Abstract:

In §77 of Foundations of Physics, Du Châtelet offers an account of how we acquire the idea of extension. Later, in the chapter “On the Elements of Matter,” she invokes §77 as a premise to argue for the conclusion that “an aggregate of simple beings must be extended (§133).” In this paper, I provide a reconstruction of Du Châtelet’s argument. First, I show that existing reconstructions in the scholarship overlook an important interpretive constraint: in §77, the only faculty at work is the imagination, but for Du Châtelet, non-extended simples cannot be represented by this faculty — they can only be represented by the understanding. Second, I draw attention to a crucial detail that scholars have not yet taken into account: for Du Châtelet, human souls are simples. Finally, I offer a reconstruction of Du Châtelet’s argument in §133 that incorporates these two findings. If my reconstruction is correct, her explanation of how non-extended simples constitute extended bodies is neither Wolffian nor Leibnizian, but a distinctive contribution to the history of monadologies.