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Does the soul have parts? What kind of parts? And how do all the
parts make together a whole? Many ancient, medieval and early
modern philosophers discussed these questions, thus providing a
mereological analysis of the soul. Their starting point was a
simple observation: we tend to describe the soul of human beings by
referring to different types of activities (perceiving, imagining,
thinking, etc.). Each type of activity seems to be produced by a
special part of the soul. But how can a simple, undivided soul have
parts? Classical thinkers gave radically different answers to this
question. While some claimed that there are indeed parts, thus
assigning an internal complexity to the soul, others emphasized
that there can only be a plurality of functions that should not be
conflated with a plurality of parts. The eleven chapters
reconstruct and critically examine these answers. They make clear
that the metaphysical structure of the soul was a crucial issue for
ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers.
This book re-examines the roles of causation and cognition in early
modern philosophy. The standard historical narrative suggests that
early modern thinkers abandoned Aristotelian models of formal
causation in favor of doctrines that appealed to relations of
efficient causation between material objects and cognizers. This
narrative has been criticized in recent scholarship from at least
two directions. Scholars have emphasized that we should not think
of the Aristotelian tradition in such monolithic terms, and that
many early modern thinkers did not unequivocally reduce all
causation to efficient causation. In line with this general
approach, this book features original essays written by leading
experts in early modern philosophy. It is organized around five
guiding questions: What are the entities involved in causal
processes leading to cognition? What type(s) or kind(s) of
causality are at stake? Are early modern thinkers confined to
efficient causation or do other types of causation play a role?
What is God's role in causal processes leading to cognition? How do
cognitive causal processes relate to other, non-cognitive causal
processes? Is the causal process in the case of human cognition in
any way special? How does it relate to processes involved in the
case of non-human cognition? The essays explore how fifteen early
modern thinkers answered these questions: Francisco Suarez, Rene
Descartes, Louis de la Forge, Geraud de Cordemoy, Nicolas
Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz, Ralph Cudworth, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, John
Sergeant, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. The volume
is unique in that it explores both well-known and understudied
historical figures, and in that it emphasizes the intimate
relationship between causation and cognition to open up new
perspectives on early modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
This book re-examines the roles of causation and cognition in early
modern philosophy. The standard historical narrative suggests that
early modern thinkers abandoned Aristotelian models of formal
causation in favor of doctrines that appealed to relations of
efficient causation between material objects and cognizers. This
narrative has been criticized in recent scholarship from at least
two directions. Scholars have emphasized that we should not think
of the Aristotelian tradition in such monolithic terms, and that
many early modern thinkers did not unequivocally reduce all
causation to efficient causation. In line with this general
approach, this book features original essays written by leading
experts in early modern philosophy. It is organized around five
guiding questions: What are the entities involved in causal
processes leading to cognition? What type(s) or kind(s) of
causality are at stake? Are early modern thinkers confined to
efficient causation or do other types of causation play a role?
What is God's role in causal processes leading to cognition? How do
cognitive causal processes relate to other, non-cognitive causal
processes? Is the causal process in the case of human cognition in
any way special? How does it relate to processes involved in the
case of non-human cognition? The essays explore how fifteen early
modern thinkers answered these questions: Francisco Suarez, Rene
Descartes, Louis de la Forge, Geraud de Cordemoy, Nicolas
Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz, Ralph Cudworth, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, John
Sergeant, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. The volume
is unique in that it explores both well-known and understudied
historical figures, and in that it emphasizes the intimate
relationship between causation and cognition to open up new
perspectives on early modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
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Briefe (German, Hardcover)
Nicolaus Von Autrecourt; Edited by Ruedi Imbach, Dominik Perler
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R1,345
Discovery Miles 13 450
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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It seems quite natural to explain the activities of human and
non-human animals by referring to their special faculties. Thus, we
say that dogs can smell things in their environment because they
have perceptual faculties, or that human beings can think because
they have rational faculties. But what are faculties? In what sense
are they responsible for a wide range of activities? How can they
be individuated? How are they interrelated? And why are different
types of faculties assigned to different types of living beings?
The six chapters in this book discuss these questions, covering a
wide period from Plato up to contemporary debates about faculties
as modules of the mind. They show that faculties were referred to
in different theoretical contexts, but analyzed in radically
different ways. Some philosophers, especially Aristotelians, made
them the cornerstone of their biological and psychological
theories, taking them to be basic powers of living beings. Others
took them to be inner causes that literally produce activities,
while still others provided a purely functional explanation. The
chapters focus on various models, taking into account Greek,
Arabic, Latin, French, German and Anglo-American debates. They
analyze the role assigned to faculties in metaphysics, philosophy
of mind and epistemology, but also the attack that was often
launched against the assumption that faculties are hidden yet real
features of living beings. The short "Reflections" inserted between
the chapters make clear that faculties were also widely discussed
in literature, science and medicine.
