Any great new theoretical framework has an epistemological and an ontological aspect to its philosophy as well as an axiological one, and one needs to understand all three aspects in order to grasp the deep aspiration and idea of the theoretical framework. Presently, there is a widespread effort to understand C. S. Peirce's (1837–1914) pragmaticistic semeiotics, and to develop it by integrating the results of modern science and evolutionary thinking; first, producing a biosemiotics and, second, by integrating it with the (...) progress in cybernetics, information science, and system theory to create a cybersemiotics. In this paper, we focus on the understanding of the evolution of the universe that Peirce produced as an alternative to the mechanistic view underlying classical physics and try to place man in an evolving universe as a creative, aesthetical agent. It is true that modern non-equilibrium physics has made a modern foundation for a profound physical understanding of the basic evolutionary processes in the universe. But science still has not produced a theory that can explain how the creativity of the universe could produce signification, interpretation, and first-person consciousness. To this end, Peirce's thoughts on agapastic evolution coupled with the aesthetically influence of the growth of ideas and reasonableness on man could make a contribution. (shrink)

The Cartesian method, construed as a way of organizing domains of knowledge according to the "order of reasons," was a powerful reductive tool. Descartes made significant strides in mathematics, physics, and metaphysics by relating certain complex items and problems back to more simple elements that served as starting points for his inquiries. But his reductive method also impoverished these domains in important ways, for it tended to restrict geometry to the study of straight line segments, physics to the study (...) of ambiguously constituted bits of matter in motion, and metaphysics to the study of the isolated, incorporeal knower. This book examines in detail the negative and positive impact of Descartes's method on his scientific and philosophical enterprises, exemplified by the Geometry, the Principles, the Treatise of Man, and the Meditations. (shrink)

In this extraordinarily original and profound work, Noam Chomsky discusses themes in the study of language and mind since the end of the sixteenth century in order to explain the motivations and methods that underlie his work in linguistics, the science of mind, and even politics. This edition includes a new and specially written introduction by James McGilvray, contextualising the work for the twenty-first century. It has been made more accessible to a larger audience; all the French and German in (...) the original edition has been translated, and the notes and bibliography have been brought up to date. The relationship between the original edition and contemporary biolinguistic work is also explained. This challenging volume is an important contribution to the study of language and mind, and to the history of these studies since the end of the sixteenth century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cartesian CompositesPaul HoffmanTowards the end of a paper in which I argued that Descartes thinks a human being is a genuine unity, I invited other commentators to come to Descartes’s defense by accounting for his apparently contradictory claims that a human being is an ens per se and that it is an ens per accidens.1 These claims seem to be contradictory, because in saying that a human being (...) is an ens per se, Descartes appears to be asserting that a human being is genuinely one, and in saying that a human being is an ens per accidens, he appears to assert that a human being is not genuinely one, but instead is a mere heap or aggregate. In the ensuing eleven years no one has taken up my invitation, except to argue that I was mistaken in claiming that Descartes thinks a human being has per se unity in any robust sense.2In this paper I will take up the challenge myself, having noticed a similarity between Descartes’s account of the unity of composite substances and his account of composite figures having true and immutable natures. After showing how he can consistently maintain that a human being is both an ens per se and ens per accidens in roughly the same way he can consistently maintain that composite figures both do and do not have true and immutable natures, I will try to respond to criticisms of my claim that he thinks of a human being as a substance or an ens per se.Let me begin with an analysis and comparison of two passages from the Objections and Replies. In the first, from the Replies to the First Objections, Descartes [End Page 251] discusses composite figures. In the second, from the Replies to the Fourth Objections, Descartes discusses composite substances.Next, to remove the other part of the difficulty, it should be noted that those ideas which do not contain true and immutable natures, but contain only ones which are fictitious and composed by the intellect, can be divided by the same intellect, not only through abstraction, but through a clear and distinct operation, so that any ideas which the intellect cannot so divide were undoubtedly not composed by it. As, for example, when I think of a winged horse, or an actually existing lion, or a triangle inscribed in a square, I easily understand that I can also in opposition think of a horse without wings, a non-existing lion, a triangle without a square, and so on; from which it follows that these do not have true and immutable natures. But if I think of a triangle or a square (I do not speak here of a lion or horse because their natures are not clearly evident to us), then certainly whatever I apprehend as contained in the idea of a triangle, as that its three angles are equal to two right angles, etc., I will truly affirm of the triangle, and of the square whatever is found in the idea of the square. For even if I can understand a triangle, abstracting from the fact that its angles should equal two right angles, I cannot nevertheless deny that of it by a clear and distinct operation, that is, correctly understanding this is what I say. Furthermore, if I consider a triangle inscribed in a square, not in order to attribute to the square those things which pertain only to the triangle or to the triangle those things which pertain to the square, but in order to examine only those things which arise from the conjunction of the two, then its nature will be no less true and immutable than the square or triangle alone, and it will be permitted to affirm that the square is not less than twice the triangle inscribed in it and similar things which pertain to the nature of this composite figure. (AT VII 117–8; CSM II 83–4)3I am not unaware that some substances are commonly called ‘incomplete.’ But if they are said to be incomplete because they cannot exist per se alone, I confess that it seems contradictory to me that... (shrink)

In this paper, I propose to analyse two objections raised by Turner Jr in his paper “On Two Reasons Christian Theologians Should Reject The Intermediate State” in order to show that the intermediate state is an incoherent theory. As we shall see, the two untoward consequences that he mentions do not imply a metaphysical or logical contradiction. Consequently, I shall defend an Intermediate State and I shall propose briefly one metaphysical conception of the human being able to reply to Turner (...) Jr’s objections. (shrink)

This book argues that science and metaphysics are closely and inseparably interwoven in the work of Descartes, such that the metaphysics cannot be understood without the science and vice versa. In order to make his case, Thomas Vinci offers a careful philosophical reconstruction of central parts of Descartes' metaphysics and of his theory of perception, each considered in relation to Descartes' epistemology. Many authors of late have written on the relation between Descartes' metaphysics and his physics, especially insofar as the (...) former was intended to justify the latter. Vinci's work does not focus on this relation. It takes as a broad interpretive principle that Descartes wanted to justify a certain picture of matter with his metaphysics, but it focuses its own efforts on the way in which metaphysics and science meet in Descartes' theory of sense-perception. Vinci aims to show that Descartes gave an important positive role to sense-perception in his epistemology, and also that he used his reflections on sense-perception to frame his criticism of previous theories of the sensory qualities of objects. (shrink)

The apparently circular arguments in Descartes’s Meditations should be read as analytic arguments, as Descartes himself suggested. This both explains and excuses the appearance of circularity. Analysis “digs out” what is already present in the meditator’s mind but not yet “expressly known”. Once this is achieved, the meditator may take the result of analysis as an epistemic starting point independent of the original argument. That is, analytic arguments may be reversed to yield demonstrative proofs that follow an already worked-out order (...) of ideas. The “Cartesian Circle,” for example, is circular only when Descartes’s original analytic argument is mistaken for the demonstration that it enables. This approach to Cartesian Circles is unlike the standard approach, which attempts to show that Descartes’s original arguments do work as demonstrations after all. (shrink)

