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Hobbes intended and expected De Corpore to secure his place among the foremost mathematicians of his era. This is evident from the content of Part iii of the work, which contains putative solutions to the most eagerly sought mathematical results of the seventeenth century. It is well known that Hobbes failed abysmally in his attempts to solve problems of this sort, but it is not generally understood that the mathematics of De Corpore is closely connected with the work of some of seventeenth-century Europe's most important mathematicians. This paper investigates the connection between the main mathematical chapters of De Corpore and the work of Galileo Galilei, Bonaventura Cavalieri, and Gilles Personne de Roberval. I show that Hobbes's approach in Chapter 16 borrows heavily from Galileo's Two New Sciences, while his treatment of "deficient figures' in Chapter 17 is nearly identical in method to Cavalieri's Exercitationes Geometricae Sex. Further, I argue that Hobbes's attempt to determine the arc length of the parabola in Chapter 18 is intended to use Roberval's methods to generate a more general result than one that Roberval himself had achieved in the 1640s (when he and Hobbes were both active in the circle of mathematicians around Marin Mersenne). I claim Hobbes was convinced that his first principles had led him to discover a "method of motion" that he mistakenly thought could solve any geometric problem with elementary constructions.

This paper will deal with the notion of conatus (endeavor) and the role it plays in Hobbes's program for natural philosophy. As defined by Hobbes, the conatus of a body is essentially its instantaneous motion, and he sees this as the means to account for a variety of phenomena in both natural philosophy and mathematics. Although I foucs principally on Hobbesian physics, I will also consider the extent to which Hobbes's account of conatus does important explanatory work in his theory of human perception, psychology, and political philosophy. I argue that, in the end, there are important limitations in Hobbes's account of conatus, but that Leibniz adapted the concept in important ways in developing his science of dynamics.

Leery bedfellows : Newton and Leibniz on the status of infinitesimals / Richard Arthur -- Infinity, infinitesimals, and the reform of Cavalieri : John Wallis and his critics / Philip Beeley -- Indivisibilia vera : how Leibniz came to love mathematics. Appendix : Leibniz's marginalia in Hobbes' Opera philosophica and De corpore / Ursula Goldenbaum -- Indivisibles and infinitesimals in early mathematical texts of Leibniz / Siegmund Probst -- Archimedes, infinitesimals and the law of continuity : on Leibniz's fictionalism / Samuel Levey -- An enticing (im)possibility : infinitesimals, differentials, and the Leibnizian calculus / O. Bradley Bassler -- Productive ambiguity in Leibniz's representation of infinitesimals / Emily Grosholz -- Generality and infinitely small quantities in Leibniz's mathematics : the case of his arithmetical quadrature of conic sections and related curves / Eberhard Knobloch -- Leibniz's calculation with compendia / Herbert Breger -- Nieuwentijt, Leibniz, and Jacob Hermann on infinitesimals / Fritz Nagel -- Truth in fiction : origins and consequences of Leibniz's doctrine of infinitesimal magnitudes / Douglas Jesseph -- Rule of continuity and infinitesimals in Leibniz's physics / François Duchesneau -- Leibniz on infinitesimals and the reality of force / Donald Rutherford -- Dead force, infinitesimals, and the mathematicization of nature / Daniel Garber

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy covers the history through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on various concepts in Descartes' philosophy, science, and mathematics, as well as biographical entries about the intellectual setting for Descartes' philosophy and its reception, both with Cartesians and anti-Cartesians. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Descartes