Matter and Form: A Conversation about Animal Generation at the Académie Bourdelot

This essay aims to contribute to the discussion concerning the relationship between matter and form in XVII Century, by examining a Conversation about substantial forms (Des formes substantielles) that took place in 1660s at the Bourdelot Academy. On the one hand, this conversation represents a little-known episode in the reception of Descartes’ L’Homme and confirms the success of Cartesian mechanism in scientific circles. On the other hand, however, it shows that the ‘new philosophers’, who think that animal generation can be explained through matter and motion alone, and the ‘old philosophers’, who think that the mixed bodies, like living beings, require an internal principle of motion, can find a common ground in making ‘form’ coincide with ‘subtle matter’.