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Descartes has often been called the 'father of modern philosophy'.
His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile
the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time,
are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of
philosophy. This is a classic and challenging introduction to
Descartes by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers.
Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding
knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for
his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes'
Meditations are not merely a description but the very enactment of
philosophical thought and discovery. Williams covers all of the key
areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the
possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He
also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge,
metaphysics and philosophy generally. With a new foreword by John
Cottingham.
'The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the
finest minds of past centuries.' Descartes 'It is not enough to
have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.' Descartes is
often called the father of modern philosophy. He was certainly one
of the most important figures in the emergence of modern philosophy
and science and his work and ideas have resonated through the
centuries. His best known statement - I think, therefore I am - has
become part of modern-day culture and language. John Cottingham's
short guide is the ideal introduction to one of the greatest minds
of any age.
The question 'What is the meaning of life?' is one of the most fascinating, oldest and most difficult questions human beings have ever posed themselves. In an increasingly secularized culture, it remains a question to which we are ineluctably and powerfully drawn. Drawing skillfully on a wealth of thinkers, writers and scientists from Augustine, Descartes, Freud and Camus, to Spinoza, Pascal, Darwin, and Wittgenstein, On the Meaning of Life breathes new vitality into one of the very biggest questions.
How our beliefs about the soul have developed through the ages, and
why an understanding of it still matters today The concept of the
soul has been a recurring area of exploration since ancient times.
What do we mean when we talk about finding our soul, how do we know
we have one, and does it hold any relevance in today's
scientifically and technologically dominated society? From Socrates
and Augustine to Darwin and Freud, In Search of the Soul takes
readers on a concise, accessible journey into the origins of the
soul in Western philosophy and culture, and examines how the idea
has developed throughout history to the present. Touching on
literature, music, art, and theology, John Cottingham illustrates
how, far from being redundant in contemporary times, the soul
attunes us to the importance of meaning and value, and experience
and growth. A better understanding of the soul might help all of us
better understand what it is to be human. Cottingham delves into
the evolution of our thoughts about the soul through landmark
works-including those of Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes. He
considers the nature of consciousness and subjective experience,
and discusses the psychoanalytic view that large parts of the human
psyche are hidden from direct conscious awareness. He also reflects
on the mysterious and universal longing for transcendence that is
an indelible part of our human makeup. Looking at the soul's many
dimensions-historical, moral, psychological, and
spiritual-Cottingham makes a case for how it exerts a powerful pull
on all of us. In Search of the Soul is a testimony to how the soul
remains a profoundly significant aspect of human flourishing.
The question 'What is the meaning of life?' is one of the most fascinating, oldest and most difficult questions human beings have ever posed themselves. In an increasingly secularized culture, it remains a question to which we are ineluctably and powerfully drawn. Drawing skillfully on a wealth of thinkers, writers and scientists from Augustine, Descartes, Freud and Camus, to Spinoza, Pascal, Darwin, and Wittgenstein, On the Meaning of Life breathes new vitality into one of the very biggest questions.
Descartes has often been called the 'father of modern philosophy'.
His attempts to find foundations for knowledge, and to reconcile
the existence of the soul with the emerging science of his time,
are among the most influential and widely studied in the history of
philosophy. This is a classic and challenging introduction to
Descartes by one of the most distinguished modern philosophers.
Bernard Williams not only analyzes Descartes' project of founding
knowledge on certainty, but uncovers the philosophical motives for
his search. With acute insight, he demonstrates how Descartes'
Meditations are not merely a description but the very enactment of
philosophical thought and discovery. Williams covers all of the key
areas of Descartes' thought, including God, the will, the
possibility of knowledge, and the mind and its place in nature. He
also makes profound contributions to the theory of knowledge,
metaphysics and philosophy generally. With a new foreword by John
Cottingham.
How our beliefs about the soul have developed through the ages, and
why an understanding of it still matters today The concept of the
soul has been a recurring area of exploration since ancient times.
