Gerauld De Cordemoy: Atomist, Occasionalist, Cartesian (Marquette Studies in Philosophy)

Gerauld de Cordemoy (1626-1684) was one of the leading French Cartesians of his day. He was the sole Cartesian atomist, and was perhaps the first to argue that Cartesian metaphysics led inescapably to occasionalism. Fred Ablondi offers the first book-length treatment in English of Cordemoy's work, filling a long-standing gap in the literature on seventeenth-century philosophical thought. Ablondi reconstructs and analyzes the arguments which Cordemoy employed to arrive at this atomism and his occasionalism, treating them as philosophically and historically important in their own right. In addition to offering a general introduction to Cordemoy's philosophy, this book also examines many previous interpretations of Cordemoy's thought--both those made by his own contemporaries and also those by more recent scholars. As a result, Cordemoy emerges as an original and influential philosopher--and one who, despite his deviations from 'orthodox' Cartesianism, remained very much within the Cartesian tradition.