs.36
The passages quoted above seem to be all there is, but theydo
give serious support to the traditionalinterpretation.None of the
recentliteraturequestioningthe Leibnizian reading deals withany
of the threepassages fromDescartes adduced above,37and none of
it has been sensitiveenough to the form in which a change-ofdirection statementwould have to be formulatedto notice that
Elisabeth'soriginalquestion to Descartes deals not withthe cause of
thatis,thatitpresupposesthe "Leibmotionbut withitsdetermination,
nizian" interpretation.Thus, I think we can justly consider the
argumentthatthe Leibnizian interpretationlacks a textualbasis to
be untenable. Although Descartes only very rarelymakes an unequivocal statementabout the technicalitiesof the action of the
mind on the body, whenever he does, he invariablychooses "determination"to characterizethis action. Not only does coherence
demand thatwe interpretDescartes as holdinga positionconsistent
with the conservationof motion in the world, Descartes himself
says enough that we don't have to inventthe position ourselves.

36JacquesRohault, Traitede Physique(Amsterdam,1672), 451-52 (pt. 4,

chap. 17, ?4), emphasis added. Rohault here is simplyfollowingthe lead of
La Forge and Schuyl,both of whom
the editorsof Descartes'sDe l'homme,
emphasize the parallels between the three causes. See Schuyl's "Ad lectorum" (unpaginated, ninthpage) in De Homine(1662) and La Forge's note
(1664), 364.
to the passage about the "second cause" in Traitgde l'homme
37To my knowledge, in the recent literatureonly Alan Gabbey, "The
Mechanical Philosophy and its Problems: Mechanical Explanations, Impenetrability,and Perpetual Motion," in Change and Progressin Modern
Ontario
of Western
Science,ed. J. Pitt(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985), (University
ofScience,27), 20 and 70-71, citespartof these passages.
SeriesinPhilosophy
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

3.2 Evidence for the Anti-LeibnizianReading

A number of passages have been cited in favor of the antiLeibnizian view in whichDescartes seems to assertthatthe mind is
the cause of motion.These passages can forthe purposes of discussion be divided into three groups: (1) a number of lettersto Elisabeth, Arnauld, and More, (2) statementsin the PassionsoftheSoul,
and (3) a manuscripton motion fromabout 1635.
The firstgroup is of particularimportance-in spite of the fact
thatthe passages cited do not reallyprove anything-because they,
nonetheless,give rise to misgivingsthat remain even when we set
the objectionsaside. These passages have oftenbeen cited both by
proponents and by criticsof the Leibnizian view; neitherside has
considered them decisive.38Recent critics,while citingthese passages as auxiliarysupport,resttheircases on the second and third
groups. Remnantbases his argumentprimarilyon thePassions,and
Garber puts his bets on the 1635 manuscript.
The often cited mind-moves-bodypassages from Descartes letters are the following:39
I shallendeavorto explainthewayI conceivetheunionof themind
withthebodyand howithastheforcetomoveit.... As regardsmind
and bodytogether,
we haveonlythenotionof theirunion,on which
dependsour notionof theforcethemindhas to movethebody,and
thebodytoacton themindcausingsensations
and passions.(Letterto
Elisabeth,May21, 1643; AT 3:665; K, 138)
Moreover,thata mind,whichis incorporeal,can impela body is
shownto us everyday bythemostcertainand mostevidentexperience,without
theneedofanyreasoningor comparison
withanything
else.... Manyphilosophers
whothinkthattheheavinessofa stoneis
a realqualitydistinct
fromthestonethinkthattheyunderstand
well
enoughhowsucha qualitycan movethestonetowardthecenterof
theearth,sincetheythinkthattheyhavea manifest
experienceof it.
I, whohavepersuadedmyself
thatthereis no suchqualityin nature,
northusanytrueidea ofitinthehumanintellect,
believethattheyuse
the idea whichtheyhave of incorporealsubstanceto representthat

38Garbercharacterizesthe remarksin the lettersto Elisabeth,Arnauld,

and More as "casual and ... given in the context of nontechnicaland
almost off-the-cuff
explanations" ("Mind, Body and the Laws of Nature,"
112).
39The translationsfor the most part followGarber (and Kenny).
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

forus to underheavinessto themselves.