What do we mean when we talk about finding our soul, how do we know
we have one, and does it hold any relevance in today's
scientifically and technologically dominated society? From Socrates
and Augustine to Darwin and Freud, In Search of the Soul takes
readers on a concise, accessible journey into the origins of the
soul in Western philosophy and culture, and examines how the idea
has developed throughout history to the present. Touching on
literature, music, art, and theology, John Cottingham illustrates
how, far from being redundant in contemporary times, the soul
attunes us to the importance of meaning and value, and experience
and growth. A better understanding of the soul might help all of us
better understand what it is to be human. Cottingham delves into
the evolution of our thoughts about the soul through landmark
works-including those of Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes. He
considers the nature of consciousness and subjective experience,
and discusses the psychoanalytic view that large parts of the human
psyche are hidden from direct conscious awareness. He also reflects
on the mysterious and universal longing for transcendence that is
an indelible part of our human makeup. Looking at the soul's many
dimensions-historical, moral, psychological, and
spiritual-Cottingham makes a case for how it exerts a powerful pull
on all of us. In Search of the Soul is a testimony to how the soul
remains a profoundly significant aspect of human flourishing.
Grief is a universal human response to death and loss. Mourning is
an equally universally observable practice that enables the
bereaved to express their grief and come to terms with the reality
of loss. Yet, despite their prevalence, there is no unified
understanding of the nature and meaning of grief and mourning. The
Meaning of Mourning: Perspectives on Death, Loss, and Grief brings
together fifteen essays from diverse disciplines addressing the
topics of death, grief, and mourning. The collection moves from
general questions concerning the putative badness of death and the
meaning of loss through the phenomenology and psychology of grief,
to personal and cultural aspects of mourning. Contributors examine
topics such as theodicy and grief, reproductive loss, mourning as a
form of recognition of value, the roots of grief in early
childhood, grief in COVID-times, hope, phenomenology of loss,
public commemoration and mourning rituals, mourning for a
devastated culture, the Necropolis of Glasgow, and the "art of
outliving." Edited by Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode, the volume provides
a survey of the rich topography of methodologies, problems,
approaches, and disciplines that are involved in the study of
issues surrounding loss and our responses to it and guides the
reader through a spectrum of perspectives, highlighting the
connections and discontinuities between them.
Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy remains one of the most
widely studied works of Western philosophy. This volume is a
refreshed and updated edition of John Cottingham's bestselling 1996
edition, based on his translation in the acclaimed three-volume
Cambridge edition of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. It
presents the complete text of Descartes's central metaphysical
masterpiece, the Meditations, in clear, readable modern English,
and it offers the reader additional material in a thematic
abridgement of the Objections and Replies, providing a deeper
understanding of how Descartes developed and clarified his
arguments in response to critics. Cottingham also provides an
updated introduction, together with a substantially revised
bibliography, taking into account recent literature and
developments in Descartes studies. The volume will be a vital
resource for students reading the Meditations, as well as those
studying Descartes and early modern philosophy.
A completely new translation of the works of Descartes is intended to replace the Haldane and Ross edition, first published in 1911. All material from that edition is translated here, with a number of other texts crucial for understanding Cartesian philosophy.
A completely new translation of the works of Descartes is intended to replace the Haldane and Ross edition, first published in 1911. All material from that edition is translated here, with a number of other texts crucial for understanding Cartesian philosophy.
Concise: Each book gets straight to the heart of its subject
Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy remains one of the most
widely studied works of Western philosophy. This volume is a
refreshed and updated edition of John Cottingham's bestselling 1996
edition, based on his translation in the acclaimed three-volume
Cambridge edition of The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. It
presents the complete text of Descartes's central metaphysical
masterpiece, the Meditations, in clear, readable modern English,
and it offers the reader additional material in a thematic
abridgement of the Objections and Replies, providing a deeper
understanding of how Descartes developed and clarified his
arguments in response to critics. Cottingham also provides an
updated introduction, together with a substantially revised
bibliography, taking into account recent literature and
developments in Descartes studies. The volume will be a vital
resource for students reading the Meditations, as well as those
studying Descartes and early modern philosophy.