It seems to be self-evident that through perception we gain access
to the material world. That visual perception takes an important
role seems self-evident as well. But what exactly do we see? The
objects themselves or just their perceptible properties? How do we
manage to see something at all? Are we capable of seeing solely
through optical and physiological processes or does viewing
something asks for presupposed terms in order to help us to see
something as something?These questions, currently discussed at
great length within the framework of cognitive and epistemological
theory, were already cause for intensive debate in the early modern
times. In many aspects, those discussions in the 17th and 18th
century laid the groundwork for todaya (TM)s theories: on one hand,
they identified the problems with great clarity and on the other,
they provided strategies for possible solutions which are still of
value today. This volume will provide new access to those debates
(from Descartes to Reid) and will present these debates to an
audience interested in philosophical questions. The book shows that
the early modern times is not just a respectable museum in the
history of philosophy, but on the contrary, a very productive and
stimulating philosophical epoch which invites further discussion.
It seems quite natural to explain the activities of human and
non-human animals by referring to their special faculties. Thus, we
say that dogs can smell things in their environment because they
have perceptual faculties, or that human beings can think because
they have rational faculties. But what are faculties? In what sense
are they responsible for a wide range of activities? How can they
be individuated? How are they interrelated? And why are different
types of faculties assigned to different types of living beings?
The six chapters in this book discuss these questions, covering a
wide period from Plato up to contemporary debates about faculties
as modules of the mind. They show that faculties were referred to
in different theoretical contexts, but analyzed in radically
different ways. Some philosophers, especially Aristotelians, made
them the cornerstone of their biological and psychological
theories, taking them to be basic powers of living beings. Others
took them to be inner causes that literally produce activities,
while still others provided a purely functional explanation. The
chapters focus on various models, taking into account Greek,
Arabic, Latin, French, German and Anglo-American debates. They
analyze the role assigned to faculties in metaphysics, philosophy
of mind and epistemology, but also the attack that was often
launched against the assumption that faculties are hidden yet real
features of living beings. The short "Reflections" inserted between
the chapters make clear that faculties were also widely discussed
in literature, science and medicine.
What are emotions? How do they arise? How do they relate to other
mental and bodily states? And what is their specific structure? The
book discusses these questions, focusing on medieval and early
modern theories. It looks at a great number of authors, ranging
from Aquinas to Spinoza, and shows that they gave sophisticated
accounts of human emotions. They were particularly interested in
the way we cope with our emotions: how we can change or perhaps
even overcome them? To answer this question, medieval and early
modern philosophers looked at the cognitive content of emotions,
for they were all convinced that we need to work on that content if
we want to change them. The book therefore pays particular
attention to the intimate relationship between theories of emotions
and theories of cognition. Moreover, the book emphasizes the
importance of the metaphysical framework for medieval and early
modern theories of emotions. It was a transformation of this
framework that made new theories possible. Starting with an
analysis of the Aristotelian framework, the book then looks at
skeptical, dualist and monist frameworks, and it examines how the
nature of emotions was explained in each of them. The discussion
also takes the theological and scientific context into account, for
changes in this context quite often gave rise to new problems -
problems that concerned the love of God, the joy of resurrected
souls, or the fear arising in a soul that is present in a body. All
of these problems are examined on the basis of close textual
analysis.
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Ideen (German, Paperback)
Dominik Perler, Johannes Haag
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R1,212
R985
Discovery Miles 9 850
Save R227 (19%)
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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The notion of a oeideaa is a key concept in early modern
philosophy. From Descartesa (TM) seminal works at the beginning of
the 17th century to the work of Thomas Reid in the closing years of
the 18th century, discussion in theoretical philosophy is dominated
by the debate about the core concept of a oeideaa . This two-volume
textbook introduces eleven key authors from this period. The first
volume presents the central texts in modern translation, often new
translations based on the source texts. The second volume contains
commentaries on each texta " with a systematic introduction, a
line-by-line commentary and a contextualisation of the contents.
Thus this textbook provides students of philosophy with a
comprehensive overview of the modern discussion of the concept of a
oeideaa .
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