Descartes's Theory of Action

Descartes's Theory of Action PDF Author: Anne Davenport
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047409973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
This volume has a single goal: to argue that Descartes’s most fundamental discovery is not the epistemological subject, but rather the underlying free agent without whom no epistemological subject is possible. This fresh interpretation of the Cartesian “cogito” is defended through a close reading of Descartes’s masterpiece, the Meditations. Special attention is paid to the historical roots of Descartes’s interest in free agency, particularly his close ties to the French School of spirituality. Three aspects of Descartes’s personal evolution are considered: his aesthetic evolution from Baroque concealment to Classicism, his political evolution from feudal nostalgia to modern secularism, and his spiritual evolution from Stoic wisdom to active engagement in the world through the scientific project.

Descartes's Theory of Action

Descartes's Theory of Action PDF Author: Anne Davenport
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9047409973
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume has a single goal: to argue that Descartes’s most fundamental discovery is not the epistemological subject, but rather the underlying free agent without whom no epistemological subject is possible. This fresh interpretation of the Cartesian “cogito” is defended through a close reading of Descartes’s masterpiece, the Meditations. Special attention is paid to the historical roots of Descartes’s interest in free agency, particularly his close ties to the French School of spirituality. Three aspects of Descartes’s personal evolution are considered: his aesthetic evolution from Baroque concealment to Classicism, his political evolution from feudal nostalgia to modern secularism, and his spiritual evolution from Stoic wisdom to active engagement in the world through the scientific project.

Descartes's Theory of Light and Refraction

Descartes's Theory of Light and Refraction PDF Author: A. Mark Smith
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9780871697738
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description
Contents: (1) Historical Overview; & Descartes's Perspectivist Sources; (2) Analysis of Refraction: Cartesian Light-Theory; & A Critical Evaluation; (3) The Foundations of Perspectivist Optics: Perspectivist Light-Theory; Quantization of Light; & Comparison with Descartes's Theory of Light; (4) The Perspectivist Analysis of Refraction: Physical Model; Physical "Explanation" & The Final Cause; (5) Perspectivist Grounds of the Cartesian Proof: Mathematical Implications; From Cosines to Sines; & Descartes Revisited; (6) Cartesian Light-Theory as a Culmination; Toward a Kinetic Theory of Light; & Epistemological Consequences. App.: The Sine-Law Before Descartes; The Fermat-Descartes Controversy; & Kepler, Descartes & the Anaclastic. Illustrations.

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.

The Will to Reason

The Will to Reason PDF 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.

Passions of the Soul

Passions of the Soul PDF Author: René Descartes
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 162466198X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Translator's Introduction Introduction by Genevieve Rodis-Lewis The Passions of the Soul: Preface PART I: About the Passions in General, and Incidentally about the Entire Nature of Man PART II: About the Number and Order of the Passions, and the Explanation of the Six Primitives PART III: About the Particular Passions Lexicon: Index to Lexicon Bibliography Index Index Locorum

Descartes on Causation

Descartes on Causation PDF Author: Tad M. Schmaltz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199958505
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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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.

Essays on Descartes

Essays on Descartes PDF Author: Paul Hoffman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199717540
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
This is a collection of Paul Hoffman's wide-ranging essays on Descartes composed over the past twenty-five years. The essays in Part I include his celebrated "The Unity of Descartes' Man," in which he argues that Descartes accepts the Aristotelian view that soul and body are related as form to matter and that the human being is a substance; a series of subsequent essays elaborating on this interpretation and defending it against objections; and an essay on Descartes' theory of distinction. In the essays in Part II he argues that Descartes retains the Aristotelian theory of causation according to which an agent's action is the same as the passion it brings about, and explains the significance of this doctrine for understanding Descartes' dualism and physics. In the essays in Part III he argues that Descartes accepts the Aristotelian theory of cognition according to which perception is possible because things that exist in the world are also capable of a different way of existing in the soul, and he shows how this theory figures in Descartes' account of misrepresentation and in the controversy over whether Descartes is a direct realist or a representationalist. The essays in Part IV examine Descartes' theory of the passions of the soul: their definition; their effect on our happiness, virtue, and freedom; and methods of controlling them.

Descartes on Causation

Descartes on Causation PDF Author: Tad M. Schmaltz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198043902
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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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.

Time and the Philosophy of Action

Time and the Philosophy of Action PDF Author: Roman Altshuler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317819470
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Although scholarship in philosophy of action has grown in recent years, there has been little work explicitly dealing with the role of time in agency, a role with great significance for the study of action. As the articles in this collection demonstrate, virtually every fundamental issue in the philosophy of action involves considerations of time. The four sections of this volume address the metaphysics of action, diachronic practical rationality, the relation between deliberation and action, and the phenomenology of agency, providing an overview of the central developments in each area with an emphasis on the role of temporality. Including contributions by established, rising, and new voices in the field, Time and the Philosophy of Action brings analytic work in philosophy of action together with contributions from continental philosophy and cognitive science to elaborate the central thesis that agency not only develops in time but is shaped by it at every level.

The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon

The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon PDF Author: Lawrence Nolan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316380939
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1642

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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.