In this article we search the sense of some letters that Descartes exchanges with Mersenne about a “mean book” in which some emblematic theses of the so called libertinisme érudit are exposed. The correspondance of the 30’s, the period in which the philosopher is constructing his system of metaphysics, shows clearly his antagonic position against the theoretical world of libertinism, and, therefore, the philosophical importance of this intellectual movement at the very moment that the “new philosophy” is being constructed. The (...) relevance that the metaphysics of Descartes gains in historiography of philosophy, might be the reason why that libertinisme érudit has fallen into oblivion until at least the second half of XXth century. (shrink)

In this article, I try to determine the innovatory moment of Descartes´ Metaphysics, that is, the conceptual work that became the turning point in the most significant philosophical polemics in the subsequent period after the construction of Cartesian system. This turning point is the way Descartes thinks the concept of divine power, rather than the discovery of the cogito or its implications in re-shaping knowledge. Starting from this, Descartes will forge the concepts of transcendence and rationality, so essential in his (...) works and all along the second half of XVIIth century. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss one of the most significant strategies in Spinoza’s theoretical approach against those that entrave its understanding in a very powerful way. As well as Descartes, Spinoza uses the inmediate or unreflexive experience for developing his conception of free will or the distinction between body and soul, but he does so in order to prove that the experience is useful to demonstrate some purely anti-Cartesian thesis that express the core principles of Spinozism.

En este artículo se ensaya, por un lado, un examen de la reflexión cartesiana sobre el concepto de sustancia –reflexión que cristaliza en una teoría difusa, dispersa en múltiples pasajes de su obra– subrayando sus puntos más problemáticos (aquellos sobre los cuales la filosofía postcartesiana del XVII se verá obligada a posicionarse, siempre críticamente), y, por otro, un análisis de la manera como la teoría que Descartes construye a propósito de dicho concepto hace plenamente visibles los principios fundamentales que gobiernan (...) la progresiva constitución de su metafísica: el creacionismo divino y las lógicas que éste implica (equivocismo y analogía). (shrink)