When Gödel developed his functional interpretation, also known as the Dialectica interpretation, his aim was to prove consistency of first order arithmetic by reducing it to a quantifier-free theory with finite types. Like other functional interpretations Gödel’s Dialectica interpretation gives rise to category theoretic constructions that serve both as new models for logic and semantics and as tools for analysing and understanding various aspects of the Dialectica interpretation itself. Gödel’s Dialectica interpretation gives rise to the Dialectica categories , in: Contemp. (...) Math., vol. 92, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 1989, pp. 47–62] and J.M.E. Hyland in [J.M.E. Hyland, Proof theory in the abstract, Ann. Pure Appl. Logic 114 43–78, Commemorative Symposium Dedicated to Anne S. Troelstra ]). These categories are symmetric monoidal closed and have finite products and weak coproducts, but they are not Cartesian closed in general. We give an analysis of how to obtain weakly Cartesian closed and Cartesian closed Dialectica categories, and we also reflect on what the analysis might tell us about the Dialectica interpretation. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the issue of whether the evil demon could have caused the idea of God. In order to determine the capabilities of the evil demon, I perform a thought experiment in which I reaffirm the con-clusion that an imperfect being could have never caused an idea of perfection and infinitude, i.e., the idea of God. The article is divided into five sections and a conclusion. While the first section is introductory, the second looks at the problem (...) of God and knowledge certainty. Elucidating how reality is gradual according to Descartes, in the third section I address the distinction between objective, formal and eminent reality. In turn, in the fourth section, I argue that if the objective reality of God exists, that is, an idea of perfection, the imperfect evil demon could have never caused it. The last section examines the reverse argument of the fourth section, viz, whether God could have caused the existence of evil and imperfection. (shrink)

I propose that a scientific account of perceptual consciousness decomposes into two sub-problems: the conceptual problem of reframing our internal, first-personal perspective in external, thirdpersonal terms, and the scientific one of providing a theory that accounts for the phenomenon reframed in this way. In this paper I consider both aspects of the problem, drawing on the ideas of Dennett and Metzinger. For the first part, I use Dennett's method of heterophenomenology to argue that perceptual experience should be understood as a (...) structured space of possible behaviours. On this view, each phenomenal 'detail' that we consciously apprehend is not quintessentially private, but rather a reflexive affordance: an opportunity to behave, perhaps covertly, about how the world looks, sounds, or feels from our perceptual vantage point. I then present a novel argument in favour of a higher-order, self-representationalist account of this aspect of our phenotype, along the lines of Metzinger's phenomenal model of the intentionality relation. I conclude with the suggestion that a conscious organism has a design which is distinctly Cartesian in flavour: a self-simulating agent able to observe itself perceiving. (shrink)

Recently, Colin McGinn has argued that Kripke's Cartesian argument against the mind-body identity thesis is not effective against anomalous monism. This paper attempts to show that the Cartesian has at his disposal an argument that is stronger than that formulated by Kripke, and one that cannot be rebutted by the anomalous monist in the way suggested by McGinn. The paper concludes with a suggestion as to the sort of identity theory one would have to subscribe to in order (...) to resist the stronger Cartesian argument. (shrink)

Recently, Colin McGinn has argued that Kripke's Cartesian argument against the mind-body identity thesis is not effective against anomalous monism. This paper attempts to show that the Cartesian has at his disposal an argument that is stronger than that formulated by Kripke, and one that cannot be rebutted by the anomalous monist in the way suggested by McGinn. The paper concludes with a suggestion as to the sort of identity theory one would have to subscribe to in order (...) to resist the stronger Cartesian argument. (shrink)

WHATEVER one may think of the merits and demerits of the Cartesian system one must acknowledge the great vitality of the Cartesian principles. They were launched with a passion, a sincerity, an engagement rarely equalled. The principles in some way met a deeply-felt need stirring in many breasts in the 17th century; a half-unconscious aspiration which many struggled to articulate and expressed in a variety of ways. Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, each in his own way helped to formulate and (...) create the new order, and in doing so stimulated the general appetite for it so that it grew apace. Descartes prepared the ground, Galileo planted the tree, Bacon looked after the ‘public relations’. The scientific age is the outcome of their work. These men were themselves too close to things to see clearly the consequences of what they were doing; some of these consequences would have greatly surprised them. Could Descartes, for instance, personally the most ‘existentialist’ of philosophers, have foreseen that his principles would give rise to a diametrically opposite regime: that forcing the radical separation and disengagement of man and the material world would lead to a state of brittle ‘facts’ and shallow ‘emotions’, and would provoke the contemporary ‘existentialist’ reaction? (shrink)

Although Pessoa, Teller & Noë make excellent points concerning the need for a mechanism of filling-in, they throw out the baby of neural specificity with the bathwater of isomorphism and the homuncular observer. The core act of perception is sensory processing by a stationary observer and does not require overt behavioral interaction with the environment. The complexity of intracortical interconnectivity does not preclude local specificity in the representation of higher-order stimulus properties.

Husserl saw the Cartesian critique of scepticism as one of the eternal merits of Descartes’ philosophy. In doing so, he accepted the legitimacy of the very idea of a universal doubt, and sought to present as an alternative to it a renewed, specifically phenomenological concept of self-evidence, making it possible to obtain an unshakable foundation for the edifice of knowledge. This acceptance of the skeptical problem underlies his entire conceptual framework, both before and after the transcendental turn, and especially (...) the immanence/transcendence distinction, i.e., the very basis of intentionality. In taking as its starting point an analysis of perception, the article puts forth a certain number of phenomenological arguments in order to put into question the validity of the skeptical problem and, therefore, of the Husserlian conceptual framework; it defends, in the first place, a disjunctive conception of perception and, in the second place, a holism of experience. (shrink)

I argue that Descartes and the Cartesians are likely in agreement that logic is an ars cogitandi whose aim is to perfect the ingenium by the exercise of its operations: ideating, judging, discoursing, and ordering. We can see that these elements are the underpinning of both the Regulae and the Discourse on Method, and thus, like Adrien Baillet and others in the seventeenth century, we can understand these two works as embodying Descartes’ “logic,” despite Descartes’ notorious anti-logic Renaissance rhetoric in (...) both writings. (shrink)

