ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a survey of the most thought-provoking interpretations of the relationships between Descartes’ physics and metaphysics in the history and philosophy of science between 1880 and 1950. My aim is to understand why, until recently, those relationships have not come under scrutiny or been taken at face value. I show the role positivism and neo-Kantianism played in the interpretations of the first half of the twentieth century. I first examine the philosophical motives explaining Louis Liard’s and Ernst Cassirer’s reluctance to account for the role played by metaphysics in the development of Descartes’ physics. I then turn to anti-positivist approaches, such as Gaston Milhaud’s and Émile Meyerson’s, which allowed room for metaphysics in the forging of Descartes’ physics. I eventually present the critical assessment offered by the normative philosophies of science of Pierre Duhem and Gaston Bachelard.
