14 found
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  1. Al-Ghazālī and Descartes on Defeating Skepticism.Saja Parvizian - 2020 - Journal of Philosophical Research 45:133-148.
    Commentators have noticed the striking similarities between the skep­tical arguments of al-Ghazālī’s Deliverance from Error and Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. However, commentators agree that their solutions to skepticism are radically different. Al-Ghazālī does not use rational proofs to defeat skepticism; rather, he relies on a supernatural light [nūr] sent by God to rescue him from skepticism. Descartes, on the other hand, relies on the natural light of reason [lumen naturale] to prove the existence of God, (...)
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  2. Generosity, the Cogito, and the Fourth Meditation.Saja Parvizian - 2016 - Res Philosophica 93 (1):219-243.
    The standard interpretation of Descartes's ethics maintains that virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and the sciences. Lisa Shapiro, however, has argued that the meditator acquires the virtue of generosity in the Fourth Meditation, and that generosity contributes to her metaphysical achievements. Descartes's ethics and metaphsyics, then, must be intertwined. This view has been gaining traction in the recent literature. Omri Boehm, for example, has argued that generosity is foundational to the cogito. In this paper, I offer a close reading of (...)
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  3.  65
    Scientia, diachronic certainty, and virtue.Saja Parvizian - 2020 - Synthese 198 (10):9165-9192.
    In the Fifth Meditation Descartes considers the problem of knowledge preservation : the challenge of accounting for the diachronic certainty of perfect knowledge [scientia]. There are two general solutions to PKP in the literature: the regeneration solution and the infallible memory solution. While both readings pick up on features of Descartes’ considered view, I argue that they ultimately fall short. Salvaging pieces from both readings and drawing from Descartes’ virtue theory, I argue on textual and systematic grounds for a dispositionalist (...)
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  4.  46
    Cartesian Imperativism.Joseph Gottlieb & Saja Parvizian - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (4):702-725.
    We propose a novel reading of Descartes' views on the nature of pain, thirst, and hunger: imperativism. According to imperativism, rather than (exclusively) having intentional contents individuated by a set of correctness conditions specifying the way the world is, pain thirst, and hunger have contents individuated by satisfaction conditions, which specify the way the world ought to be. Unlike representationalist treatments, the imperativist reading satisfies the unique health-preserving role Descartes sets out for pain, thirst, and hunger, without inflating his austere (...)
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  5.  29
    Averroës’ Takfīr of al-Ghazālı̄: Ta’wīl and Causal Kufr.Saja Parvizian - 2021 - American Journal of Islam and Society 38 (1-2):65-100.
    Al-Ghazālı̄ famously claims in the Incoherence of the Philosophers that al-Fārābī and Avicenna are unbelievers because they hold philosophical positions that conflict with Islam. What is less well-known, however, is that Averroës claims in the Decisive Treatise that al-Fārābī and Avicenna are not unbelievers; rather, al-Ghazālı̄ is the true unbeliever for writing the Incoherence of the Philosophers. In this paper, my aim is to present a sustained reconstruction of Averroës’ legal and philosophical argument for why al-Ghazālı̄ is an unbeliever. The (...)
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  6. Descartes’ God is a deceiver, and that’s OK.Joseph Gottlieb & Saja Parvizian - 2023 - Synthese 202 (3):1-29.
    That Descartes’ God is not a deceiver is amongst the canonical claims of early modern philosophy. The significance of this (purported) fact to the coherence of Descartes’ system is likewise canonical, infused in how we teach and think about the _Meditations_. Though prevalent, both ends of this narrative are suspect. We argue that Descartes’ color eliminativism, when coupled with his analysis of the cognitive structure of our sensory systems, entails that God is a deceiver. It’s doubtful that Descartes recognized this, (...)
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  7. Leibniz on Intellectual Pleasure, Perception of Perfection, and Power.Saja Parvizian - 2021 - Theoria 87 (3):600-627.
    Leibniz is unclear about the nature of pleasure. In some texts, he describes pleasure as a perception of perfection, while in other texts he describes pleasure as being caused by a perception of perfection. In this article, I disambiguate two senses of “perception of perfection”, which clarifies Leibniz’s considered position. I argue that pleasure is a perception of an increase in a substance’s power which is caused by a substance’s knowledge of a perfection of the universe or God. This reading (...)