Using three paradigm cases of persons living with Parkinson's Disease (PD) the authors make a case for augmenting and enriching a Cartesian medical account of the pathophysiology of PD with an enriched understanding of the lived body experience of PD, the lived implications of PD for a particular person's concerns and coping with the illness. Linking and adding a thick description of the lived experience of PD can enrich caregiving imagination and attunement to the patient's possibilities, concerns and constraints. (...) The work of Merleau-Ponty is used to articulate the middle terms of the lived experience of dwelling in a lifeworld. Examining lived experience of embodied intentionality, skilled bodily capacities as highlighted in Merleau-Ponty's non-mechanistic physiology opens new therapeutic, coping and caregiving possibilities. Matching temporal rhythms can decrease the stress of being assisted with activities of daily living. For example, caregivers and patients alike can be taught strategies for extending their lived bodily capacities by altering rhythms, by shifting hyperactivity to different parts of the body and other strategies that change the perceptual experience associated with walking in different environment. A medical account of the pathophysiology of PD is nessessary and useful, but not sufficient for designing caregiving in ways that enrich and extend the existential skills of dwelling of persons with PD. The dominance of mechanistic physiology makes caregivers assume that it is the 'real discourse' about the disease, causing researchers and caregivers alike to overlook the equally real lived experience of the patient which requires different descriptive discourses and different sources of understanding. Lack of dialogue between the two discourses is tragic for patients because caregivers need both in order to provide attuned, effective caregiving. (shrink)

In This Paper I Aim to Place Spinoza’s famous injunction in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, to separate philosophy from theology, in its historical context. I contend that in order to properly understand Spinoza’s views concerning the relationship between philosophy and theology, we must view his work in the context of philosophical discussions taking place during his time and in his country of residence, the Dutch Republic. Of particular relevance is a meta-philosophical thesis advocated by a certain group of Cartesian philosophers (...) and theologians. Their thesis was developed in response to attacks on Cartesianism from more conservative authors, who saw it as a source of impiety. It stated that Cartesian .. (shrink)

René Descartes, one of the dominant figures in the history of philosophy, has been accused of one of the most obvious mistakes in the history of philosophy — the so-called cartesian circle. It is my goal in this paper to arrive at an understanding of Descartes's work that attributes to him a theory that should be of philosophical interest to contemporary epistemologists, is consistent with, and suggested by, the actual text, and avoids the circle.I begin with a brief explanation (...) of the supposed circle. In his search for absolute certainty Descartes requires that in order for a proposition to be an instance of knowledge it must be indubitable for the knower, and in order for it to be indubitable for the knower she must be able to eliminate any possibility of the belief's being false. It is to provide a means to satisfy this requirement that Descartes proposes the principle whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived cannot be false.And it seems that Descartes's defense of CD traps him in the circle. (shrink)

The period in the history of blood transfusion that I discuss is roughly 1628, the date of publication of Harvey’s work on blood circulation, De Motu Cordis, and 1668, the year of the first allegedly successful transfusion of blood into a human subject by a French physician Jean Denis, and the official order to prohibit the procedure. The subject of special interest in this history is Robert Desgabets, an early defender and teacher of the Cartesian philosophy at St. Maur, (...) in the region of Lorraine, France. Desgabets’ Discourse de la communication ou transfusion du sang Communication or Transfusion of Blood contains a defence and description of the procedure. This three page manuscript is a lecture delivered at one of the meetings held at M. de Montmor in July 1658. Letters and documents which describe the events of these conferences during Desgabets’ eight month stay in Paris in 1658, indicate that he had numerous discussions with the Cartesian physicist Jacques Rohault and also with another leading Cartesian scientist, Gerauld Cordemoy. In addition, Desgabets is said to have frequently attended the meetings where he showed his interest in many scientific questions. I provide evidence that Desgabets was not an arm-chair scientist: he performed experiments, and he designed and created an apparatus to carry out the procedure of blood transfusion. I show how Desgabets’s Cartesian conception of mechanism and body had theological as well as epistemological underpinnings and consequences. For Desgabets, experiments on blood transfusion were as much demonstrations of the truth of the Cartesian metaphysics as they were demonstrations of the possibility of transubstantiation. The role of experiment was to provide demonstrations of the first principles or truths of physics and theology by connecting them to the way God actually made the world. The upshot of Desgabets's treatment of expérience is that it is integral to the knowledge of essences, and hence to the discovery of the truth of things. In placing expérience at the very foundation of true knowledge, Desgabets reconstructs Cartesianism on an empiricist foundation. (shrink)

1) Gaukroger estimates that there exist two irreconcilable theses in the Cartesian method in the Rules. The first thesis concerns the problem of the cognitive grasp of inference, the other the problem of the method of discovery. Descartes, by integrating deduction as a simple object of intuition, rejects the psychologicalinterpretation of inference, and elevates deduction to the status of a necessary condition of knowledge. On the other hand, the problem of the method of discovery requires that inference produces a (...) new truth as its conclusion. Descartes takes the algebraic solution of equations as the model of this method. But this orientation leads Descartes to deny all cognitive function operating in the inference of synthetic form. Thus, according to Gaukroger, these two theses tendto be opposed, calling into question the unity of the method. 2) We admit the cognitive analysis of Gaukroger on the Cartesian inference. However, Gaukroger does not see the importance of “the natural power of the mind” in the Rules. Indeed, the cognitive role of inference is always understood by Descartes, in light of this natural power. Thus, the main role of the method is to teach ways of increasing this power. Descartes tries to pose, by the algebraic treatment of questions, an analogy between the mathematical order and the order of the operations of the mind, enabling him to discover pure schemes of these operations. And, It is by theses schemes that the mind exercise itself in order to increase its natural power. For this reason, we must reconsider Gaukroger’s thesis that Descartesassimilates literally the method of discovery and algebraic solution, as well as his thesis of the inconsistency of the Cartesian method. (shrink)

Feminist studies in the history and philosophy of science have suggested that supposedly neutral and objective discourses are shaped by pairs of dualisms, which though value-laden are assumed to inhere in the order of nature. These hierarchical pairs devalue women, particularly their bodies and their labor, as they sanction the domination of nature. Readers of literature can draw on these studies to address texts and genres which do not thematize gender but rather purport to portray "the human condition." Samuel Beckett's (...) Molloy, with its clear structure of Cartesian divisions, provides a dramatic example of how an examination of dualisms reveals the presence of a language of gender informing a minimalist literary text. (shrink)

The contemporary philosophy of medicine may be characterized as a continuous struggle with the Cartesian heritage, in order to reach a more satisfying image of man. This paper outlines the influence of Cartesian dualism on the foundations of medicine.The notion of a real distinction between the mental and physical, particularly the mechanistic conception of the human body, made possible the development of the natural sciences as well as scientific medicine, not hampered any longer by the risk of colliding (...) with religion or Church. (shrink)

I am grateful that a set of fine scholars would be willing to reflect upon and write about Descartes and the First Cartesians. Their efforts are greatly appreciated and, on the whole, their observations are sound. It should be evident that I do not consider the work to be the final word on the subject of Descartes and Cartesians, that is, something exhaustive of it or complete for any of its topics. In fact, every time I reconsider an issue from (...) my book, I find that there is more to be said even in respect to what I wrote about in great detail. I will reply to the commentators in the following order: 1. Domenico Collacciani; 2. Lucian Petrescu; 3. Martine... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Pragmatism Redirected From Knowledge Approximated to Approximate Knowledge Technology, Standardization, and Experimental Science Measurement and Orders of Magnitude Non‐Reductionism, Hierarchy, and Complexity Action, Progress, and Moving Beyond Cartesian Intellectualism.