Thus,itis no moredifficult
standhowmindmovesbodythanitis forthem[tounderstand]
how
thisheavinessbearsa stonedownwards.
(Letterto Arnauld,July29,
1648; AT 5:222-23; K, 235-36)
to
Of courseI do notthinkthatanymodeofactionbelongsunivocally
but I mustconfessthattheonlyidea I can
bothGod and creatures,
inwhichGod or an angel
findinmymindtorepresent
theway[modus]
can movematteris theone whichshowsme thewayin whichI am
consciousI can movemyown bodyby myown thought.(Letterto
HenryMore,April15, 1649; AT 5:347; K, 252)
The forcemoving[a body]can be thatof God himself
conserving
as
in matteras he placedin it in thefirstmomentof
muchtranslation
likeour mindor thatof
creation;or also thatof a createdsubstance,
someotherthingtowhichhe gavetheforceofmovinga body.(Letter
to HenryMore,August1649; AT 5:403-4; K, 257)
Had not Descartes in his published writingsexplictlymaintained
thatthe quantityof motionin matteris conserved,it is unlikelythat
these particular correspondents would have attributedsuch an
opinion to him. Considered in isolationor in an appropriatelyconstructedcontext,theydo seem to attributeto the soul the power to
movethe body. But note thatin none of these passages is the alternative between the production of motion and determinationof
motion even mentioned. In factthe question of the compatibility
of
mind-bodyinteractionand conservationis not being discussed at
of interactionas such,
all. All passages deal with the intelligibility
which Descartes is attemptingtojustify.40The introductionof the

40Garberquite rightlysees thatin his firstreplyto Elisabeth "Descartes

is attemptingto establishthat mind body interactionis per se intelligible"
("Understanding Interaction,"27-28). Had he noticed that thisis notthe
question Elisabethactuallyposed, he could have adduced a much stronger
argumentby pointingto the difference
between Elisabeth'sfirstletterand
her second letter,in which she restatesthe question in termsof motionhow "nous devonsjuger commentl'ame .. . peut mouvoirle corps" (une
10/20,1643; AT 3:684). The decisive event occurringbetween the apparently"Leibnizian" formulationof the firstletterand the "anti-Leibnizian"
formulationof the second is the receiptof a letterfromDescartes himself.
If we assume thatElisabethwas notjust parrotingDescartes'swords when
she originallyspoke of determination,this singular factmust give rise to
more misgivingsthan any of the anti-Leibnizianargumentsput forwardin
the literature.Descartes seems to have misseda golden opportunityto give
a concise explanation to someone who would have understood it.
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

distinction between the mind's changing a body's motion and

changing the directional mode of its motion would not serve to
make more plausible the substantialunion of body and soul. While
we mightwell wish that Descartes had not ignored his own technical distinctions,it is nonetheless clear that his intenthere is to
affirmgenericallythe action of the mind on the body, ratherthan
to single out a specifickind of action that is incompatiblewithhis
conservationlaw. There is no indicationwhateverthat he is using
"move" (or "force") in the stricttechnicalsense of "impart jmvj,"
thatis, "move as opposed to merelydetermine."Anyinterpretation
must choose to attributeto Descartes either minor infelicitiesof
expression or major inconsistenciesof content. And, as we have
already seen, in those contextswhere Descartes does in fact take
the distinctionbetween motionand determinationinto account he
attributesonly determinationto the soul. Genuine misgivingsmay
and perhaps should remain,but theyare only misgivings.
The second group of quotations often cited are found in the
Passions of the Soul, where Descartes speaks in a somewhat more
technical context about the interrelationsof body and soul, although the primarycontext is not the actions of the soul but its
passions. From ??34-47 in the firstbook we can glean the following
representativeremarksabout the action of the soul on the body:
(?34) ... [the gland] can be movedin various waysby the soul....
(?41) ... [by willing] the soul bringsit about that the littlegland to

whichitis closelyjoined movesin themannerrequired....

makes
theglandleanfirsttoone sideand thento
(?42) .. . thisvolition
another....

