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Author: Janet Broughton
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400825040
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Descartes thought that we could achieve absolute certainty by starting with radical doubt. He adopts this strategy in the Meditations on First Philosophy, where he raises sweeping doubts with the famous dream argument and the hypothesis of an evil demon. But why did Descartes think we should take these exaggerated doubts seriously? And if we do take them seriously, how did he think any of our beliefs could ever escape them? Janet Broughton undertakes a close study of Descartes's first three meditations to answer these questions and to present a fresh way of understanding precisely what Descartes was up to. Broughton first contrasts Descartes's doubts with those of the ancient skeptics, arguing that Cartesian doubt has a novel structure and a distinctive relation to the commonsense outlook of everyday life. She then argues that Descartes pursues absolute certainty by uncovering the conditions that make his radical doubt possible. She gives a unified account of how Descartes uses this strategy, first to find certainty about his own existence and then to argue that God exists. Drawing on this analysis, Broughton provides a new way to understand Descartes's insistence that he hasn't argued in a circle, and she measures his ambitions against those of contemporary philosophers who use transcendental arguments in their efforts to defeat skepticism. The book is a powerful contribution both to the history of philosophy and to current debates in epistemology.
Author: Janet Broughton
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400825040
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Descartes thought that we could achieve absolute certainty by starting with radical doubt. He adopts this strategy in the Meditations on First Philosophy, where he raises sweeping doubts with the famous dream argument and the hypothesis of an evil demon. But why did Descartes think we should take these exaggerated doubts seriously? And if we do take them seriously, how did he think any of our beliefs could ever escape them? Janet Broughton undertakes a close study of Descartes's first three meditations to answer these questions and to present a fresh way of understanding precisely what Descartes was up to. Broughton first contrasts Descartes's doubts with those of the ancient skeptics, arguing that Cartesian doubt has a novel structure and a distinctive relation to the commonsense outlook of everyday life. She then argues that Descartes pursues absolute certainty by uncovering the conditions that make his radical doubt possible. She gives a unified account of how Descartes uses this strategy, first to find certainty about his own existence and then to argue that God exists. Drawing on this analysis, Broughton provides a new way to understand Descartes's insistence that he hasn't argued in a circle, and she measures his ambitions against those of contemporary philosophers who use transcendental arguments in their efforts to defeat skepticism. The book is a powerful contribution both to the history of philosophy and to current debates in epistemology.
Author: René Descartes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780941736121
Category : First philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author:
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080477966X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
The author argues that many problems of interpretation including notorious problems of circularity, arise from a failure to recognise that Descartes' strategy for the attainment of certainty is not to add support for his beliefs, but to subtract grounds for doubt.
Author: René Descartes
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486115445
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 134
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Book Description
Is it possible to be certain of anything? If so, how? The father of modern philosophy and the founder of rational method in philosophical thought, René Descartes (1596–1650) sought the answers to these questions and in doing so, addressed the most important of methods of thinking and understanding truth. In Discourse on Method, he applies a scientific approach to philosophy that comprises four principles: to accept only what reason recognizes as "clear and distinct"; to analyze complex ideas by dividing them into smaller elements; to reconstruct the ideas; and to make accurate and complete enumerations of the data. His Meditations proceed according to this method, exploring the mind/body distinction, the nature of truth and error, the existence of God, and the essence of material things.
Author: Andrea Christofidou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415501067
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
This book sheds new light on the role of freedom in Descartes' thought and defends the theory of an internal relation between freedom and reason in his metaphysics.
Author: René Descartes
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 1603840567
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 208
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Book Description
This edition features reliable, accessible translations; useful editorial materials; and a straightforward presentation of the Objections and Replies, including the objections from Caterus, Arnauld, and Hobbes, accompanied by Descartes' replies, in their entirety. The letter serving as a reply to Gassendi--in which several of Descartes' associates present Gassendi's best arguments and Descartes' replies--conveys the highlights and important issues of their notoriously extended exchange. Roger Ariew's illuminating Introduction discusses the Meditations and the intellectual environment surrounding its reception.
Author: James Hill
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 144111310X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
Descartes' characterisation of the mind as a 'thinking thing' marks the beginning of modern philosophy of mind. It is also the point of departure for Descartes' own system in which the mind is the first object of knowledge for those who reason in an 'orderly way'. This ground-breaking book shows that the Cartesian mind has been widely misunderstood: typically treated as simply the subject of phenomenal consciousness, ignoring its deeply intellectual character. James Hill argues that this interpretation has gone hand in hand with a misreading of Descartes' method of doubt which treats it as all-inclusive and universal in scope. In fact, the sceptical arguments of the First Meditation aim to lead the mind away from the senses and towards the intellectual 'notions' that the mind has within it, and which are never the subject of doubt. Hill also places Descartes' concept of mind into the wider setting of his science of nature, showing how he wished to reveal a mental subject that would able to comprehend the new physics necessitated by Copernicus' heliocentrism.
Author: René Descartes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780852291634
Category : First philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Author: A. Boyce Gibson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315468077
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Maintaining that it is impossible to understand the work of a philosopher without understanding the previous history of thought and the contemporaneous developments, this book, originally published in 1932, is an in-depth study of Descartes’ philosophy with a strong emphasis on the historical approach. It covers Descartes’ early life and education, before continuing to discuss his method of doubt, the existence of God, the scientific interpretation of nature, the unity of knowledge, the attributes of God and free-will.
Author: Rene Descartes
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781726253093
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 174
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Book Description
The Principles of Philosophy By Rene Descartes The only apprehension I entertain is lest the title should deter some who have not been brought up to letters, or with whom philosophy is in bad repute, because the kind they were taught has proved unsatisfactory; and this makes me think that it will be useful to add a preface to it for the purpose of showing what the MATTER of the work is, what END I had in view in writing it, and what UTILITY may be derived from it. But although it might be my part to write a preface of this nature, seeing I ought to know those particulars better than any other person, I cannot nevertheless prevail upon myself to do anything more than merely to give a summary of the chief points that fall, as I think, to be discussed in it: and I leave it to your discretion to present to the public such part of them as you shall judge proper.