_ Source: _Volume 46, Issue 1, pp 54 - 69 In this essay, I reconstruct Merleau-Ponty’s implicit critique of Husserl in his lectures on Husserl’s concept of the earth as _Boden_ or ground. Against Husserl, Merleau-Ponty regards the earth seen as pure _Boden_ as an idealization. He emphasizes the ontological necessity for the earth as _Boden_ to always hypostasize itself into the Copernican concept of earth as object. In turn, Merleau-Ponty builds this necessity into an essential feature of being, allowing (...) himself to retrieve ontology itself from its status as external to being, and to make room for it within the structure of being: ontology is one of the ways in which experiences become objectified, thereby allowing being to achieve its essential movement of hypostatization. (shrink)

The volume offers the first large-scale study of the teaching of Descartes' philosophy in the early modern age. Its twenty chapters explore the clash between Descartes' "new" philosophy and the established pedagogical practices and institutional concerns, as well as the various strategies employed by Descartes' supporters in order to communicate his ideas to their students. The volume considers a vast array of topics, sources, and institutions, across the borders of countries and confessions, both within and without the university setting (public (...) conferences, private tutorials, distance learning by letter) and enables us thereby to reconsider from a fresh perspective the history of early modern philosophy and education. (shrink)

Descartes' conception of facultive inference is of a simple, primitive, unanalyzable, unmediated, unjustifiable "mental operation by which one grasps connections between one's ideas," in contrast to Aristotle's discursive inference consisting in "spelling out and analyzing its steps". Gaukroger shows why Descartes takes Aristotelian syllogistic to be merely presentative of material already known, and thus takes deduction to be only a way of ordering and displaying this knowledge. For Descartes, only synthesis leads to new knowledge. Thus it is a mistake to (...) give an "apriorist and deductivist interpretation of Descartes's method... whereby all scientific knowledge is... deduced from the cogito". One "problem with a purely deductive approach... is... that... first principles take us to every possible world". To settle which account is of the actual world, we must resort to experiment. Also leading to a nondeductive method in science is Descartes' doctrine of God's creation of truths which means that "human knowledge can no longer be modeled in any way on divine knowledge". Descartes' three-part problem-solving method, then, is to pose the problem in quantitative terms, test the solutions experimentally, and incorporate the solution into his system of natural philosophy. (shrink)

In this transdisciplinary article which stems from philosophical considerations (that depart from phenomenology—after Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger and Rosen—and Hegelian dialectics), we develop a conception based on topological (the Moebius surface and the Klein bottle) and geometrical considerations (based on torsion and non-orientability of manifolds), and multivalued logics which we develop into a unified world conception that surmounts the Cartesian cut and Aristotelian logic. The role of torsion appears in a self-referential construction of space and time, which will be further related (...) to the commutator of the True and False operators of matrix logic, still with a quantum superposed state related to a Moebius surface, and as the physical field at the basis of Spencer-Brown’s primitive distinction in the protologic of the calculus of distinction. In this setting, paradox, self-reference, depth, time and space, higher-order non-dual logic, perception, spin and a time operator, the Klein bottle, hypernumbers due to Musès which include non-trivial square roots of ±1 and in particular non-trivial nilpotents, quantum field operators, the transformation of cognition to spin for two-state quantum systems, are found to be keenly interwoven in a world conception compatible with the philosophical approach taken for basis of this article. The Klein bottle is found not only to be the topological in-formation for self-reference and paradox whose logical counterpart in the calculus of indications are the paradoxical imaginary time waves, but also a classical-quantum transformer (Hadamard’s gate in quantum computation) which is indispensable to be able to obtain a complete multivalued logical system, and still to generate the matrix extension of classical connective Boolean logic. We further find that the multivalued logic that stems from considering the paradoxical equation in the calculus of distinctions, and in particular, the imaginary solutions to this equation, generates the matrix logic which supersedes the classical logic of connectives and which has for particular subtheories fuzzy and quantum logics. Thus, from a primitive distinction in the vacuum plane and the axioms of the calculus of distinction, we can derive by incorporating paradox, the world conception succinctly described above. (shrink)

Esta reflexão pretende mostrar o discurso racional cartesiano na segunda prova da existência de Deus. Para tanto, Descartes se depara com uma pergunta central: qual a causa da existência da res cogitans que é finita e possui a ideia de infinito? A resposta é encontrada na desproporcionalidade ontológica entre o finito e o infinito. Essa desproporcionalidade é elucidada mediante dois conceitos: o princípio de causalidade que determina que a causa deve ser igual ou superior a coisa causada e o princípio (...) de criação contínua em que a causa que criou o ser não é menor do que aquela que o conserva em sua existência. As objeções destacadas no texto contra os argumentos cartesianos foram escolhas deliberadas que servem para elucidar a importância da racionalidade como fundamento para a prova da existência de Deus. A relação entre o entendimento e a liberdade, apresentada no texto sucintamente, justifica a impossibilidade da res cogitans ser causa de si mesma. Palavras-chave: Infinito; finito; causalidade; criação contínuaThis essay aims to show the rational Cartesian discourse on the second proof of God’s existence. In order to do so, Descartes faces a core question: which is the cause for the existence of the res cogitans that is finite in front of the idea of the infinite? The answer is found in the ontological disproportionality between the finite and the infinite. This disproportionality is elucidated through a couple crucial concepts: the principle of causality, which determines that the cause must be equal or superior to the caused thing and the principle of continuous creation, in which the cause that created the being is not inferior than the one that preserves its existence. The objections highlighted in the text against the Cartesian arguments were deliberated choices, to elucidate the relevance of rationality as the foundation for the proof of God’s existence. The relation between the understanding and the liberty, showed on the text even if succinctly, justifies the impossibility of the res cogitans to be the cause of itself. Key words: Infinite; finite; causality; creation continuous. (shrink)

Descartes affords several notions of consciousness as he explains the characteristics of the diverse features of human thought from infancy to adulthood and from dreaming to attentive wakefulness. The paper argues that Descartes has a rich and coherent view of conscious mentality from rudimentary consciousness through reflexive consciousness to consciousness achieved by deliberate, attentive reflection.