(?43) ... this volition makesthe gland drive the spiritsto the muscles. ...

toone
(?47) ... thelittleglandinthemiddleofthebraincanbepushed
side by the soul and to the other side by the animal spirits. . . and

oftenhappen to be opposed, the

thesetwo impulses
[impulsions]
stronger cancelling the effect of the weaker; . . . the force with

whichthesoul by itsvolition
direcpushestheglandin a contrary
tion. ...41

Although some expressions (such as the firstabove) vaguely state

that the mind moves the body in the same sense as in the letters

4'Descartes, PassionsoftheSoul, AT 11:355-66, CSM 1:341-47; emphasis added.

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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

cited above, almost all the assertionsabout mind-bodyinteraction

from the Passions are expressed in the language of indirectcausality: the soul does not do anything,it has things done.42 The
expression used is normallyfaire que (to bringit about that somethinghappens, to makesomethinghappen) and occasionallylaisser
(to let somethingbe done, or have it done). This is preciselythe
terminologythatDescartes uses in theDioptricswhen he introduces
the distinctionbetween motion and its determination.The deteror
minationis said to make the tennisball descend (lafait descendre)
advance horizontally(lafait avancer)accordingto the parallelogram
rule; but Descartes is explicitthathe does not mean by thisthatthe
determiningcause affectsthe quantityof motion.43Thus, most of
Descartes's descriptionsof the action of the soul on the pineal
gland in the Passionsare completelycompatiblewiththe conservation of motion since theyare formulatedin the vocabularyintroduced to guarantee compatibility.
Let us also take up the most vivid example, the last quotation
(?47), whichdoes notuse the language of indirectcausality:we are
to picture the soul pushing the pineal gland one way while the
animal spiritspush it in the opposite direction.44This seems obviously to be a case of forcesin equilibrium; and if the soul is to
overcome the forceof the animal spiritsthen it mustalso be able to
apply more force than theydo. But what about the action of the
animal spiritson the gland? Do theyreallypush?As we saw above,
when Descartes gets down to the hard physiologicaldetails of bodyhe says not that the animal spiritsmovethe gland,
bodyinteractions,
its motion. But the vividnessof Descartes's
determine
but that they
example of the soul counteractingthe animal spiritsis based on the
implicitassumption that the soul "pushes" in thesame wayas the
animal spirits.If the actions of the animal spiritsare seen as deter-

42For an analysis of the terminologyof indirectcausalityin Descartes

etcormentis
and late scholasticphilosophysee Rainer Specht, Commercium
im Cartesianismus
(Stuttgart:Frommann,
poris: Uber Kausalvorstellungen
1966), chap. 2.
43See, for example, AT 6:95 (CSM 1:157-58) and Damerow et al., ExploringtheLimits,103-25.
44Remnant"Body and Soul," (381) takesthispassage to be decisive.And
in Kemp Smith's (mis)translation,which he cites, it indeed contains the
much strongerstatement,thatthe soul acts on the pineal gland by impact;
but it is obviouslywrong to translate"impulsion"as impacthere.
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

miningthe motion of the gland, as Descartes repeatedlyasserts,45

how are we to conceive the "impulsions"of the mind? If we wantto
keep the vivid symmetrywe must say that the action of the mind,
too, consistsin determininga motion. In fact,any attemptto take
the Passions passages in a more technical sense than the letters
discussed above forcesus to interpretthem as consistentwiththe
well-entrencheddoctrines of the Dioptrics,Principles,and Meditations.Impulsions of the mind neitherharmonizenor clash withthe
conservationof scalar motion. If we take them to cause changes in
speed, they clash; if we take them to cause changes in direction,
they harmonize. Which choice comes closest to Descartes's intentions depends on what those intentionswere. I take it he intended
the Passions to be compatible with the Dioptrics,Principles,and
Meditations.
The thirdgroup of passages deals withan example where Descartes, although he speaks only of motion (and doesn't mention
If a soul is said to
determination),deals witha case of acceleration.
increasethe motion of a body, Descartes cannot be interpretedas
merelysaying in lax terminologythat the soul determinesthe directionof motion.The letterto Arnauld quoted above, whichcompares the mind to gravity,is taken by Garber46to implythat the
mind can cause motion to increasejust as heaviness is thoughtto
do; but this is certainlyuntenable. Firstof all, it is clear fromthe
of
context that the problem being discussed is the intelligibility
mind-body interaction,not the question of the compatibilityof
such interactionwith conservationprinciples.Secondly, the comparison Garber makes doesn't work: heavinessas a "real quality"is
not a cause of motion for Descartes; gravitationalacceleration is
caused by the impactof particlesor by hydrodynamicprocesses in
a medium. If we say that the mind causes the motion of the body
just like heavinesscauses gravitationalacceleration,we are in effect
thatthe mind causes motion.Thus thispassage would sugdenying
gest just the opposite of what Garber intends, if it were in fact
relevant.
However, Garber himself puts much more stock in a second
passage, in which he believes the implicationthat the mind in-

45AT 11:131-32, 176-77, 179, 194.

