The debate in 17th-century France between the Quietists and their opponents raised the question whether we should be willing to sacrifice the salvation of our own souls for love of another. ...Descartes's views on freewill were cited by both sides.
Ideas and mechanism Wilson, Margaret Dauler
2014., 20140701, 2014, 1999, Letnik:
75
eBook
For more than three decades, Margaret Wilson's essays on early modern philosophy have influenced scholarly debate. Many are considered classics in the field and remain as important today as they were ...when they were first published. Until now, however, they have never been available in book form and some have been particularly difficult to find. This collection not only provides access to nearly all of Wilson's most significant work, but also demonstrates the continuity of her thought over time. These essays show that Wilson possesses a keen intelligence, coupled with a fearlessness in tackling the work of early modern philosophers as well as the writing of modern commentators. Many of the pieces collected here respond to philosophical issues of continuing importance.
The thirty-one essays gathered here deal with some of the best known early philosophers, including Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, and Berkeley. As this collection shows, Wilson is a demanding critic. She repeatedly asks whether the philosophers' arguments were adequate to the problems they were trying to solve and whether these arguments remain compelling today. She is not afraid to engage in complex argument but, at the same time, her own writing remains clear and fresh.Ideas and Mechanismis an essential collection of work by one of the leading scholars of our era.
Originally published in 1999.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
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.
InKant and the Scandal of Philosophy, Luigi Caranti corrects this omission, providing a thorough historical analysis of Kant's anti-sceptical arguments from the pre-critical period up to the ...'Reflexionen zum Idealismus' (1788-93).
Descartes' philosophy plays a special role in the works of both renowned and marginal writers in the Continental Tradition, particularly in their views on society and politics. This is the first book ...length study to consider political responses to Descartes in 19th and 20th century European thinkers. Alon Segev shows how on the one hand Continental authors utilize Descartes' philosophy to advance the core ideas of Enlightenment and to combat the movements and systems of Capitalism, Materialism, Absolutism, Fascism, Nazism, and Neo-Paganism; however on the other hand, Segev also demonstrates that Continental authors have also discerned in Descartes' philosophy the main source of all these maladies of modernity. These opposing views are examined as they are unfolded in known and forgotten texts by authors such as Vico, Sorel, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger and by lesser known figures such as Baader, Borkenau and Böhm. By exploring celebrated and overlooked texts and authors, Alon Segev both details the Cartesian influence on the touchstone thinkers of political modernity, and also fills a wide historical gap in the research, providing a significant contribution to the discussion about the crises of the contemporary social and political world. In short, this book enables us, through Descartes, to assess the advantages and shortcomings of modern society.
Descartes' Meditations is one of the most thoroughly analyzed of all philosophical texts. Nevertheless, central issues in Descartes' thought remain unresolved, particularly the problem of the ...Cartesian Circle. Most attempts to deal with that problem have weakened the force of Descartes' own doubts or weakened the goals he was seeking. In this book, Stephen I. Wagner gives Descartes' doubts their strongest force and shows how he overcomes those doubts, establishing with metaphysical certainty the existence of a non-deceiving God and the truth of his clear and distinct perceptions. Wagner's innovative and thorough reading of the text clarifies a wide range of other issues that have been left unclear by previous commentaries, including the nature of the cogito discovery and the relationship between Descartes' proofs of God's existence. His book will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of Descartes, early modern philosophy and theology.
Perhaps the most famous proposition in the history of philosophy is Descartes' cogito 'I think, therefore I am'. Husain Sarkar claims in this provocative interpretation of Descartes that the ancient ...tradition of reading the cogito as an argument is mistaken. It should, he says, be read as an intuition. Through this interpretative lens, the author reconsiders key Cartesian topics: the ideal inquirer, the role of clear and distinct ideas, the relation of these to the will, memory, the nature of intuition and deduction, the nature, content and elusiveness of 'I', and the tenability of the doctrine of the creation of eternal truths. Finally, the book demonstrates how Descartes' attempt to prove the existence of God is foiled by a new Cartesian Circle.
The matter of mind Braider, Christopher
The matter of mind,
c2012, 20121231, 2017, 2012, 2012-12-31, 2017-01-23
eBook
"What influence did René Descartes' concept of mind-body dualism have on early modern conceptions of the self? In The Matter of Mind, Christopher Braider challenges the presumed centrality of ...Descartes' groundbreaking theory to seventeenth-century French culture. He details the broad opposition to rational self-government among Descartes' contemporaries, and attributes conventional links between Descartes and the myth of the 'modern subject' to post-structuralist assessments. The Matter of Mind presents studies drawn from a range of disciplines and examines the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the drama of Pierre Corneille, and the theology of Blaise Pascal. Braider argues that if early modern thought converged on a single model, then it was the experimental picture based on everyday experience proposed by Descartes' sceptical adversary, Michel de Montaigne. Forceful and provocative, The Matter of Mind will encourage lively debate on the norms and discourses of seventeenth-century philosophy."--pub. desc.
In this introduction to a classic philosophical text, Catherine Wilson examines the arguments of Descartes' famous Meditations, the book which launched modern philosophy. Drawing on the ...reinterpretations of Descartes' thought of the past twenty-five years, she shows how Descartes constructs a theory of the mind, the body, nature, and God from a premise of radical uncertainty. She discusses in detail the historical context of Descartes' writings and their relationship to early modern science, and at the same time she introduces concepts and problems that define the philosophical enterprise as it is understood today. Following closely the text of the Meditations and meant to be read alongside them, this survey is accessible to readers with no previous background in philosophy. It is well-suited to university-level courses on Descartes, but can also be read with profit by students in other disciplines.