We establish, generalizing Di Nola and Lettieri’s categorical equivalence, a Morita-equivalence between the theory of lattice-ordered abelian groups and that of perfect MV-algebras. Further, after observing that the two theories are not bi-interpretable in the classical sense, we identify, by considering appropriate topos-theoretic invariants on their common classifying topos, three levels of bi-interpretability holding for particular classes of formulas: irreducible formulas, geometric sentences, and imaginaries. Lastly, by investigating the classifying topos of the theory of perfect MV-algebras, we obtain various results (...) on its syntax and semantics also in relation to the cartesian theory of the variety generated by Chang’s MV-algebra, including a concrete representation for the finitely presentable models of the latter theory as finite products of finitely presentable perfect MV-algebras. Among the results established on the way, we mention a Morita-equivalence between the theory of lattice-ordered abelian groups and that of cancellative lattice-ordered abelian monoids with bottom element. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that commentators have missed a significant clue given by Descartes in coming to understand his 'ontological' proof for the existence of God. In both the analytic and synthetic presentations of the proof throughout his writings, Descartes notes that the proof works 'in the same way' as a particular geometrical proof. I explore the significance of such a parallel, and conclude that Descartes could not have intended readers to think that the argument consists of some kind (...) of intuition. I argue that for Descartes the attribute of existence is a 'second-order' attribute that is demonstrated to belong to the idea of God on the basis of 'first-order' attributes. The proof, properly understood, is in fact a demonstration. Having brought to light the geometrical parallels between the ontological and geometrical proofs, we have new evidence to resolve the 'intuition versus demonstration' controversy that has characterized much of the discussion of Descartes's ontological argument. (shrink)

This article reexamines Vico’s early critique of Cartesian reasoning and of how the Cartesian method, which comes from epistemology, creates problems for the sciences once embedded into their methodologies and given a foundational role. The focus will be on De nostri temporis studiorum ratione (1709), where Vico argues against generalizing the Cartesian method and overemphasizing clarity and distinctness in the search for truth. To this end, Vico’s relation to Cartesianism is first carefully contextualized. Then, Vico is presented (...) as a hylomorphist when it comes to how scientific disciplines and their instruments interrelate, something key for understanding why he questions the “instrumentalization” of the Cartesian method in the first place. Afterwards, Vico’s account of the impossibility of maximal scientific progress when the Cartesian method is prioritized across the sciences is presented, as probabilistic reasoning and the importance of the imagination and memory take centerstage. Lastly, the article looks at Vico’s opposition to the geometrical method’s role in physics and his defense of visual thinking in mathematics. The hope throughout is to advance a picture of the early Vico as being not only a neo- Baconian pragmatist, but a hypermodern ”meta-Cartesian” thinker concerned with humanity’s optimizing its creative potential in order to achieve scientific advances. (shrink)

A study of what Descartes calls émotions in his Passions of the Soul suggests that, rather than just a theory of passions—as Descartes himself explicitly claims to be proposing—he was in practice putting forward a more comprehensive theory of passions-émotions, a unified theory which would be closer to what today should properly be called Descartes’ theory of emotions. I try here to make explicit the grounds of this unity by showing that émotions both fit within the functional account Descartes attributes (...) to what he calls passions; and complement the intentionality of passions by expanding it to new objects. In order to show this I offer also a tentative distinction, functionally and intentionally, between passions and émotions in general, on one hand, and, on the other, between the two apparent types of émotions Descartes refers to in the treatise—interior or internal [intérieure] and intellectual [intellectuelle] émotions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Old Orders for New Ecology, Animal Rights, and the Poverty of HumanismCary Wolfe (bio)Luc Ferry. The New Ecological Order. Trans. Carol Volk. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1995.1Early on in The New Ecological Order, the French philosopher Luc Ferry characterizes the allure and danger of ecology in the postmodern moment. What separates it from various other issues in the intellectual and political field, he writes, is thatit can (...) call itself a true “world vision,” whereas the decline of political utopias, but also the parcelization of knowledge and the growing “jargonization” of individual scientific disciplines, seemed to forever prohibit any plan for the globalization of thought.... At a time when ethical guide marks are more than ever floating and undetermined, it allows the unhoped-for promise of rootedness to form, an objective rootedness, certain of a new moral ideal.[xx]As we shall see, for Ferry—a staunch liberal humanist in the Kantian if not quite Cartesian tradition—this vision conceals a danger to which contemporary European intellectuals are especially sensitive: not holism, nor even moralism, exactly, but that far more charged and historically freighted thing, totalitarianism. Ferry’s concern is that such “world visions,” incarnated in contemporary environmentalism in movements such as Deep Ecology and ecofeminism, threaten “[o]ur entire democratic culture,” which “since the French Revolution, has been marked, for basic philosophical reasons, by the glorification of uprootedness, or innovation” [xxi]. Ferry’s thesis—it becomes quite explicit in his comparison of environmental legislation under the Third Reich with tenets of Deep Ecology in the book’s second section—is that Deep Ecology and its ilk have moved in to occupy the space left open by the passing of the political imaginaries of fascism and communism, so that denunciations of liberalism (and its corollary in political praxis, reformism) may now be unmasked for what they are: critiques “in the name of nostalgia, or, on the contrary, in that of hope: either the nostalgia for a lost past, for national identity flouted by the culture of rootlessness, or revolutionary hope in a radiant future, in a classless and free society” [xxvi]. To which Ferry responds—literally—“Grow up!” Late in the book, he tells us that we must see through “the adult development of the secular and democratic universe” [137] by rejecting totalizing revolutionary visions of the sort purveyed by Deep Ecology, and by adhering instead to liberal reformism, “the only [End Page 21] position consistent with leaving the world of childhood” [138].Ferry is certainly right to draw our attention to the often uncritical nostalgia and romantic holism of some varieties of environmental thought—problems that have been noted before by critics from points on the map very different politically from Ferry’s avowed liberal humanism. And it is certainly understandable, given the historical context, that he would join a long list of other European intellectuals in pointing out the manifold dangers to democratic society of totalizing moral schemes—dangers often represented for liberal intellectuals like Ferry by the rise of the Greens in European politics. 1 We do well to remember, too (as Fredric Jameson and others have pointed out), that for European intellectuals such as Ferry, liberalism retains, for understandable historical reasons, a viability and a promise about which many American intellectuals are skeptical or even jaded. European intellectuals, conditioned by the experience of fascist authoritarianism and the strong but problematic presence historically of the Communist party in social and intellectual life, may find in liberalism a refreshing and indeed radical democratic openness and dynamism, while American intellectuals, conditioned to the absence of any other major political contenders, have long since grown accustomed to liberalism as the name for that “end of ideology” position which, as Jameson puts it, “can function more effectively after its own death as an ideology, realizing itself in its most traditional form as a commitment to the market system that has become sheer common sense and no longer a political program” [249, my emphasis].But in defending democratic difference, everything hinges, of course, on precisely how such terms are framed and how difference is articulated—an index of which often may be found in how its imagined... (shrink)