46AT 5:222-23; Garber,"Mind, Body and the Laws of Nature," 113-14.
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

creases the quantityof motion is "clearestof all." This is a manuscriptdating fromaround 1635.
force
Ifa bodyis pushedor impelledtomotionbymeansofa uniform
ofcourseimpartedtoitbymind[mens](fortherecanbe no othersuch
and ifitis movedin a vacuum,thenitwouldalways
forceotherwise),
ofthemotionto
takethreetimeslongerto travelfromthebeginning
themidpointthanfromthemidpointto theend. However,therecan
be no suchvacuum.... But supposethatthebodywereimpelledby
likemind[anima],
heaviness.Sincethatheavinessneveractsuniformly
but[actsby]someotherbodywhichalreadyis in motion,itcan never
happenthata heavybodyis impelledmorequicklythanthatwhich
movesit. ...
Garber interpretsthis passage as contrastingthe uniform acceleration caused by the mind with the nonuniform acceleration
caused by gravity(interpretedas a particlestream) and thus concludes that "Descartes thoughtthat the action of mind on bodies
does not result in a mere change of direction.Rather, Descartes
quite clearlythought,mind can produce a real change of speedof a
body.... "48 However, thismanuscripttellsus nothingabout mindbody interaction;it describesan entirelycounterfactualsituationuniformacceleration.The logic behind the example is the following: We want an example of continuousuniformacceleration.But
(1) in a medium,acceleration by a given acceleratingforce is not
uniformsince it is increasinglyretardedby the medium,and there
is an upper limitto velocity.(2) In a vacuum,on the other hand,
therecan be no accelerationat all by materialcauses, because there
is no matterto cause it. (3) Even assuminga vacuum onlyon oneside
of the body,witha real acceleratingforceon the other,acceleration
would stillnot be uniformbecause the particlestreamhas a given
velocity,so that there is again a maximum speed reached asymptotically.The free fallof a real body due to gravityis, according to
Descartes,not uniformlyacceleratedat all. In his view,the onlyway
to conceive of acceleration at all insidea vacuum is to consider its
cause to be noncorporeal, and the only way to conceive of accel-

47Ibid., 114; AT 11:629-30; the translation(including ellipsis) is Garber's. See Damerow et al., ExploringtheLimits,35ff.,for an analysisof the
entire manuscriptsection et al.
48Garber,"Mind, Body and the Laws of Nature," 114-15.
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

eration as uniformand open-ended is also to conceive its cause to

be noncorporeal, such as a mind. In this manner Descartes entertains the notion of a body accelerated uniformlywithina vacuum
by a mind and considers the relationsof times,spaces, and velocities under these assumptions.In such a situationthe mathematical
relations familiar from his earlier work on falling bodies would
hold exactly.49But, as Descartes statesin the passage quoted, there
is no such thing as a vacuum, and-as he indicates in the part
representedby the firstellipsis-there is no such thingas uniform
acceleration.Thus, thereis no more reason to take Descartes to be
affirmingthe acceleration of a body by a soul in a vacuum than
thereis to take him to be affirmingthe existenceof a vacuum itself.
'If p then q' does not imply 'p'. Thus, this passage provides no
evidence at all thatDescartes abrogatesthe conservationof motion
withthe actionsof the soul. It providesevidence onlyof Descartes's
reasons for consideringcertain abstractionsmade in derivingthe
law of fallingbodies to be a waste of time.50
To sum up the resultsso far: (1) Descartes possesses a technical
scientificvocabularycapable of expressingthe action of the mind
on the body withoutcontradictingthe conservationof motion. (2)
He sometimesuses thisvocabularyto stateexplicitlythatthe mind
merelydeterminesthe motionof the body as opposed to movingit.
(3) He never uses this vocabulary to say explicitlythat the mind
moves the body as opposed to merelydeterminingits motion. (4)
In his physiologyhe generallyexpresses the analogous action of
the animal spiritson the limbs or on the pineal gland in termsof
determination.(5) He sometimesspeaks of the mind's movingthe
body or having the "force"to move it. In thislast case we mustask
whetherDescartes intendsthe termin the generic everydaysense
of "act upon" or in the specificscientificsense of "act upon so as to
increase scalar momentum."Only if we take him here to be using

