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48. - Determination

from D

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Andrea Sangiacomo
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

The concept of determination (determinatio) is used in scholastic philosophy to convey the particular way in which something is specified, shaped, or modified. In his physics, Descartes uses “determination” to express what is measured, or how a certain body stands in relation to others in a certain physical environment (e.g., its distance or relative motion). In a more restricted sense, “determination” indicates the path (via) through which a body moves, that is, the directional aspect of its motion, or the mode of motion (see discussion in Gabbey 1980).

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The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 121 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Gabbey, A. (1980). Force and inertia in the seventeenth century: Descartes and Newton. In Gaukroger, S. (ed.), Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics (pp. 230–320). Harvester Press.Google Scholar
Melamed, Y. (2012). ‘Omnis determinatio est negatio’: Determination, negation, and self-negation in Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel.” In Förster, E. & Melamed, Y. (eds.), Spinoza and German Idealism (pp. 175–96). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sangiacomo, A. (2015). The ontology of determination, from Descartes to Spinoza. Science in Context, 28(4), 515–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shein, N. (2018). Not wholly finite: The dual aspects of modes in Spinoza. Philosophia, 46(2), 433–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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