Today, when it comes to soul-body dualism, the view that comes to mind is the substance dualism that Descartes systematized. As the name suggests, this dualism implies that there are two different types of substances. Similarly, although Ibn Sīnā also adopted a kind of substance dualism by stating that the soul is a different type of substance than matter, his dualism differs from Descartes’ in important aspects. It can be said that the most important reason for this difference is that (...) both ideas belong to different traditions. While Ibn Sīnā’s dualism carries the traces of Aristotelian hylomorphism, Cartesian thought is built on the post-Newtonian understanding of the mechanical universe. This significant difference has deeply affected soul-body conception of both philosophers. The aim of this study is to reveal the fundamental differences between the dualistic understandings of these philosophers in the context of soul-body. Thus, it will become clearer where the Avicennian dualism stands in terms of contemporary philosophy of mind. In this context, the first question to be addressed here is whether, according to both philosophers, the immaterial part of man means the same thing. The answer to this question is negative. The functions that Ibn Sīnā and Descartes attribute to the immaterial substance are quite different from each other. According to Descartes, it can be said that the soul is actually identical with the mind. Because, he describes the soul as the substance whose essence is to think. Here, Descartes is not only referring to theoretical calculations by thinking. It also includes phenomenal consciousness, that is, conscious phenomena, which is also called qualia in contemporary philosophy of mind. Thus, according to the Cartesian tradition, the fundamental distinction between soul/mind (the immaterial substance) and body is phenomenal consciousness: A thing is a soul only if it can have phenomenal consciousness. Whereas, Ibn Sīnā does not see phenomenal consciousness, which is the most basic function that the present Cartesian dualist tradition attributes to the soul, as the basic function of the immaterial substance. In fact, he does not even see it as a function of the human nafs. In other words, according to him, the main function of the human nafs is not to feel/experience or to have phenomenal consciousness. Such functions can also be performed by animals that do not have an immaterial substance. According to Ibn Sīnā, the main functions of the human soul are theoretical or universal thinking and being self-conscious. One of the places where this distinction can be seen most clearly is their thoughts about animal souls. Both philosophers argue that animals do not have an immaterial substance in addition to their material bodies. However, while this means that animals are unconscious automatons for one philosopher (Descartes), it does not mean anything like that for the other. Because, according to Avicenna, an immaterial substance is not necessary to have consciousness or feeling. However, according to Descartes, for a being to be conscious or sentient requires it to have an immaterial substance. Since animals do not have such (substantial) souls, Descartes saw them as unconscious robots. Another point where the same difference can be observed is an argument put forward by Avicenna to prove this immaterial substance, which he addresses as the human soul. According to Avicenna’s argument, the existence of an immaterial substance is necessary for man’s access to universal knowledge, not for having consciousness. However, according to the argument used in the Cartesian tradition and known as the unity of consciousness argument, the existence of immaterial substance is necessary for the unity of consciousness (not knowledge). The aim of this study is to reveal the basic differences between the dualistic understandings of these philosophers in the context of soul and body. In order to reveal these differences, the following points will be discussed: The question of whether animals are conscious and Avicenna’s argument mentioned above. Because the differences in the handling of these two issues by both philosophers will guide us to reveal the fundamental differences in their dualistic understanding. In this study, it will be argued that the dualistic understanding of Avicenna and Descartes in the context of soul-body are radically different from each other, especially over these two issues. (shrink)

The sixth chapter focuses on the evolution of Cartesianism in the last quarter of the seventeenth century in Leiden and Amsterdam, against the background of the emergence of alternative views in natural philosophy capable of replacing it as a dominant paradigm, namely, the experimental philosophy of Robert Boyle and the mathematical-experimental approach of Huygens and Newton. The last evolution of Cartesianism is reconstructed in this chapter by considering the ‘Cartesian empiricism’ of Burchard de Volder, and the reflections on the (...) language of philosophy and practical disciplines by De Raey in Amsterdam, where he moved in 1669. In 1675 De Volder established the Leiden Theatrum physicum. There he performed experiments in order to teach the principles of a mechanical philosophy largely inspired by Descartes but open to the use of experimental and mathematical evidences in the formulation of natural laws. A similar approach was in fact assumed in the same years by Wolferd Senguerd, who used the Theatrum to perform experiments in pneumatics to teach some of the principles of his eclectic worldview, encompassing some Cartesian principles (such as that of the circularity of movement), but also rejecting the vortex theory. Yet, only De Volder developed a foundational theory for the basic principles of mechanicism, namely, the assumption that every phenomenon can be explained by the notions of matter and movement alone. This was the result of a movement internal to Cartesianism, as De Volder not only reacted (positively) to the emergence of an experimental-mathematical natural philosophy, but was also involved in the defence of Cartesianism against the Censura philosophiae cartesianae of PierreDaniel Huet (1689), in which Descartes’s metaphysics is rejected as inconsistent given its very foundation on doubt and cogito. The intermingling of these different issues resulted, in De Volder’s hands, in a further de-metaphysicisation of physics – as metaphysics cannot provide a justification for the laws of motion – and in the narrowing of the scope of foundationalism, which can only sanction the psychological character of clarity and distinction as a criterion for internal truth, defined in terms of indubitability only. Accordingly, for De Volder metaphysics cannot demonstrate, on a Cartesian basis, that phenomena are actually ruled by the principles of mechanism: insofar as, for him, metaphysics has a prominent reflective role, and loses its status as justification of the absolute truth of scientific statements. This process can be labelled as the transition from foundationalism to philosophy of science and does not characterise only his ‘Cartesian empiricism’. In Amsterdam, De Raey was, over the same years, developing his Cogitata de interpretatione (1692), embodying one of the first, self-standing philosophical considerations of language. Still maintaining his separation thesis, and attacking Hobbes and the radical Cartesians, in this text he aimed to clarify how words meaning sensory data and abstract notions (such as those of mathematics) can be used in philosophy. Rather than setting a method for how to use mental faculties, De Raey aimed, at the end of his career, to provide an updating of the linguistic meanings of scientific vocabulary, namely, a reflection rather than a justification of science. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of constructing a Cartesian space-time that can resolve the dilemma posed by a famous argument from Newton's early essay, De gravitatione. In particular, Huygens' concept of a center-of-mass reference frame is utilized in an attempt to reconcile Descartes' relationalist theory of space and motion with both the Cartesian analysis of bodily impact and conservation law for quantity of motion. After presenting a modern formulation of a Cartesian space-time employing Huygens' frames, a series (...) of Newtonian counter-replies are developed in order to estimate the viability of this relationalist project. (shrink)

Cartesian closed categories (CCCs) have played and continue to play an important role in the study of the semantics of programming languages. An axiomatization of the isomorphisms which hold in all Cartesian closed categories discovered independently by Soloviev and Bruce, Di Cosmo and Longo leads to seven equalities. We show that the unification problem for this theory is undecidable, thus settling an open question. We also show that an important subcase, namely unification modulo the linear isomorphisms, is NP-complete. (...) Furthermore, the problem of matching in CCCs is NP-complete when the subject term is irreducible. CCC-matching and unification form the basis for an elegant and practical solution to the problem of retrieving functions from a library indexed by types investigated by Rittri. It also has potential applications to the problem of polymorphic type inference and polymorphic higher-order unification, which in turn is relevant to theorem proving and logic programming. (shrink)