49The question and the answer are essentiallythe same as those discussed withBeeckman seventeenyearsearlier-although the formulation
has become more stronglycounterfactual.On the development of Descartes'sderivationsof the law of fallingbodies, see Damerow et al., Explorinj theLimits,chap. 1.
?Descartes says as much in lettersto Mersenne fromthe same period.
See, for example, October 1631[?], AT 1:221-22; March 11, 1640, AT
3:36-38; June 11, 1640, AT 3:79.
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

"move" in a stricttechnicalsense is he necessarilybeing inconsistent."Determination,"whichspecifiesthe directionalmode of jmvj,

is a precise technical term,whose use more or less automatically
defines a contextas technical;however"force"and "motion"have
a broad range of everyday-languagemeaningsin addition to their
(various) physicalmeanings,5' so that we have to rely on context
and consistencyto decide how strictlywe are to take them. The
decisivequestion is, thus,How importantand deeply entrenchedis
the conservationof motion in Descartes's system?Must he always
have taken it into account? The interpretationof most mindmoves-bodypassages is itselflargelydependent on an evaluationof
the importance for Descartes's systemof the conservationof motion in the world. Let us see what argumentsspeak againstconservation.

4. Conservation of Motion
The second anti-Liebnizianargumentis based not so much on the
collectionof apparentlyconflictingstatementsby Descartes,52but
on an analysis of the reasoning by which Descartes grounds the
conservationof motion in the Principles(2, ?36). The general validityof the conservationlaw is said to be ultimatelyinconsistent
withCartesian Metaphysics.

51See R. W. Westfall,Forcein Newton'sPhysics:The ScienceofDynamicsin

Century
(New York: Elsevier,1971), appendix B, "Descartes'
theSeventeenth
Usage of Force," 529-34, for an analysis of the range of technical and
nontechnicalmeanings of the term 'force' in Descartes's various writings.
520n occasion, appeal is made to a passage in the explication of the
Third Law of Nature (Principles2, ?40; AT 8:65: "I am not here inquiring
whetherhuman or angelic minds have a forceto move bodies and of what
kind [itmightbe], since I am reservingthisfora treatiseOn Man."), which
onlyshowsthatDescartes was aware of the problemof interactionwhen he
formulated his conservationlaw and saw no insurmountabledifficulty.
misreadingof Principles
Also, in what can only be called a straightforward
2, ?36, Garber goes a step further,maintainingthat "Descartes clearly
admits that there can be violationsof the conservationlaw, circumstances
in which motion is added or taken away" ("Mind, Body and the Laws of
Nature," 116). But the onlysupportforsuch "violations"in the passage he
quotes is the interpolationthathe himself(115-16) adds in brackets,when
of motionamong bodies to refer
he interprets"changes" in the distribution
of motion in the world.
to changes in the quantity
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PETER McLAUGHLIN

On the basis of Descartes's doctrine that preservationin exisit is argued thatGod mustbe
tence is comparable to re-creation,53
not only the ultimatebut also the proximatecause of most or all
motions. Since Descartes sees no "real distinction"between God's
originalcreativeactivityand his currentconservativeactivity,preservationis equivalent to continualre-creation.Kemp Smithargues
that"[i]ffinitebodies have so littlehold on realitythattheyrequire
at each momentto be recreatedtheycannot be capable of causing
changes in one another."54Thus God recreates matterwith successivelydifferentconstellationsof bodies accordingto the laws he
has given himself.Occasionalism is taken to be the necessarycondei). Kemp
sequence of the doctrineof divine concourse (concursus
incomare
concourse
of
God's
these
implications
that
sees
Smith
patiblewithmostof Descartes'swritingsand thereforeaccuses DesBut this is a serious misreading.
cartes of inconsistency.55
(1) The fact that Descartes sees no "real distinction"between
God's acts of creationand preservationis completelyinconsequential. As the term is defined in the Principles(1, ?60) there is no
"real" or substantialdistinctionbetween any two propertiesof one
and the same substance; such differencesare either "modal" or
"conceptual."56Thus, there is no real distinctionbetween God's
omnipotence and his wisdom, nor between my height and my
weight. However, it by no means followsthat the distinctionbetween preservationand creation,whetherit be modal or conceptual, is irrelevantto the foundationsof physicalscience.57
(2) Nothing directlyattributedto Descartes here is foreign to
mainstream scholasticism,which did not embrace occasionalism.

