The Body of Light in Renaissance England

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-62
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Subtle Body ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
Renaissance England ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Body Concept ◽  
New Form ◽  
Cambridge Platonists

This chapter engages with the first Anglophone attestations of the term “subtle body.” It appears first in the contentious correspondence between Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descartes between whom there was some disagreement over who plagiarized the idea from whom. Most of the chapter is taken up with the Cambridge Platonists who came in their wake, who formulated complex philosophical and mythological views of the Neoplatonic vehicles of the soul, now under the English name “subtle body.” It ends with Lady Anne Conway, who fuses the Platonism of the Cambridge group with Kabbalah to create a new form of spiritual monism. This chapter is significantly about how the subtle body concept was employed by Renaissance Platonists arguing against the reductive materialism of Cartesian mechanical philosophy.

Richard Baxter as Philosophical Theologian

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David S. Sytsma
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Mechanical Philosophy ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Pierre Gassendi ◽  
The Way

This chapter argues for Baxter’s importance as a theologian engaged with philosophy. Although Baxter is largely known today as a practical theologian, he also excelled in knowledge of the scholastics and was known in the seventeenth century also for his scholastic theology. He followed philosophical trends closely, was connected with many people involved in mechanical philosophy, and responded directly to the ideas of René Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Robert Boyle, Thomas Willis, Thomas Hobbes, and Benedict de Spinoza. As a leading Puritan and nonconformist, his views are especially relevant to the question of the relation of the Puritan tradition to the beginnings of modern science and philosophy. The chapter introduces the way in which “mechanical philosophy” will be used, and concludes with a brief synopsis of the argument of the book.

scholarly journals O PAPEL DO CORPO EM DUAS CONCEPÇÕES DE SUJEITO: O COGITO CARTESIANO E O EXPERIENCIALISMO / The role of the body in two conceptions of subject: the cartesian cogito and the experientialism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia Oliveira de Freitas
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
The Body ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Cartesian Cogito

Este artigo de natureza qualitativa tem como objetivo delinear a concepção de sujeito proposta pela Linguística Cognitiva, tendo em vista que a noção de subjetividade, para o constructo teórico em questão, nem sempre é explícita. Para levar a cabo tal empreitada, este estudo fundamenta-se no pressuposto de que, para se estudar a mente humana, não se deve excluir o corpo do processo analítico (LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1980; LAKOFF, 1987; JOHNSON, 1987). Assim sendo, acredita-se que a inserção da encarnação física humana no quadro teórico da razão, isto é, a teorização da promoção do corpo ao mesmo patamar ocupado pela mente, sem a possibilidade de dissociação entre eles, seja o fator crucial para se alcançar uma definição possível do que se trata o sujeito para a Linguística Cognitiva. Com o intuito de suscitar tal discussão, resgatam-se, inicialmente, as questões relacionadas ao sujeito engendrado no século XVII, influenciado por René Descartes com a intuição intelectual do cogito, no advento da Filosofia Moderna: o sujeito gerido pela substancialidade, universalidade e consciência. Como contraponto ao sujeito cartesiano, discute-se o paradigma filosófico da Hipótese da Corporificação, tornando possível o debate sobre o inconsciente cognitivo, a mente corporificada e o pensamento metafórico. Desse modo, pretende-se lançar mão do conceito de consciência, bem como os dualismos sobre mente/corpo, interioridade/exterioridade, racionalismo/empirismo e universalismo/relativismo.

Spinoza, Platonism and Naturalism

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL AYERS
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Hierarchical System ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
The Universe

This chapter examines the strands of Platonism and naturalism in philosopher Baruch Spinoza’s metaphysics. It argues that Spinoza’s hierarchical system of substance, attribute, immediate and mediate infinite modes, and finite modes matches in some surprising respects Neoplatonist accounts of the emanation of the universe from God. It suggests that Spinoza’s perception of universal and necessary principles are more related to that of Thomas Hobbes than to Plato or Rene Descartes.

scholarly journals Modern ideas about the psyche: changing of the paradigm

2020 ◽  
Vol LII (1) ◽  
pp. 72-81
Author(s):  
Mikhail М. Reshetnikov
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Biological Interface ◽  
Material Theory ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
The Brain

