Author: Tad M. Schmaltz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199958505
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book is a systematic study of Descartes' theory of causation and its relation to the medieval and early modern scholastic philosophy that provides its proper historical context. The argument presented here is that even though Descartes offered a dualistic ontology that differs radically from what we find in scholasticism, his views on causation were profoundly influenced by scholastic thought on this issue. This influence is evident not only in his affirmation in the Meditations of the abstract scholastic axioms that a cause must contain the reality of its effects and that conservation does not differ in reality from creation, but also in the details of the accounts of body-body interaction in his physics, of mind-body interaction in his psychology, and of the causation that he took to be involved in free human action. In contrast to those who have read Descartes as endorsing the "occasionalist" conclusion that God is the only real cause, a central thesis of this study is that he accepted what in the context of scholastic debates regarding causation is the antipode of occasionalism, namely, the view that creatures rather than God are the causal source of natural change. What emerges from the defense of this interpretation of Descartes is a new understanding of his contribution to modern thought on causation.
Author: Helen Hattab
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052151892X
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book traces Descartes' groundbreaking theory of scientific explanation back to the mathematical demonstrations of Aristotelian physics, in the light of the arguments for and against substantial forms which were available to him. Will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in the philosophy and science of the early modern period.
Author: Anthony Dardis
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231144172
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Get Book Here
Book Description
Two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that everything is atoms in the void; it's physics all the way down. Contemporary physicalism agrees. But if that's so how can we--how can our thoughts, emotions, our values--make anything happen in the physical world? This conceptual knot, the mental causation problem, is the core of the mind-body problem, closely connected to the problems of free will, consciousness, and intentionality. Anthony Dardis shows how to unravel the knot. He traces its early appearance in the history of philosophical inquiry, specifically in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and T. H. Huxley. He then develops a metaphysical framework for a theory of causation, laws of nature, and the causal relevance of properties. Using this framework, Dardis explains how macro, or higher level, properties can be causally relevant in the same way that microphysical properties are causally relevant: by their relationship with the laws of nature. Smelling an orange, choosing the orange rather than the cheesecake, reaching for the one on the left instead of the one on the right-mental properties such as these take their place alongside the physical "motor of the world" in making things happen.
Author: Lawrence Nolan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316380939
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1642
Get Book Here
Book Description
The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon is the definitive reference source on René Descartes, 'the father of modern philosophy' and arguably among the most important philosophers of all time. Examining the full range of Descartes' achievements and legacy, it includes 256 in-depth entries that explain key concepts relating to his thought. Cumulatively they uncover interpretative disputes, trace his influences, and explain how his work was received by critics and developed by followers. There are entries on topics such as certainty, cogito ergo sum, doubt, dualism, free will, God, geometry, happiness, human being, knowledge, Meditations on First Philosophy, mind, passion, physics, and virtue, which are written by the largest and most distinguished team of Cartesian scholars ever assembled for a collaborative research project - 92 contributors from ten countries.
Author: Andrea Christofidou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415501067
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 277
Get Book Here
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: Dominik Perler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032091105
Category : Causation
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book re-examines the roles of causation and cognition in early modern thought. It is unique in that it explores both well-known and understudied historical figures, and in that it emphasizes the intimate relationship between causation and cognition to open up new perspectives on early modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
Author: Peter Machamer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400830435
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
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.
Author: David Clemenson
Publisher: Continuum
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Get Book Here
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: Tad M. Schmaltz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199782172
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 395
Get Book Here
Book Description
This volume is a collection of new essays by specialists that trace the concept of efficient causation from its discovery (or invention) in Ancient Greece, through its development in late antiquity, the medieval period, and modern philosophy, to its use in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of science.
Author: C. P. Ragland
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190264454
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
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.
