Roger Boscovich on Mind-Body Interaction and the Conservation of Momentum
Boris Kožnjak
The European Legacy December 23, 2025 DOI: 10.1080/10848770.2025.2580697 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that Roger Boscovich's philosophy of mind, though almost entirely overlooked in histories of the mind-body problem, offers a substantive defense of Cartesian interactionist dualism and free will by engaging with what he regarded as Leibniz's justified yet incomplete criticism of Descartes's account of conserving the "quantity of motion" in "free motions produced by our mind." |
Abstract
ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to fill a gap in the history and philosophy of the mind-body problem, which regularly discuss the contributions of Descartes and Leibniz, while the contribution of Roger Boscovich, a distinguished polymath and Jesuit priest—best known for his Theory of Natural Philosophy (1758)—has remained almost entirely unknown. Boscovich was a passionate advocate of free will and of Cartesian mind-body interactionist dualism, a position which since the time of Descartes has faced significant criticism. Critics have argued that it may violate immutable physical laws, particularly the principle of the conservation of momentum—a problem most notably highlighted by Leibniz. I analyse how Boscovich addressed what he regarded as Leibniz’s justified yet incomplete criticism of Descartes’s outdated solution to the problem of conserving the “quantity of motion” in “free motions produced by our mind,” and present a detailed analysis of Boscovich’s philosophy of mind by placing it within a broader historical context.