Commercium mentis et corporis. Über Kausalvorstellungen im Cartesianismus (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 89 una eccezionale perizia filologica.., la lama di quel rapido e appassionato opuscolo . . . legata alle implicazioni religiose . . . mettendo in subbuglio lo smarrito stuolo di filosofi e teologi cristiani del momento" (p. 18). I don't really share Poppi's view. It seems to me that Pomponazzi is still one of the precursors of modern thought, as Petrarch is the harbinger of the romantic poetry or Giotto of modern painting. What is really important, I think, is not only the systematic quality or the depth of a thinker but also his attitude. This is very true in the case of Pomponazzi. His dissatisfaction with the Thomistic view of the soul and his continuous search for new ways, instead of following the traditional path, is an essential expression of modernity. ANGELO A. DE GENNARO Loyola University o[ Los Angeles Commercium mentis et corporis. Llber Kausalvorstellungen im Cartesianismus. By Rainer Specht. (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann, 1966. Pp. 185) This book is an important addition to that much needed revival of studies on Descartes' school, which finds its expression in the works of H. Kirkinen (Les origines de la conception moderne de l'homme-machine, Helsinki, 1960) and of R. A. Watson (The Down[all of Cartesianism, 1673-1712, The Hague, 1966). Founded on a sound and extensive documentation based on the original sources, this research has been undertaken with an exemplary critical spirit: the author is very careful to make clear when the connections he suggests are merely hypothetical, as they frequently are, in order both not to mislead the reader and to stimulate his constructive reactions. The first chapter is an inquiry into the possible origin of Descartes' mechanical conception of organic bodies. The author's main (and hypothetical) thesis is that Descartes might have been influenced by sixteenth-century angelology, chiefly Spanisil: the "bodies" or personifications of incorporeal spirits were not conceived as "organic" bodies, but as mere mechanical puppets. In other words, they were not thought of as organic bodies (whose matter is organized and animated by the intrinsic "form" of a soul), but as bodies of merely mechanical structure which performed, although only partially, analogous operations with the incorporeal spirit "pulling the wires." This thesis is certainly daring, and might be difficult to prove conclusively. Nevertheless at least one doubt about it could probably be dispelled based on the knowledge Descartes might have had of the angelological theories in question. My feeling is that these theories were diffused in that time, and afterwards, that it is unlikely an omnivorous reader such as Descartes could be entirely unaware of them. But, of course, more precise research in the field would be needed to establish this conclusion. The second chapter contains a very careful semantical analysis of the term 'cause' and of related terms, as occasio, dispositio, condicio, praesentia, in their various uses prior to Descartes and in Descartes' philosophy. It is impossible to underestimate the importance of this kind of philological research, which is in fact one of the basic foundations for the history of philosophy, and which helps the author to make a significant contribution to the clarification of Descartes' use of these terms and of their meaning in the subsequent development of Cartesianism. Furthermore, the author tries to reconstruct the rise of "occasionalism" properly. As I cannot examine his account of the history of this problem in detail, I will confine myself to some general considerations. It is highly instructive, from the point of View 90 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of the history of terminology and of philosophical ideas, to pursue, as the author does, the different meanings given to the term occasio by the great Cartesians. As happens in many other eases, the meaning of this term is sometimes so ambiguous and so blurred that it must be established case by case through inferences which are not always completely conclusive. This should teach the historian of philosophy to use some cautions which are not frequently exercised, and to refrain from making clear-cut distinctions between different schools of thought, which in many cases do not withstand closer examination. Exchanges, minimal differences, partial confluences between different schools of thought should be paid more attention. Another of the...