Géraud de Cordemoy

Géraud de Cordemoy , born with Paris the October 6th 1626 and died in Paris the October 8th 1684, is a philosopher, historian and French, known lawyer mainly for its work of metaphysics and theory of the language.

Its life

Resulting from a family of former nobility originating in Royat and wire in a main father be arts of the university of Paris, “tutor and professor of human languages”, it follows the lawyer occupation. He attends the philosophical circles of the capital and binds with Emmanuel Maignan and Jacques Rohault. Friend and protected from Bossuet, like him admiror of Descartes, it is named at the same time as Fléchier reader of the dolphin, wire of Louis XIV. He is elected member of the French Academy in 1675.

Its work

Cordemoy is initially known to have reconsidered the Cartesian theory of causality, introducing the occasional cause into a system of thoughts which remains primarily Cartesian. It is, with Arnold Geulincx and Louis of the Forging mill, the founder of what is called the Occasionnalisme. Bodies and heart is primarily distinct, their union is occasional, it is God who allows that volition to move my arm results in a displacement of this one. My will is occasional cause of the displacement of my arm, God the real cause. What is true for the body-individual, made up of the union distinct from the body and the heart, is true for any body in the universe. God is universal real cause of any movement.

But by body, Cordemoy also understands the ultimate components of the matter. Using of a legal metaphor, it shows that, as in right the body like anybody, physique the body like ultimate component of the matter, is indivisible. Without never speaking about atomism, it approaches by this thought, of the gassendists and the Libertin S, on this point only. It is in the understanding of the body and the heart that it develops its criticized considerations of its time by the Cartesian ones.

In the physical Speech of the word , Cordemoy raises the question to know how me, being thinking, I then to be certain that the human ones who surround me are them also thinking beings and not of simple automats. The problem is considered at the end of the sixth speech on the Discernement of the body and the heart . It is the word as conveys thought which will make known me the existence of other gifted individuals of a heart like me. In a more original way, it develops the idea, in its physical Traité of the word (alternative of the preceding title), whereby there does not exist any relationship justified between the material sign and the expressed idea, as does not exist any real relationship between the body and the heart. The word is the occasion of the meeting of the sign and of the direction so much so that if the heart did not have to use of the articulation of the body to produce sign, it would communicate in a way much more immediate of heart with heart without having to pass by the institution of the sign.

The language of which the human ones are useful is thus too complex to be explained by purely mechanical causes, I then to deduce from it that the bodies which I see are them also equipped with a heart. The animals can emit sounds and the parrots to reproduce words, but only the human ones are able to communicate ideas, which shows the presence of a rational heart. This rational heart can itself enter a direct communication with the angels without passing by the physical articulation of the sign. The physical Discours of the word , from which Molière drew the scene of the lesson of orthography of the comedy-ballet the Middle-class man gentleman , was the work of Cordemoy which gained greatest success. The linguist American George Boas and Noam Chomsky has it redécouvert in the Années 1960.

Cordemoy was made known also for its French history , on which he worked eighteen years without never coming to end, so much contradictions were large against which he ran up by examining the works of his predecessors. The book will be finally completed by his/her oldest son, Louis-Géraud de Cordemoy, and will be published after its death. Voltaire said of his work of historian: “It has the first cleared up chaos of the first two races of kings de France; one owes this useful company for the duke of Montausier, which charged Cordemoy with making the history of Charlemagne, for the education of Monseigneur. He hardly found in the former authors but nonsenses and contradictions. The difficulty encouraged it, and it cleared up the first two races. ”

Publications

Speech of the action of the bodies (1664)
Treated spirit of the man and of his facultez and functions, and of its union with the body. According to the principles of Rene Descartes (1666)
the understanding of the body and heart, in six speeches, to be used for the explanation of physics (1666). Text in physical line
Speech of the word (1668). Text in line
Copy of a written letter to one sçavant religious of the Society of Jesus, to show: I, that the system of Mr. Descartes and his opinion concerning the bestes do not have anything dangerous; II, and that all that it has writing seems estre drawn from the first chapter of the Genesis (1668). Text in line
Letter of a philosopher to Cartesian of his friends (1672)
Speech on the purity of the spirit and the body and by occasion of the life innocent and right of the first Christians (1677)
French history, since the time of Gallic and the beginning of monarchy, until in 987 (2 volumes, 1687-89). Supplemented and published by his/her son, Louis-Géraud de Cordemoy.
physical Essays on the understanding of the body and the heart, on the word, and the system of Mr. Descartes (1689-90)
Divers deal of metaphysics, history and policy (1691). Text in line
Works of fire Mister de Cordemoy (1704). Published by his/her son, Louis-Géraud de Cordemoy. Contain: Six Speeches on the Distinction and the Union of the Body and the Heart Text on line; physical Speech on the Word Text on line; Letter on the conformity of the system of Descartes with the first chapter of the Genesis ; Two small treaties of metaphysics ; Various small treaties on the history and metaphysics Text on line; Various small treaties on the history and the policy .
philosophical Works. With a bio-bibliographical study , University Presses of France, Paris, 1968.

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