The problem of the psyche and consciousness has been the most mysterious one for a few thousand years and is still unresolved. It has been almost forgotten that Aristotle considered human psyche a structure that is not bound to the body. This idea did not persist, though. It was Hippocrates who ruined it and declared a different concept, which prevailed for many centuries, that the brain is a repository of all mental processes. Even such a genius as Rene Descartes took Hippocratess idea for granted and spent many months in attempts to find memory and emotions in gyrus and ventricles of the brain. This path the search of material structures of the psyche was followed by I.M. Sechenov, I.P. Pavlov and many others. Later, many other mistaken ideas were born, declared new and revolutionary ones and died prematurely. However, not only ideas died, but also patients, who were treated by methods developed on the basis of these hypotheses. The author formulates the idea of the brain as the biological interface and proves a non-material theory of the psyche, which is a discovery that requires a change in basic paradigms of human sciences.

scholarly journals ENSAIO PARA O ACIDENTAL: A LOUCURA E A QUEDA EM RANCIÈRE, BAS JAN ADER E DOM QUIXOTE / Essay for the accidental: loucura and fall in Rancière, Bas Jan Ader and Dom Quixote

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (41) ◽  
pp. 233-250
Author(s):  
Daniela Cunha Blanco
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
The Body ◽  
Jacques Ranciere ◽  
Jacques Rancière ◽  
The Status ◽  
René Descartes ◽  
Contemporary Artist ◽  
Modes Of Thought

A partir de duas figuras que marcam a modernidade – René Descartes e dom Quixote – pensamos como configuram modos de pensamento diversos e opostos. Entre o método que busca o encadeamento causal das coisas e a errância do corpo entregue às aventuras da imaginação, o filósofo e o cavaleiro instauram um embate que não é aquele entre a razão e o sensível, mas sim, entre dois modos da razão. Nosso intuito é pensar, especialmente a partir de Jacques Rancière, como o cavaleiro errante teria aberto um novo campo da experiência sensível que denominamos acidental, cujo gesto é a recusa da lógica do encadeamento causal cartesiano. Damos a ver, ainda, o modo como o gesto inaugurado por dom Quixote será reverberado nos gestos do artista contemporâneo Bas Jan Ader, com seu empenho em buscar a queda tal qual dom Quixote buscara a loucura. O que surgiria com a recusa da causalidade no cavaleiro e no artista, em nossa hipótese, é uma mudança de estatuto da própria noção de acidente ou acidental que, deixando de ser considerado erro a ser evitado, passará a ser experienciado como a única possibilidade para um mundo pautado na contingência da vida.Palavras-chave: Heterogêneo sensível; Experiência acidental; Jacques Rancière; Errância; Modos de pensamento. AbstractBased on two figures that marks the modernity − René Descartes and Don Quixote − we think about how they configure different and opposite modes of thought. Between the method that seeks the causal chain of things and the wandering of the body given over to the adventures of the imagination, the philosopher and the knight establish a clash that is not that between reason and sensible, but between two modes of reason. We think, especialy from Jacques Rancière, how the errant knight would have opened up a new field of the sensible experience that we call accidental, whose gesture is the refusal of the logic of the Cartesian causal chain. We also show how the gesture inaugurated by Don Quixote will be reflected in the gestures of the contemporary artist Bas Jan Ader, with his efforts to seek the fall just as Don Quixote sought madness. What would arise with the refusal of causality in the rider and in the artist, in our hypothesis, is a change in the status of the very notion of accident or accidental that, no longer being considered as an error to be avoided, will now be experienced as the only possibility for a world based on the contingency of life.Keywords: Heterogeneous sensible; Accidental experience; Jacques Rancière; Wandering; Forms of thinking.

Oriental Origins

2021 ◽  
pp. 63-88
Author(s):  
Simon Cox
Keyword(s):  
Subtle Body ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Body Concept ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
East West ◽  
Cambridge Platonists

This chapter shows how the subtle body concept as established by the Cambridge Platonists was carried forward in popular and literary domains and later used as a stock concept in the earliest English translations of Sanskrit texts. It takes the reader through the birth of Indology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, tracing the subtle body concept through early translations of yoga and Sāṃkhya philosophy, focusing on how the authors posited historical connections between Neoplatonic and Hindu philosophies, laying the groundwork for future understandings of the subtle body as a concept spanning a great East-West divide.

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