CORDEMOY: IS HE A CARTESIAN OUTSIDER?
DESGABETS’S INTERPRETATION OF CORDEMOY’S ATOMISM
Siegrid Agostini
Abstract. This paper, dedicated to Gérauld de Cordemoy, pursues a dual purpose: first, to reconstruct a specific conflicting situation which involves Claude Clerselier and Robert Desgabets by stressing the role the three man played within Cartesianism (I); second, to emphasize the role played by Desgabets himself in a letter to Clerselier in order to demonstrate that, because of his atomistic position, Cordemoy can be considered an ‗outsider‘ of Cartesianism (II). Actually, Cordemoy was the only Cartesian scholar to approve Atomism as it appears clearly in the above mentioned letter which is published integrally at the end of the present paper (III. Appendix).
Keywords: Atomism, substance, void, Cartesianism