Amy M. Schmitter, Formal Causation and the Explanation of Intentionality in Descartes, Monist 79/3, 1996, pp. 368-387.

Schmitter bringt Descartes' Elimination der Formalursache mit seiner Ablehnung der (spät)mittelalterlichen Speciestheorie in Verbindung.

His quarrel with scholastic natural philosophy is already well-known, but Descartes took aim just as frequently at the scholastik theora of species, a theory that is a response primarily to questions about 'formal' causation in perception and conception (p. 368).

Dabei beschränkt Schmitter die Diskussion auf 'causation for and within ideas' (p. 369). Im Verständnis des cartesischen Ursachenbegriffs folgt sie Kenneth Clatterborough, Cartesian Causality, Explanation and Divine Concurrence, History of Philosophy Quarterly 12 (1995), 195-207:

Clatterborough advocates the view that Descartes holds causes to be premises in explanation, ... .
The novelty of his thought lies in changing what will count as an explanation, ... (p. 369).

(Zur Eucharistiedebatte:)

There is only one substance even if its parts are constantly in dynamic transformation. And for this reason, change within the physical world (...) is never substantial change, never true generation or destruction (p. 379).