Descartes's Meditations on First Philosophy, published in Latin in
1641, is one of the most widely studied philosophical texts of all
time, and inaugurates many of the key themes that have remained
central to philosophy ever since. In his original Latin text
Descartes expresses himself with great lucidity and elegance, and
there is enormous interest, even for those who are not fluent in
Latin, in seeing how the famous concepts and arguments of his great
masterpiece unfold in the original language. John Cottingham's
acclaimed English translation of the work is presented here in a
facing-page edition alongside the original Latin text. Students of
classical philosophy have long had the benefit of dual-language
editions, and the availability of such a resource for the canonical
works of the early-modern period is long overdue. This volume now
makes available, in an invaluable dual-language format, one of the
most seminal texts of Western philosophy.
Religious belief is not just about abstract intellectual argument;
it also impinges on all aspects of human life. John Cottingham's
Philosophy of Religion opens up fresh perspectives on the
philosophy of religion, arguing that the detached neutrality of
much of contemporary philosophizing may be counterproductive -
hardening us against the receptivity required for certain kinds of
important evidence to become salient. This book covers all the
traditional areas of the subject, including the meaning of
religious claims, the existence of God and the relation between
religion and morality, as well as the role of spiritual praxis and
how religious belief affects questions about the meaning of life,
human suffering and mortality. While preserving the clarity and
rigor that are rightly prized in the analytic tradition, the book
also draws on insights from literary and other sources, and aims to
engage a wide readership.
The Spiritual Dimension offers a new model for the philosophy of
religion, bringing together emotional and intellectual aspects of
our human experience, and embracing practical as well as
theoretical concerns. It shows how a religious worldview is best
understood not as an isolated set of doctrines, but as intimately
related to spiritual praxis and to the search for
self-understanding and moral growth. It argues that the religious
quest requires a certain emotional openness, but can be pursued
without sacrificing our philosophical integrity. Touching on many
important debates in contemporary philosophy and theology, but
accessible to general readers, The Spiritual Dimension covers a
range of central topics in the philosophy of religion, including
scientific cosmology and the problem of evil; ethical theory and
the objectivity of goodness; psychoanalytic thought, self-discovery
and virtue; the multi-layered nature of religious discourse; and
the relation between faith and evidence.
"Why Believe?" sees John Cottingham, a philosopher of searing
intellectual honesty, examine our society's struggle with the
concept of belief. Religious belief, or its lack, is something that
touches our integrity very deeply. It goes to the heart of who we
are, what we take ourselves to be doing with our lives, and how we
locate ourselves in relation to others. Much philosophy tackles
belief in God as if it depended entirely on abstract intellectual
argument, but John Cottingham's carefully reasoned yet impassioned
account shows how the religious outlook connects with our deepest
human longings, how it links up with our moral and aesthetic
experience, how it is integrally involved in the quest for
self-understanding, and how it is not after all in conflict with a
scientific understanding of the world. Rigorously argued yet
maximally accessible, this book cuts through the sterility of much
modern debate and offers a new and exciting perspective on the
conflict between secularism and spirituality.
Issues of impartiality and partiality are a major focus of debate
in moral theory. What demands do the needs and interests of others
place upon us? Should our personal relationships and commitments
have a special place in our moral deliberations? Or, in as much as
we are moral, should we be impartial even between our own children
and complete strangers? Ten specially written essays by experts in
the field offer a variety of perspectives, which will interest
readers in both theoretical and practical ethics. A central theme
of the volume is whether impartiality and partiality are really
opposed dimensions or if they can be harmoniously reconciled in one
picture of the good ethical life.
John Cottingham explores central areas of Descartes's rich and
wide-ranging philosophical system, including his accounts of
thought and language, of freedom and action, of our relationship to
the animal domain, and of human morality and the conduct of life.
He also examines ways in which his philosophy has been
misunderstood. The Cartesian mind-body dualism that is so often
attacked is only a part of Descartes's account of what it is to be
a thinking, sentient, human creature, and the way he makes the
division between the mental and the physical is considerably more
subtle, and philosophically more appealing, than is generally
assumed. Although Descartes is often considered to be one of the
heralds of our modern secular worldview, the 'new' philosophy which
he launched retains many links with the ideas of his predecessors,
not least in the all-pervasive role it assigns to God (something
that is ignored or downplayed by many modern readers); and the
character of the Cartesian outlook is multifaceted, sometimes
anticipating Enlightenment ideas of human autonomy and independent
scientific inquiry, but also sometimes harmonizing with more
traditional notions of human nature as created to find fulfilment
in harmony with its creator.
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