Husserl on the Ego and its Eidos (Cartesian Meditations, IV) ALFREDO FERRARIN THE THEORY OF the intentionality of consciousness is essential for Husserl's philosophy, and in particular for his mature theory of the ego. But it runs into serious difficulties when it has to account for consciousness's transcendental constitution of its own reflective experience and its relation to immanent time. This intricate knot, the inseparability of time and constitution, is most visibly displayed in Husserl's writings from the 192os up (...) to the notion of the eidos ego in the fourth Cartesian Meditation. In this paper I want to dwell on the most problematic aspects of this theory. After a few preliminary remarks about the intentionality of consciousness (sec- tion 1), I try to place the theory of the substrate of habitualities in the context of Husserl's evolution on the issue of the reflection of the ego on itself (section ~). I briefly follow the threads of Husserl's shifting position from the Logical Investi- gat/ons and Ideas I to Ideas II, the Cartesian Meditations and the Cr/s/s. I indicate Husserl's works are quoted with the following abbreviations: CM = Cartesiani.~he Meditationen, Husserliana Bd. I, hrsg. v. S. Strasser (Den Haag, 195o); Carte- s/an M~, trans. D. Cairns (Dordrecht, 196o ) SW = Husserl, Shorter Works, ed. P. McCormick and F. Elliston (Notre Dame, 198a) IZ = Zur Phttnomenologie des inneren Zeilheun~tseim (z 893-z 917), Husserliana Bd. X, hrsg. v. R. Boehm (Den Haag, 1966 ) Ideen I = ldeen zu einer reinen Ph~nomenologie und ph~nomenologischen Philosophic, Husserliana Bd. III, hrsg. v. W. Biemel (Den Haag, t95o); Ideas I, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague, Boston, Lancaster, s983) ldeen// = ld., Hussefliana Bd. IV, hrsg. v. M. Biemel (Den Haag, 1952); Ideas I1, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (Dordrecht, Boston, London, x 989) FTL = Forma/e und transzendenta~ Log/k, Husserliana Bd. XVII, hrsg. v. P. Janssen (Den Haag, t974) Kr/sh = Kr/s/s der europ~/schen W/ssen~haften, Husserliana Bd. VI, hrsg. v. W. Biemel (Den Haag, 1954) I wish to express my gratitude to Pierre Kerszberg and Alessandra Fussi for their helpful com- ments on an earlier draft of the paper, and to Graham Harman for checking the final version of my English text. [645] 646 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:4 OCTOBER 1994 some historical antecedents, in particular Aristotle, of Husserl's theory of abid- ing properties which, as far as I can see, have not been pointed out before. Husserl's Entwicklungsgeschichte on the topic of the pure ego has already been the object of important scholarly works, of which Kern's 1964 Husserl und Kant seems to me the best example. But what the secondary literature does not do is develop thematically the ambiguities of Husserl's definitions of consciousness and temporality in a unitary and comprehensive way. While I follow the lead of Berger, Broekman, Kern, Marbach,' and others, I find that their work does not sufficiently stress the difficulties at the core ofintentionality and reflective time- consciousness. Therefore, although section 2 is a necessary presupposition for drawing some critical conclusions in the final two sections, it does not exhaust my theme. After clarifying the peculiarity of the notions of essence, intuition, tran- scendental and apriori, as well as their irl:educibility to a Kantian meaning, I turn to the "de facto transcendental ego" resulting from eidetic variation (section 3) in order to introduce an examination of temporality. The difficul- ties in the twofold requirement, namely, that consciousness be the identical subject of its Erlebnisse and be synthetically unified in time, concern the unity, primacy, and mutual relation of time and consciousness in the constitution of our experience. They have been heady pointed out by Ricoeur in his commen- tary on the Cartesian Meditations. But what I want to argue in section 4, going beyond Ricoeur's text, is that the tension between temporally constituted and constitutive consciousness in the ego's reflection on its own retentions and protensions does not simply make the question of time ambiguous, but has crucial and problematic bearings on the very definition of consciousness as intentionality. In this respect... -/- . (shrink)

After a long time, people are still debating over “Cartesian-like Dualism” (CLD), i.e. towards the separation of “res-extensa” from “res-cogitans”. Since we suspect that this is due to a general attraction of mind towards the darkness of metaphysics, we have investigated the mental origin of this attraction. In human mind, we can envisage three different functional levels emerging one from the other like in a Matrioska; the three levels cause the arousal of as many forms of “dualisms”: 1) The (...) 1st-level corresponds to the “Dual-state” of mind, an archetypic dualism made of Unconscious Mind (UM, the domain of biophysical/biochemical signals) and Conscious Mind (CM, the domain of thoughts, images and sounds), genetically committed to reciprocal and fruitful interactions. 2) the 2nd-level corresponds to “Double-perspective” dualism; it emerges from CM’s splitting into two opposite perspectives: the 1st-order perspective (1PP) (subjective, emotional, Self-oriented, etc.) and the 3rd-order perspective (3PP) (rational, objective, Self-detached, etc.), that are in psychological contraposition. During individual growth, Ego-sense installs in CM with the illusion of possessing FW, and dominates 1PP. Conversely, 3PP is typically interested in scientific argumentations and investigations; so, 3PP confutes 1PP’s convictions on scien-tific bases (e.g. 1PP’s conviction that the binomial Ego-FW is real). Yet, on the one hand, 3PP hasn’t got a scientific alternative to explain “who we really are”, on the other hand, 1PP exhibits a great success in everyday life cognition. Then, we necessarily step over the dualism of the 3rd-level, “Cartesian-like Dualism” (CLD). The emotional origin of this CLD holds back 1PP’s trick to claim its supremacy over 3PP. (shrink)

This work takes into account three Cartesian manuals diffused in 17th century France ; Jacques Rohault, Traité de physique ; Pierre-Sylvain Régis, Cours entier de philosophie, ou système general selon les principes de M. Descartes contenant la logique, la metaphysique, la physique et la morale ) in order to question if the development of an empirical attitude in the scientific research influenced their approaches to the study of motion. The article intends to deepen the role that these authors give (...) to God in the physical structure of the universe with the purpose of investigating whether their analysis of motion is untainted by the metaphysical component or on what terms it remains linked to it. (shrink)

One of the central assumptions made in much of contemporary philosophy of mind is that there is no appearance-reality distinction when it comes to sensory states. On this assumption, sensory states simply are as they seem: consciousness is an intrinsic property of sensory states—that is, all sensory states are conscious—and the consciousness of one’s own sensory states is never inaccurate. For a sensation to be felt as pain, for example, is for it to be pain. This assumption, which I call (...) the Cartesian assumption, can be seen everywhere from the standard arguments against physicalism—such as those advanced by Kripke, Nagel, and Levine—to current theorizing about consciousness. I here argue that this assumption is false and that it goes wrong in two ways. I further argue that the appeal of the Cartesian assumption is due to a commitment many still have to a poorly motivated and misguided Cartesian model of consciousness and its relation to mental states. As an alternative to this Cartesian concept of mind, I argue for a theory of consciousness which claims that the “phenomenal character” of a sensation or perception—the “what it’s like” to have that sensation—is determined by the content of a higher-order thought one has of that sensory state. (shrink)

