Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
|
Buy Now
Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R5,562
Discovery Miles 55 620
|
|
Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature (Hardcover)
Series: Continuum Studies in Philosophy
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
The traditional account of mind/body union attributed to Descartes
supposes that the immaterial, thinking mind and the material,
non-thinking body interact by means of efficient causation - that
the mind causes events in the body, e.g. the voluntary raising of
an arm, and vice versa, e.g. the visual sensation of a tree. But
this gives rise to a notorious philosophical problem: how can this
causal interaction occur between the spiritual mind and the
physical body since they have absolutely nothing in common and
cannot come into contact with one another?Justin Skirry's book
shows how Descartes in fact avoids this enormous problem. Skirry
argues, through a critical re-examination of Cartesian metaphysics,
that the union of mind and body is not, as most scholars have
always maintained, constituted by efficient causal interaction for
Descartes, because this would not result in one, complete human
nature but in an aggregate of two numerically distinct natures.
Descartes argues in the 6th Meditation and elsewhere that mind/body
union is constituted by what the scholastics called a 'substantial
union', i.e. the union that form (mind) has with matter (body).
This substantial union produces a whole that is more than the sum
of its parts; the capacity for modes of sensation and voluntary
bodily movement are emergent properties of the whole, substantially
united mind and body. Therefore, the 'Cartesian' problem of
mind-body efficient causal interaction is avoided altogether, since
efficient causal occurrences between mind and body play no role in
explaining the existence of these modes.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.