René Descartes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bredo Johnsen
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Necessary Existence ◽  
Do So

In this chapter the authors offer a new reading of Meditation I. First, there is no such thing as “the dream argument” to be found in it; Descartes offers two entirely distinct dream-centered arguments in Meditation I. Second, he never says that any of his three radical skeptical hypotheses—that he has no body, that he is being massively deceived by God, or by a Demon—is possible. The reason he does not do so is that those scenarios are incompatible with the necessary existence of God, which he thinks he has proven. Meditation I is a spectacularly successful rhetorical effort to get his readers to join him in his investigations.

René Descartes (1596-1650) and the early Royal Society

1950 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Perfection ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Better Than

logical demonstrations as possibly fallacious, and waking thoughts as perhaps no better than dreams, he yet remained convinced of his own existence as a thinking, doubting being— je Pense, donc je suis . Thence, by a process of reasoning which has not escaped criticism, he infers the existence of God, Whose moral perfection then guarantees the validity of all propositions which the mind clearly and distinctly apprehends to be true. One such proposition is the existence of matter characterized only by extension in space and by the capacity for motion.

scholarly journals Locke, God, and Materialism

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-132
Author(s):  
Stewart Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Cosmological Argument ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Main Claim ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Important Argument ◽  
Ralph Cudworth

This chapter investigates Locke’s views about materialism, by looking at the discussion in Essay IV.x. There Locke—after giving a cosmological argument for the existence of God—argues that God could not be material, and that matter alone could never produce thought. In discussing the chapter, I pay particular attention to some comparisons between Locke’s position and those of two other seventeenth-century philosophers, René Descartes and Ralph Cudworth. Making use of those comparisons, I argue for two main claims. The first is that the important argument of Essay IV.x.10 is fundamentally an argument about the causation of perfections. Indeed, Locke gives multiple such arguments in the chapter. My second main claim is that my proposed reading of IV.x is not merely consistent with what Locke says elsewhere about superaddition, but also provides reasons to favor a particular understanding of what superaddition is.

The Price of Truth: Reciprocity, Giving, and Generosity in the Philosophy of René Descartes

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 147-170
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Science ◽  
Homo Oeconomicus ◽  
Intellectual Activity ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Economic Thinking ◽  
Selfish Interest

The article provides a comparison of the concept of homo œconomicus with the core theses of René Descartes’ moral philosophy. The first section draws on the work of the contemporary Western philosopher Anselm Jappe in which Descartes’ philosophy is held to be the cornerstone of the established view and current scientific definitions of homo œconomicus as the fundamental and indispensable agent of capitalistic relations. As opposed to this “common sense” position in the modern social sciences, the second section of the article builds upon Pierre Bourdieu’s Anthropologie économique (2017) to demystify the notion of homo œconomicus. The article then examines some aspects of modern philosophical anthropology that show odd traces of Descartes’ thinking and that are regularly applied in economic science as well as in the critique of economic thinking as such. These are the concepts of mutuality, giving, exchange and generosity, and they are regarded as central to the philosopher’s moral doctrine.The author concludes that the philosophical doctrine of generosity has very little in common with the bourgeois ideology of utility which implies an instrumental relationship between subjects: in Caretesian moral philosophy the Other is neither an object of influence nor a means to achieve someone’s personal goals nor a windowless monad. Generosity certainly has its economic aspects, but these do not include accumulating wealth in the bourgeois sense. It is more in the realm of the aristocratic practice of making dispensations. All throughout his life Decartes may be viewed as exhibiting a peculiar kind of nobility in which the desire to give, endow and sacrifice outweighs any selfish interest. The vigorous pursuit of well-being gives way to a quest for the leisure required to pursue intellectual activity, and care for oneself does not preclude attending to and loving the Other, whatever form it may take.

Being and Reason

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lin
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence And Nonexistence ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Necessary Existence

In Being and Reason, Martin Lin offers a new interpretation of Spinoza’s core metaphysical doctrines with attention to how and why, in Spinoza, metaphysical notions are entangled with cognitive, logical, and epistemic ones. For example, according to Spinoza, a substance is that which can be conceived through itself, and a mode is that which is conceived through another. Thus, metaphysical notions, substance and mode, appear to be defined through a notion that is either cognitive or logical, being conceived through. What are we to make of the intimate connections that Spinoza sees between metaphysical, cognitive, logical, and epistemic notions? Or between being and reason? Lin argues against idealist readings according to which the metaphysical is reducible to or grounded in something epistemic, logical, or psychological. He maintains that Spinoza sees the order of being and the order of reason as two independent structures that mirror one another. In the course of making this argument, he develops new interpretations of Spinoza’s notions of attribute and mode, and of Spinoza’s claim that all things strive for self-preservation. Lin also argues against prominent idealist readings of Spinoza according to which the Principle of Sufficient Reason is absolutely unrestricted for Spinoza and is the key to his system. He contends, rather, that Spinoza’s metaphysical rationalism is a diverse phenomenon and that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is limited to claims about existence and nonexistence which are applied only once by Spinoza to the case of the necessary existence of God.

La disparition des formes aristotéliciennes. À propos d'une démarche clandestine dans les Méditations

Dialogue ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-548
Author(s):  
Georges Moyal
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
René Descartes

RÉSUMÉMême si l'appréhension que l'on peut avoir des formes aristotéliciennes résulte de ce qu'Aristote nomme «induction», rien ne nécessite que leurs composantes soient reliées entre elles de façon intelligible, comme le sont, au contraire, les propriétés de la matière. C'est ce qui porte René Descartes à en débarrasser les sciences par une démarche effectuée subrepticement dans sa VIe Méditation, et à leur substituer la matière, dénominateur commun des êtres naturels. C'est cette démarche — elle continue d’éluder certains de ses lecteurs —, que nous tentons de mettre au jour dans ce qui suit.

Beautiful Surfaces

Nuncius ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-287
Author(s):  
Eleanor Chan
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Latin Translation ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Critical Interpretation

The assumption that the Cartesian bête-machine is the invention of René Descartes (1596–1650) is rarely contested. Close examination of Descartes’ texts proves that this is a concept founded not on the basis of his own writings, but a subsequent critical interpretation, which developed and began to dominate his work after his death. Descartes’ Treatise on Man, published posthumously in two rival editions, Florentius Schuyl’s Latin translation De Homine (1662), and Claude Clerselier’s Traité de l’ homme, has proved particularly problematic. The surviving manuscript copies of the Treatise on Man left no illustrations, leaving both editors the daunting task of producing a set of images to accompany and clarify the fragmented text. In this intriguing case, the images can be seen to have spoken louder than the text which they illustrated. This paper assesses Schuyl’s choice to represent Descartes’ Man in a highly stylized manner, without superimposing Clerselier’s intentions onto De Homine.

Princess Elisabeth and the Problem of Mind-Body Interaction

Hypatia ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Tollefsen
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Body Interaction ◽  
René Descartes

This paper focuses on Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia's philosophical views as exhibited in her early correspondence with Rene Descartes. Elisabeth's criticisms of Descartes's interactionism as well as her solution to the problem of mind-body interaction are examined in detail. The aim here is to develop a richer picture of Elisabeth as a philosophical thinker and to dispel the myth that she is simply a Cartesian muse.

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