Philosophia peripatetica emendata. Leibniz and Des Bosses on the Aristotelian Corporeal Substance

This chapter contests a widely accepted reading of the role monads play as the most fundamental elements of reality. Garber (2009) argues that simple monads—seen as mindlike atoms without parts and extension—replace the corporeal substance of Leibniz’s middle period. The author argues that, for Leibniz, monads function not only as building blocks at the bottom level of composition (for aggregates) but also at the top as grounding the unity, and hence the being of complete substances and organic unities. Since Leibniz sees organic unities as natural machines with a nested structure that develops ad infinitum, and since he likens monads to living beings, this would imply that the use of the concept “monad” holds not only at the bottom and not only at the top but also in the entire range in between.

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‘Strike a pose’: Fabricating posthumous presence in mannequin design

Journal of Material Culture ◽

10.1177/1359183520907947 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 135918352090794

Author(s):

Cath Davies

Keyword(s):

Social Life ◽

Material Objects ◽

Specific Reference ◽

Original Function ◽

Bodily Integrity ◽

Frida Kahlo ◽

The Social ◽

The Subject ◽

Corporeal Substance

Interviewed in 2004, designer duo Viktor and Rolf outlined their ambivalence towards fashion exhibitions suggesting that ‘somehow life is taken out of the subject’ (2008, cited in Teunissen, ‘Understanding Fashion through the Museum in Melchior, MR, 2014). Garments seeking spectator attention within the museum space are often perceived as static entities devoid of their original function as embodied artefacts. There is no denying an inert aura pervades listless materials that have supposedly lost their agency, now confined to the vaults of the museum-as-mausoleum. In their re-purposed role of performing as reminders of a life now departed, this article considers curatorial strategies that seek to revive a living presence in garment display with specific reference to the remodelling of Frida Kahlo in the V&A exhibition ‘Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up (2018)’. Addressing Dudley’s suggestion in Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things (2012: 19) that an artefact’s ‘fundamental material characteristics’ should be at the heart of contextual interpretation, the role that an object’s material properties can play in the re-materializing of embodiment is evaluated. In the V&A exhibition, a narrative emerges on clothing as an agent that conceals vulnerable corporeality. Sartorial practices armoured Kahlo’s body and the role material entities can play in containing and preserving the illusion of corporeal substance will be investigated. Given this premise, it seems wholly appropriate to focus on the contribution that the mannequin can make to this conceptual framework. After all, it is an artefact with a central occupation of establishing bodily integrity in the display of clothing. Reiterating Clark’s suggestion in The Textile Reader (2012) that the mannequin contributes to the vocabulary of a curatorial brief, this article proposes that this artefact can interrogate the tensions that exist between Kahlo’s sartorial practices and her abject body. Substantiating Appadurai’s premise of material objects’ agency in The Social Life of Things (2001[1986]), the exhibition arguably employs the once humble tailor’s dummy in a significant role, thereby reconstructing its dominant function of embodying fabric in the museum.

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SPINOZA’S CORPOREAL SUBSTANCE

Southwest Philosophy Review ◽

10.5840/swphilreview199612229 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 39-50

Author(s):

Charles Huenemann ◽

Keyword(s):

Corporeal Substance

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Empedokles and his Klepsydra again

The Classical Quarterly ◽

10.1017/s0009838800007060 ◽

1924 ◽

Vol 18 (3-4) ◽

pp. 169-173 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Hugh Last

Keyword(s):

Present Note ◽

Precise Form ◽

Outermost Surface ◽

The Subject ◽

Detailed Interpretation ◽

Pass Through ◽

Corporeal Substance

Mr. Powell's ingenious observations on The Simile of the Clepsydra in Empedocles raise afresh the problem of the precise form and construction of the instrument with whose aid Empedokles is said to have reached his memorable conclusion that air is a corporeal substance. That ‘klepsydra’ was the name of the instrument in question is shown by a comparison of Aristotle, Phys. 213a, 22 sqq. with Empedokles, fr. 100; but though so far the fragment is plain, in its detailed interpretation there arises a difficulty which is the subject of the present note. Empedokles is explaining his theory of respiration, and the theory is illustrated by the action of this apparatus. To make clear the general drift of the passage, it may be well to quote again so much of it as is relevant. ‘Thus do all things draw breath in and breathe it out again. All have bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of their bodies; and at the mouths of these the outermost surface of the skin is perforated all over with pores closely packed together, so as to keep in the blood while a free passage is cut for the air to pass through. Then, when the thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling air rushes in with an impetuous surge; and when the blood rushes back it’ (i.e. the air) ‘is breathed out again.

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