In this book the authors reconcile two different viewpoints of the foundations of mathematics, namely mathematical logic and category theory. In Part I, they show that typed lambda-calculi, a formulation of higher order logic, and cartesian closed categories are essentially the same. In Part II, it is demonstrated that another formulation of higher order logic is closely related to topos theory. Part III is devoted to recursive functions. Numerous applications of the close relationship between traditional logic and the algebraic (...) language of category theory are given. The authors have included an introduction to category theory and develop the necessary logic as required, making the book essentially self-contained. Detailed historical references are provided throughout, and each section concludes with a set of exercises. Thus it is well-suited for graduate courses and research in mathematics and logic. Researchers in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence and mathematical linguistics will also find this an accessible introduction to a subject of increasing application to these disciplines. (shrink)

Highlighting early modern medicine's program of explanation and intervention, I claim that there are two distinctive features of the physician's naturalism. These are, first, an explicit recognition that each patient had her own individual and highly particularized nature and, second, a self-conscious use of normative descriptions when characterizing a patient's nature as healthy (ordered) or unhealthy (disordered). I go on to maintain that in spite of the well documented Cartesian rejection of Aristotelian natures in favor of laws of nature, (...) Descartes and his most important medical disciple accepted both features of the physician's naturalism where human medicine was concerned. Thus, in this article I critically engage with standard portraits of Cartesianism and naturalism by integrating the histories of science, medicine and philosophy, but especially medicine and philosophy. (shrink)

My dissertation has two main parts. In the first half, I draw out an underlying presupposition of Descartes' philosophy: what I term "atomism of thought." Descartes employs a radical procedure of doubt in order to show that the first principle of his philosophy, the cogito, is an unshakeable foundation of knowledge. In the dialogue that follows his dissemination of the Meditations, Descartes reveals that a whole set of concepts and rational principles innate in our minds are never doubted. These fundamental (...) units of thought are indivisible, distinct, and isolated, and enable the possibility of any rational demonstration. Atoms of thought are perfectly individuated because God has created them as such. Likewise, our minds have been fashioned such that we necessarily have a clear and distinct perception every time we alight upon these simple notions. In the second part of the dissertation, I take up critiques of Descartes' view given by Nietzsche and Heidegger. In the chapter on Nietzsche, I attempt to fill a lacuna in scholarship about Nietzsche's commentary on Descartes. More specifically, I argue that once the foundation of God is displaced, the basis for accepting atomism of thought dissolves. In the final chapter, I analyze Heidegger's critique of Cartesian atomism. I first look at Heidegger's critique of classical truth as correspondence from Being and Time, and show how it is relevant to a critique of atomism. Then I show how the early Heidegger's holistic philosophical framework can provide an alternative that avoids the pitfalls of atomism. While I limit the scope of my analysis to Descartes' particular formulation, atomism of thought was an influential doctrine throughout modern philosophy. This aspect of Cartesianism has persisted and continues to be a significant theoretical underpinning of many contemporary views. It is my contention that Nietzsche and Heidegger have important contributions to make to this area of thought, and the relative neglect of their work in recent scholarship is a detrimental oversight. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 381-395 [Access article in PDF] Minds, Forms, and Spirits: The Nature of Cartesian Disenchantment Han van Ruler What is Descartes's contribution to Enlightenment? Undoubtedly, Cartesian philosophy added to the conflict between philosophical and theological views which divided intellectual life in the Dutch Republic towards the end of its "Golden Age." 1 Although not everyone was as explicit as Lodewijk (...) Meyer, who said that his theological doubts were inspired by Descartes's philosophical method, Cartesianism along with Copernicanism, Socinianism, and Cocceianism played an important part in the growing skepticism towards the authority of Scripture. 2 Apart from Descartes's general method, however, specific Cartesian ideas encouraged a new view towards nature and towards God's role in governing it. In physics and physiology the new philosophy replaced the image of mind working on matter with the image of a self sufficient mechanism. This new causal metaphor led to a typically Cartesian form of "disenchantment." In this article I argue that on account of their approval of a Cartesian theory of causality, even authors with sincere religious motives came close to accepting radical and nearly Spinozistic ideas. I start with disenchantment in a very literal sense: Balthasar Bekker's denial of the activities of devils, angels, and other spirits. A comparison of Bekker's arguments with those of another Cartesian, Arnold Geulincx will, I hope, bring out the nature and importance of what I shall present as [End Page 381] Descartes's "mechanical reduction" in physics. Finally, I argue that the Cartesian separation of mind and body gave rise to a form of disenchantment that reached far beyond contemporary debates. Devils, Ghosts, and God's Omnipotence Balthasar Bekker's classic book The World Bewitched (1691-93) does not so much deal with the practice of sorcery as with its theory. Bekker offers a wide range of theological and philosophical arguments in order to combat the idea that ghosts, devils, and angels influence natural or historical events. In particular Bekker draws some important conclusions from the philosophy of Descartes. Yet it is immediately clear to the reader that the motives for his critique are religious rather than philosophical. 3 The World Bewitched is not written as a scientific assault on superstition. Bekker, at the time serving as a Calvinist minister in Amsterdam, presents his work as a new and perhaps final phase in the perfection of Christianity. For two centuries it had been a goal of the Protestant Reformation to accentuate God's majesty and to establish the idea of His absolute power over creation. Bekker's World again expresses this idea. His denial that ghosts and devils are active in the world is a logical consequence of the belief that there is no room for demigods in nature. Bekker thus adds a final touch to the project of the Reformation. The World Bewitched will testify to the fact "that I return as much of the honor of His Power and Wisdom to the Almighty, as they took from Him who gave it to the Devil. I ban [the Devil] from the World and I bind him in Hell." 4 Removing devils and spirits from nature, Bekker aims to distinguish superstition from true faith. The battle against superstitious beliefs had formed a characteristic element of Protestant tactics. Dutch Calvinists, for instance, took offense at the continuing practices of blessings and incantations. 5 Bekker wanted to go even further. The Protestantization of Christian dogma could only be completed by making everything in nature's course depend on God's unique power and providence. 6 "Science" in our sense of the word was a subsidiary matter. 7 Still, Bekker saw the new scientific theories of his day as useful allies. In particular it was the new philosophy of Descartes that attracted him. Following Descartes, Bekker reasons "that I think, that I will, [End Page 382] [and] that I understand something," without any part of my body being involved in this type of consciousness. Mind and body in fact have nothing in common: My... (shrink)