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  8. Descartes on the Unity of the Virtues.Saja Parvizian - 2022 - Journal of Philosophical Research 47:43-60.
    Commentators have neglected a tension in Descartes’s virtue theory. In some texts, Descartes seems to argue that there are distinct virtues. In other texts, Descartes seems to argue that there is only a single virtue—the firm and constant resolution to use the will well. In this paper, I reconcile this tension. I argue that Descartes endorses a specific version of the unity of the virtues thesis, namely, the identity of the virtues. Nonetheless, Descartes has the resources to draw conceptual distinctions (...)
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  9.  96
    Al-Ghazālī, nativism, and divine interventionism.Saja Parvizian - 2023 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 31 (6):1-23.
    ABSTRACT Al-Ghazālī’s engagement with scepticism in the Deliverance from Error has received much attention in recent literature, often in the context of comparing him with Descartes. However, there is one curious text that has gone largely unnoticed by commentators. In his account of how he overcame scepticism vis-à-vis a divine light cast unto his heart, al-Ghazālī makes a cryptic claim that suggests that primary truths are inherent to the mind, and that said cognitive status of primary truths is related to (...)
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  10.  53
    Against Passionate Epistemology.Saja Parvizian - 2023 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 40 (3):258-277.
    A revisionary reading of Descartes's epistemology has emerged in the literature. Some commentators have argued that Descartes subscribes to passionate epistemology, which claims that epistemic progress in the Meditations requires contributions from the meditator's passions. This paper argues that the passions cannot perform any epistemic work in the Meditations. As such, the meditator's passions do not require us to revise our canonical understanding of the Meditations as an exercise of pure thought. Furthermore, we need not abandon the standard claim that (...)
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  11.  48
    Descartes: Ethics.Saja Parvizian - 2020 - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    This article describes the main topics of Descartes’ ethics through discussion of key primary texts and corresponding interpretations in the secondary literature. Although Descartes never wrote a treatise dedicated solely to ethics, commentators have uncovered an array of texts that demonstrate a rich analysis of virtue, the good, happiness, moral judgment, the passions, and the systematic relationship between ethics and the rest of philosophy. The following ethical claims are often attributed to Descartes: the supreme good consists in virtue, which is (...)
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  12.  16
    Descartes on What "Truly Belongs" to Us.Saja Parvizian - 2021 - The Annals of the University of Bucharest - Philosophy Series (2):26-46.
    In recent literature commentators have challenged the standard interpretation that the Cartesian Self is a res cogitans. Various modifications have been proposed: the will should be regarded as an essential feature of thought as well (not just the intellect), and even the body – in some sense – belongs to the Cartesian Self. While these modifications are important, commentators have neglected Descartes’ wholly different conception of the Self in the Passions of the Soul. In his definition of generosity, Descartes claims (...)
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  13. On the Attainment of Cartesian Virtue: Ontology and Generosity.Saja Parvizian - 2010 - Dissertation, San Francisco State University
    In this thesis I argue that foundational to attaining Cartesian generosity, both as a passion and as a virtue are the clear and distinct perceptions of mind, God, and body. I challenge Lisa Shapiro’s account of generosity, and her suggestion that generosity regulates the passions expressed in the Meditations. Unlike Shapiro I attend closely to the distinction between the passion of generosity and the virtue of generosity, and how to acquire these different states of the soul. I propose that the (...)
     
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  14. On the Systematicity of Descartes' Ethics: Generosity, Metaphysics, and Scientia.Saja Parvizian - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Illinois at Chicago
    Descartes is not widely recognized for his ethics; indeed, most readers are unaware that he had an ethics. However, Descartes placed great importance on his ethics, claiming that ethics is the highest branch of his philosophical system. I aim to understand the systematic relationship Descartes envisions between his ethics and the rest of his philosophy, particularly his metaphysics and epistemology. I defend three main theses. First, I argue against the recent trend in the literature that claims that the chief virtue (...)
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