Cartesian Views PDF Download

Author: Thomas Lennon
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047402650
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
Many kinds of Cartesian views are treated by these papers: the views that Descartes held, views from our perspective on those views, views on Descartes held by his early critics and followers, and views that are Cartesian in outlook (not for nothing is Descartes still regarded as the father of modern philosophy.) These overlapping views provide the unity of this volume, and reflect the unity of Richard A.Watson’s philosophical work. Not least among Watson’s contributions has been his depiction of Cartesianism as a response to a set of problems within Descartes’s philosophy. The later Cartesians were not slavish followers of Descartes. The contributors to this volume might be viewed as standing to Watson as the Cartesians did to Descartes. Contributors include: Jean-Robert Armogathe, Leslie Armour, Alan Gabbey, Daniel Garber, William H. Gass, Alan Hausman, David Hausman, Thomas M. Lennon, José R. Maia Neto, Steven Nadler, Richard H. Popkin, Han van Ruler, Theo Verbeek, Fred Wilson, and Alison Wylie.

Author: Philippe Hamou
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192546643
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
This volume presents twelve original essays, by an international team of scholars, on the relation of John Locke's thought to Descartes and to Cartesian philosophers such as Malebranche, Clauberg, and the Port-Royal authors. The essays, preceded by a substantial introduction, cover a large variety of topics from natural philosophy to religion, philosophy of mind and body, metaphysics and epistemology. The volume shows that in Locke's complex relationship to Descartes and Cartesianism, stark opposition and subtle 'family resemblances' are tightly intertwined. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the theory of knowledge has been the main comparative focus. According to an influential historiographical conception, Descartes and Locke form together the spearhead in the 'epistemological turn' of early modern philosophy. In bringing together the contributions to this volume, the editors advocate for a shift of emphasis. A full comparison of Locke's and Descartes's positions should cover not only their theories of knowledge, but also their views on natural philosophy, metaphysics, and religion. Their conflicting claims on issues such as cosmic organization, the qualities and nature of bodies, the substance of the soul, and God's government of the world, are of interest not only in their own right, to take the full measure of Locke's complex relation to Descartes, but also as they allow a better understanding of the continuing epistemological debate between the philosophical heirs of these thinkers.

Author: Jean-Luc Marion,
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022619261X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
On Descartes’ Passive Thought is the culmination of a life-long reflection on the philosophy of Descartes by one of the most important living French philosophers. In it, Jean-Luc Marion examines anew some of the questions left unresolved in his previous books about Descartes, with a particular focus on Descartes’s theory of morals and the passions. Descartes has long been associated with mind-body dualism, but Marion argues here that this is a historical misattribution, popularized by Malebranche and popular ever since both within the academy and with the general public. Actually, Marion shows, Descartes held a holistic conception of body and mind. He called it the meum corpus, a passive mode of thinking, which implies far more than just pure mind—rather, it signifies a mind directly connected to the body: the human being that I am. Understood in this new light, the Descartes Marion uncovers through close readings of works such as Passions of the Soul resists prominent criticisms leveled at him by twentieth-century figures like Husserl and Heidegger, and even anticipates the non-dualistic, phenomenological concepts of human being discussed today. This is a momentous book that no serious historian of philosophy will be able to ignore.

Author: Lilli Alanen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674020108
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Descartes's concept of the mind, as distinct from the body with which it forms a union, set the agenda for much of Western philosophy's subsequent reflection on human nature and thought. This is the first book to give an analysis of Descartes's pivotal concept that deals with all the functions of the mind, cognitive as well as volitional, theoretical as well as practical and moral. Focusing on Descartes's view of the mind as intimately united to and intermingled with the body, and exploring its implications for his philosophy of mind and moral psychology, Lilli Alanen argues that the epistemological and methodological consequences of this view have been largely misconstrued in the modern debate. Informed by both the French tradition of Descartes scholarship and recent Anglo-American research, Alanen's book combines historical-contextual analysis with a philosophical problem-oriented approach. It seeks to relate Descartes's views on mind and intentionality both to contemporary debates and to the problems Descartes confronted in their historical context. By drawing out the historical antecedents and the intellectual evolution of Descartes's thinking about the mind, the book shows how his emphasis on the embodiment of the mind has implications far more complex and interesting than the usual dualist account suggests.

Author: C. P. Ragland
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190264454
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In 'Giving Aid Effectively', Mark T. Buntaine argues that countries that are members of international organizations have prompted multilateral development banks to give development and environmental aid more effectively by generating better information about performance.

Author: John Carriero
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691135614
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 538

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Book Description
Between Two Worlds is an authoritative commentary on--and powerful reinterpretation of--the founding work of modern philosophy, Descartes's Meditations. Philosophers have tended to read Descartes's seminal work in an occasional way, examining its treatment of individual topics while ignoring other parts of the text. In contrast, John Carriero provides a sustained, systematic reading of the whole text, giving a detailed account of the positions against which Descartes was reacting, and revealing anew the unity, meaning, and originality of the Meditations. Carriero finds in the Meditations a nearly continuous argument against Thomistic Aristotelian ways of thinking about cognition, and shows more clearly than ever before how Descartes bridged the old world of scholasticism and the new one of mechanistic naturalism. Rather than casting Descartes's project primarily in terms of skepticism, knowledge, and certainty, Carriero focuses on fundamental disagreements between Descartes and the scholastics over the nature of understanding, the relation between the senses and the intellect, the nature of the human being, and how and to what extent God is cognized by human beings. Against this background, Carriero shows, Descartes developed his own conceptions of mind, body, and the relation between them, creating a coherent, philosophically rich project in the Meditations and setting the agenda for a century of rationalist metaphysics.

Author: John Cottingham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781383036084
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
John Cottingham explores central areas of his philosophy, including his views on the nature of thought, the relationship between mind and body, his scientific worldview and its influence on modern thinking, the place of God in his philosophical system, and his account of the emotions and the good life.

Author: David Clemenson
Publisher: Continuum
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Clemenson examines the late-scholastic influence on Descartes and the early moderns much more thoroughly than any previous writer has done: he shows that Descartes is no 'representationalist' and thus manages to avoid the well-known problems usually thought to plague his theory of knowledge.

Author: Stephen Gaukroger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134600925
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 780

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Book Description
The most comprehensive collection of essays on Descartes' scientific writings ever published, this volume offers a detailed reassessment of Descartes' scientific work and its bearing on his philosophy. The 35 essays, written by some of the world's leading scholars, cover topics as diverse as optics, cosmology and medicine, and will be of vital interest to all historians of philosophy or science.

Author: Jorge Secada
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139429051
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
This is the first book-length study of Descartes's metaphysics to place it in its immediate historical context, the Late Scholastic philosophy of thinkers such as Suárez against which Descartes reacted. Jorge Secada views Cartesian philosophy as an 'essentialist' reply to the 'existentialism' of the School, and his discussion includes careful analyses and original interpretations of such central Cartesian themes as the role of scepticism, intentionality and the doctrine of the material falsity of ideas, universals and the relation between sense and understanding, causation and the proofs of the existence of God, the theory of substance, and the dualism of mind and matter. His study offers a picture of Descartes's metaphysics that is both novel and philosophically illuminating.