Abstract: When we think of arguments against materialism in the early modern period, we tend to think of Descartes’s well-known argument for dualism. In this paper I look at two very different lines of argument that were common in the period. One of these concerns what we would now call the “unity of consciousness” and relies on the assumption that matter is inherently composite. The other one contends that Descartes was far too optimistic about the scope of mechanistic explanation and that all natural phenomena ultimately require appeal to immaterial entities. This argument assumes that matter is inherently passive. Furthermore, it contends that Descartes was wrong about how to draw the line between the material and the immaterial. The ideas central to these arguments can be found in Leibniz, but also, and in an interestingly different form, in Ralph Cudworth, who will be the focus of this talk.
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