Descartes's Theory of Mind

Descartes's Theory of Mind PDF Author: Desmond M. Clarke
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199284948
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Descartes is possibly the most famous of all writers on the mind, but his theory of mind has been almost universally misunderstood, because his philosophy has not been seen in the context of his scientific work. Desmond Clarke offers a radical and convincing rereading, undoing the received perception of Descartes as the chief defender of mind/body dualism. For Clarke, the key is to interpret his philosophical efforts as an attempt to reconcile his scientific pursuits with the theologically orthodox views of his time.

Descartes's Theory of Mind

Descartes's Theory of Mind PDF Author: Desmond M. Clarke
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199284948
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Descartes is possibly the most famous of all writers on the mind, but his theory of mind has been almost universally misunderstood, because his philosophy has not been seen in the context of his scientific work. Desmond Clarke offers a radical and convincing rereading, undoing the received perception of Descartes as the chief defender of mind/body dualism. For Clarke, the key is to interpret his philosophical efforts as an attempt to reconcile his scientific pursuits with the theologically orthodox views of his time.

Descartes's Concept of Mind

Descartes's Concept of Mind PDF 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.

Descartes's Changing Mind

Descartes's Changing Mind PDF Author: Peter Machamer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830435
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Descartes's works are often treated as a unified, unchanging whole. But in Descartes's Changing Mind, Peter Machamer and J. E. McGuire argue that the philosopher's views, particularly in natural philosophy, actually change radically between his early and later works--and that any interpretation of Descartes must take account of these changes. The first comprehensive study of the most significant of these shifts, this book also provides a new picture of the development of Cartesian science, epistemology, and metaphysics. No changes in Descartes's thought are more significant than those that occur between the major works The World (1633) and Principles of Philosophy (1644). Often seen as two versions of the same natural philosophy, these works are in fact profoundly different, containing distinct conceptions of causality and epistemology. Machamer and McGuire trace the implications of these changes and others that follow from them, including Descartes's rejection of the method of abstraction as a means of acquiring knowledge, his insistence on the infinitude of God's power, and his claim that human knowledge is limited to that which enables us to grasp the workings of the world and develop scientific theories.

Descartes's Dualism

Descartes's Dualism PDF Author: Marleen ROZEMOND
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674042921
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Descartes, an acknowledged founder of modern philosophy, is identified particularly with mind-body dualism--the view that the mind is an incorporeal entity. But this view was not entirely original with Descartes, and in fact to a significant extent it was widely accepted by the Aristotelian scholastics who preceded him, although they entertained a different conception of the nature of mind, body, and the relationship between them. In her first book, Marleen Rozemond explicates Descartes's aim to provide a metaphysics that would accommodate mechanistic science and supplant scholasticism. Her approach includes discussion of central differences from and similarities to the scholastics and how these discriminations affected Descartes's defense of the incorporeity of the mind and the mechanistic conception of body. Confronting the question of how, in his view, mind and body are united, she examines his defense of this union on the basis of sensation. In the course of her argument, she focuses on a few of the scholastics to whom Descartes referred in his own writings: Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suarez, Eustachius of St. Paul, and the Jesuits of Coimbra. This new systematic account of Descartes's dualism amply demonstrates why he still deserves serious study and respect for his extraordinary philosophical achievements.

Descartes' Theory of Ideas

Descartes' Theory of Ideas PDF 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.

Another Mind-Body Problem

Another Mind-Body Problem PDF Author: John Harfouch
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438469977
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The mind-body problem in philosophy is typically understood as a discourse concerning the relation of mental states to physical states, and the experience of sensation. On this level it seems to transcend issues of race and racism, but Another Mind-Body Problem demonstrates that racial distinctions have been an integral part of the discourse since the Modern period in philosophy. Reading figures such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant in their historical contexts, John Harfouch uncovers discussions of mind and body that engaged closely with philosophical and scientific notions of race in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, in particular in understanding how the mind unites with the body at birth and is then passed on through sexual reproduction. Kant argued that a person's exterior body and interior psyche are bound together, that non-White people lacked reason, and that this lack of reason was carried on through reproduction such that non-Whites were an example of a union of mind and body without full being. Charting the development of this phenomenon from sixteenth-century medical literature to modern-day race discourse, Harfouch argues for new understandings of Descartes's mind-body problem, Fanon's experience of being 'not-yet human,' and the place of racism in relation to one of philosophy's most enduring and canonical problems.

On Descartes' Passive Thought

On Descartes' Passive Thought PDF 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.

Descartes' Error

Descartes' Error PDF Author: Antonio Damasio
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014303622X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
"An ambitious and meticulous foray into the nature of being." -- The Boston Globe A landmark exploration of the relationship between emotion and reason Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.

Descartes and the Passionate Mind

Descartes and the Passionate Mind PDF Author: Deborah J. Brown
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521857284
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
An important and original reading of Descartes' account of mind-body unity and his theory of mind.

What Am I?

What Am I? PDF Author: Joseph Almog
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195177190
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Almog decodes Descartes' argument for distinguishing between the human mind and body while maintaining their essential integration in a human being. His reading not only steers away from popular interpretations of the philosopher, but also represents a scholar coming to grips directly with Descartes himself.