53See especiallythe third Meditation(AT 7:49; CSM 2:33).

pres54Studies,73. For a refutationof the notion that God's continuous
"continual" repetitionof
ervation is to be interpretedas a discontinuous
discrete events, see Richard T. W. Arthur,"Continuous Creation, Continuous Time: A Refutation of the Alleged Discontinuityof Cartesian
26 (1988): 349-75.
Time," Journalof theHistoryofPhilosophy
55Studies,85. If materialbodies are not taken by Descartes to cause our
as Kemp
ideas of them, it is hard to make any sense of the Meditations,
ofDescartes(London:
Smithopenly admits; see New Studiesin thePhilosophy
Macmillan, 1966), 213-17.
56AT 8:28-30; see also the sixth Meditationand the reply to the first
objection (AT 7:78 and 120; CSM 2:54, 86).
57Leibniz (GP 4:365) objected to Descartes'sdefinitionof real distinction
because he thoughtit would lead to such misunderstandings.
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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

Simplyfromthe denial of a "real distinction"betweenthe cause of

becoming (causa secundumfieri)
and the cause of continuingto exist
(causa secundumesse)no such conclusioncan be drawn: It is possible
withoutany inconsistencyto assert (1) that God is the source of
everythingmaterial,(2) thatnothingwould continueto existwithout God's conservingit in being, and (3) that materialevents are
true secondarycauses of other material events. This seems to be
what Aquinas believed, and it is certainlywhat contemporaryneoscholasticphilosophyasserts.58
(3) Moreover, even if these commentators were able to pin
such consequences on mainstreamThomism, they would stillbe
unsuccessful in pinning them on Descartes, because they have
failed to understand the particular doctrine of concursusdei to
which he is appealing. Descartes explicitlyasserts that it is by
his ordinaryconcourse (concursusordinaries)that God conserves
the quantityof motion in the world. He thus appeals to the conceptual distinction between the ordinary(or preserving) concourse and the extraordinary
(or miraculous) concourse of God.59
The fact that neither Kemp Smith nor those followinghim take
any noticeof thisis perplexingto say the least. This is preciselythe

58See Summa theologica1:104 and Walter Farrell, A Companionto the

Summa(New York: Sheed & Ward, 1939-42), vol. 1, chap. 17.
59There seems to be some uncertaintyabout the translationof the term
concursus
ordinarius.In thiscontextKemp Smith(NewStudies,208) renders
it "orderly [!] concourse"; Anscombe/Geach, "ordinary co-operation";
CSM, "regular concurrence"; Miller and Miller, "normal participation."
Robert Boyle (Works,vol. 5, 163-64, 179) spoke in this contextof God's
"ordinaryand preservingconcourse"; and Samuel Clarke (and mostscholas "(extra)ordiars afterhim) translatedLeibniz's concours(extra)ordinaire
nary concourse." I shall follow them. See J. E. McGuire, "Force, Active
Principles,and Newton's InvisibleRealm," Ambix15 (1968): 154-208, for
examples of other English writersof the period who use the same term.
The exact originsof the terminologyare not entirelyclear, though there
is obviouslysome connection to the distinctionbetween the absolute and
regulated power of God (potentiaabsoluta,potentiaordinata).See Amos
and theScientific
Imagination
fromtheMiddleAgestothe
Funkenstein,Theology
Seventeenth
Century
(Princeton:PrincetonUniversityPress, 1986), 124-52;
Covenantand Order:An Excursionin theHistory
Francis Oakley, Omnipotence,
of Ideas fromAbelardto Leibniz (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress,
1984), 72-92. A pre-Cartesianuse can be found in Francisco Suarez, De
arbitriilibertate,
chap. 5, ??20 and 28; Opera omnia (Paris, 1856), vol. 7,
31-33.

