ABSTRACT

This article situates Descartes’ physical thinking within the nexus of machine science, which rests upon different foundational piers than regular classical mechanics of a Newtonian stripe. In particular, connected cyclic processes of the sort encountered in clockwork mechanisms (and Descartes’ own vortices) become central rather than impactive collisions of any kind. Such a placement supplies a more sympathetic understanding of many of his most notorious claims: conservation of ‘quantity of motion’, relationalism with respect to space, relative rest as an explanation of particle cohesion, etc. Of course, the resulting system of ideas is not perfect, but the mistakes are more subtle than usually presumed.

摘要

本文将笛卡尔的物理思想置于机器科学的联系中，机器科学依赖于与牛顿条纹的常规经典力学不同的基础支柱。特别是，在发条机制（和笛卡尔自己的漩涡）中遇到的那种连接的循环过程成为中心而不是任何类型的冲击性碰撞。这样的放置为他的许多最臭名昭著的主张提供了更富有同情心的理解：“运动量”守恒、空间关系论、解释粒子凝聚力的相对静止等等。当然，由此产生的思想体系是不完美，但错误比通常认为的更微妙。