When the Mind Became Un-Natural: De la Forge and Psychology in the Cartesian Aftermath

Abstract

This chapter argues that Descartes does not unambiguously embrace; rather he blocks the chain of inferences by hesitating about psychology’s independence from physics. Descartes does this in a way that parallels a common Peripatetic hesitance on display in the commentary tradition on Aristotle’s De anima. The chapter defends the following claim: that it was De la Forge, and not Descartes, who first made the mind un-natural. To substantiate this claim, the chapter shows that the mind was considered part of the natural world by Aristotle and a number of Renaissance De anima commentators. The chapter argues that one must resist efforts to portray him as rejecting the natural scientific study of the mind. It identifies the presence of two types of arguments in Descartes and traces these arguments into Louis de la Forge’s work. Finally, the chapter explains why De la Forge puts psychology in the hands of the metaphysician. Keywords:Aristotle; De anima ; Descartes; Louis de la Forge; psychology