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PETER McLAUGHLIN

distinction that Leibniz later used in his debate with Newton

and Samuel Clarke to keep God out of explanations of natural
phenomena.60
Some commentatorstryto make Descartes consistentby limiting
the scope of the conservationlaw and interpretingthe rest of his
philosophyas compatiblewith Kemp Smith'sreading of the Principles.Hatfield,forinstance,takes Descartes literallyto have derived
his physics from his metaphysics:the conservationof motion is
entailed by God's immutability.But the immutabilityof God and
his actions can then be taken really to imply the conservationof
motiononly ifGod produces all the motionshimself.For, ifbodies
produced the motionsof other bodies and God merelyconserved
the systemof bodies as a whole, then changes mightoccur in the
systemwithouta change in God's act of preservation:
forsurelyhisactofpreservation
couldbe immutable,
whilethething
thequantity
of
preservedcouldexhibitchangingattributes
(including
motion).61

Therefore,since Descartes believed thatGod's immutability

entails
the conservationof motion,he must have taken God as the proximate cause of everymotion.However,leavingaside the question of
whatit means to saythatGod could preserveimmutablya changing
universe, this argument,if it were valid, would prove much too
much; the same argumentmust,forinstance,apply equally well to
the number of human beings as to the quantityof motion. Since
God originallyput a certain number of human beings into the
world (namely, two) and since he preserves the worldjust as he
created it,then he mustconstantlyconservethe same totalnumber
of human beings as he originallycreated-unless, of course, the
number of humans does not belong to the identityconditionsof
the materialuniverse. Only if having the same quantityof matter
and motion is what makes the universe the same universe at differenttimesmustthe constancyof God's operationguarantee their

60See Leibniz's firstletterto Clarke (GP 7:345); see also his letter to
Arnauld, April 30, 1687 (GP 2:92) and Causa dei (GP 6:440).
6'Hatfield, "Force," 122 n. 44.

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DESCARTES ON MIND-BODY INTERACTION

conservation.But thishas to do withpredicatesof the universe,not

of God.
5. Conclusion
Both objections to the Leibnizian interpretationof Descartes discussed above meet in the followingpoint: If (1) human minds can
originatemotions,and (2) the conservationof motionis a law that
God givesto himselfto governhisownactions,not a law thathe has
given to matter,then the conservationlaw can stillhold for those
motions caused by God withoutconstrainingthose caused by us.
That is, God conserveshis motions,not ours:
Now,whenGod causesmotion,themotionHe causesmustobserve
law. But thereis no reasonat all to imposesimilar
theconservation
onfiniteand imperfect
constraints
causesof motion.... Theymayadd
or subtract
motionfromtheworld,evenifGodcannot.62
But thisjust shows thatwithenough effort,projection,and speculation we can have Descartes's words withouttheircontent.
The "standard" interpretationsketchesa Descartes who stipulates that the firstpropositionof a physicalsystemmust state the
identityconditionsof itsobject; the systemmustinclude definitions
of what it means for a body to be in a particularstate and what it
means forthatstateto change, as well as laws governingthe quantitativerelations involved. When God is adduced, it is to provide
(nonphysical) foundations for physics,not to undermine them.
The alternativewe have been offeredby recentcommentatorsis a
Descartes who makes arbitraryand genuinelytheologicalassertions
about God's activitythat neitherconstrainphysicaltheoryformation nor lead to any propositionsabout the materialworld except
that it need not be causally closed. The interactionform of the
modern mind-bodyproblem is not only not solved, it is not even
posed. Leibniz has offeredus a Descartes who does bad physicsbut
good metaphysics;recent commentators,while on occasion doing

62Garber,"Mind, Body and the Laws of Nature," 125; emphasis in original.

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PETER McLAUGHLIN

no littleviolence to the texts,offerus a Descartes whose metaphysics is worse than his physics. In spite of all the real difficulties
it seems preferable
involvedin interpretingDescartes consistently,
to him by Leibattributed
position
philosophical
strong
to take the
niz, which is at least compatible with the texts. Given that Descartes's texts themselvesoften purchase consistencywith vagueness, Leibniz offersus a way to make our interpretationsprecise
and sensible in the contextwithoutloss of consistencyor of philosophical substance. And that is reallythe point.
UniversitdtKonstanz

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