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Receptions of Descartes is a collection of work by an international
group of authors that focuses on the various ways in which
Descartes was interpreted, defended and criticized in early modern
Europe. The book is divided into five sections, the first four of
which focus on Descartes' reception in specific French, Dutch,
Italian and English contexts and the last of which concerns the
reception of Descartes among female philosophers.
Receptions of Descartes is a collection of work by an international
group of authors that focuses on the various ways in which
Descartes was interpreted, defended and criticized in early modern
Europe. The book is divided into five sections, the first four of
which focus on Descartes' reception in specific French, Dutch,
Italian and English contexts and the last of which concerns the
reception of Descartes among female philosophers.
In The Metaphysics of the Material World, Tad M. Schmaltz traces a
particular development of the metaphysics of the material world in
early modern thought. The route Schmaltz follows derives from a
critique of Spinoza in the work of Pierre Bayle. Bayle charged in
particular that Spinoza's monistic conception of the material world
founders on the account of extension and its "modes" and parts that
he inherited from Descartes, and that Descartes in turn inherited
from late scholasticism, and ultimately from Aristotle. After an
initial discussion of Bayle's critique of Spinoza and its relation
to Aristotle's distinction between substance and accident, this
study starts with the original re-conceptualization of Aristotle's
metaphysics of the material world that we find in the work of the
early modern scholastic Suarez. What receives particular attention
is Suarez's introduction of the "modal distinction" and his
distinctive account of the Aristotelian accident of "continuous
quantity." This examination of Suarez is followed by a treatment of
the connections of his particular version of the scholastic
conception of the material world to the very different conception
that Descartes offered. Especially important is Descartes's view of
the relation of extended substance both to its modes and to the
parts that compose it. Finally, there is a consideration of what
these developments in Suarez and Descartes have to teach us about
Spinoza's monistic conception of the material world. Of special
concern here is to draw on this historical narrative to provide a
re-assessment of Bayle's critique of Spinoza.
The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism comprises fifty
specially written chapters on Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and
Cartesianism, the dominant paradigm for philosophy and science in
the seventeenth century, written by an international group of
leading scholars of early modern philosophy. The first part focuses
on the various aspects of Descartes's biography (including his
background, intellectual contexts, writings, and correspondence)
and philosophy, with chapters on his epistemology, method,
metaphysics, physics, mathematics, moral philosophy, political
thought, medical thought, and aesthetics. The chapters of the
second part are devoted to the defense, development and
modification of Descartes's ideas by later generations of Cartesian
philosophers in France, the Netherlands, Italy, and elsewhere. The
third and final part considers the opposition to Cartesian
philosophy by other philosophers, as well as by civil,
ecclesiastic, and academic authorities. This handbook provides an
extensive overview of Cartesianism - its doctrines, its legacies
and its fortunes - in the period based on the latest research.
The ancient topic of universals was central to scholastic
philosophy, which raised the question of whether universals exist
as Platonic forms, as instantiated Aristotelian forms, as concepts
abstracted from singular things, or as words that have universal
signification. It might be thought that this question lost its
importance after the decline of scholasticism in the modern period.
However, the fourteen contributions contained in The Problem of
Univerals in Early Modern Philosophy indicate that the issue of
universals retained its vitality in modern philosophy. Modern
philosophers in fact were interested in 3 sets of issues concerning
universals: (i) issues concerning the ontological status of
universals, (ii) issues concerning the psychology of the formation
of universal concepts or terms, and (iii) issues concerning the
value and use of universal concepts or terms in the acquisition of
knowledge. Chapters in this volume consider the various forms of
"Platonism," "conceptualism" and "nominalism" (and distinctive
combinations thereof) that emerged from the consideration of such
issues in the work of modern philosophers. Furthermore, this volume
covers not only the canonical modern figures, namely, Descartes,
Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant, but also more
neglected figures such as Pierre Gassendi, Pierre-Sylvain Regis,
Nicolas Malebranche, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth and John Norris.
There is a general sense that the philosophy of Descartes was a
dominant force in early modern thought. Since the work in the
nineteenth century of French historians of Cartesian philosophy,
however, there has been no fully contextualized comparative
examination of the various receptions of Descartes in different
portions of early modern Europe. This study addresses the need for
a more current understanding of these receptions by considering the
different constructions of Descartes's thought that emerged in the
Calvinist United Provinces (Netherlands) and Catholic France, the
two main centers for early modern Cartesianism, during the period
dating from the last decades of his life to the century or so
following his death in 1650. It turns out that we must speak not of
a single early modern Cartesianism rigidly defined in terms of
Descartes's own authorial intentions, but rather of a loose
collection of early modern Cartesianisms that involve a range of
different positions on various sets of issues. Though more or less
rooted in Descartes's somewhat open-ended views, these
Cartesianisms evolved in different ways over time in response to
different intellectual and social pressures. Chapters of this study
are devoted to: the early modern Catholic and Calvinist
condemnations of Descartes and the incompatible Cartesian responses
to these; conflicting attitudes among early modern Cartesians
toward ancient thought and modernity; competing early modern
attempts to combine Descartes's views with those of Augustine; the
different occasionalist accounts of causation within early modern
Cartesianism; and the impact of various forms of early modern
Cartesianism on both Dutch medicine and French physics.
Descartes is perhaps most closely associated with the title, "the
Father of Modern Philosophy." Generations of students have been
introduced to the study of philosophy through a consideration of
his Meditations on First Philosophy. His contributions to natural
science is shown by the fact that his physics, as promulgated by
the Cartesians, played a central role in the debates after his
death over Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation. Descartes also
made major contributions to the field of analytic geometry; we
still speak today of "Cartesian coordinates" and the "Cartesian
product." This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Descartes
and Cartesian Philosophy covers the history through a chronology,
an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The
dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on various
concepts in Descartes' philosophy, science, and mathematics, as
well as biographical entries about the intellectual setting for
Descartes' philosophy and its reception, both with Cartesians and
anti-Cartesians. This book is an excellent access point for
students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about
Descartes.
This book is a systematic study of Descartes' theory of causation
and its relation to the medieval and early modern scholastic
philosophy that provides its proper historical context. The
argument presented here is that even though Descartes offered a
dualistic ontology that differs radically from what we find in
scholasticism, his views on causation were profoundly influenced by
scholastic thought on this issue. This influence is evident not
only in his affirmation in the Meditations of the abstract
scholastic axioms that a cause must contain the reality of its
effects and that conservation does not differ in reality from
creation, but also in the details of the accounts of body-body
interaction in his physics, of mind-body interaction in his
psychology, and of the causation that he took to be involved in
free human action. In contrast to those who have read Descartes as
endorsing the "occasionalist" conclusion that God is the only real
cause, a central thesis of this study is that he accepted what in
the context of scholastic debates regarding causation is the
antipode of occasionalism, namely, the view that creatures rather
than God are the causal source of natural change. What emerges from
the defense of this interpretation of Descartes is a new
understanding of his contribution to modern thought on causation.
The A to Z of Descartes and Cartesian Philosophy includes many
entries on Descartes's writings, concepts, and findings. Since it
is historical, there are other entries on those who supported him,
those who criticized him, those who corrected him, and those who
together formed one of the major movements in philosophy,
Cartesianism. To better understand the period, the authors drew up
a brief chronology, and to see how Descartes and Cartesianism fit
into the general picture, they have written an introduction and a
biography. Since everything cannot be summed up in one volume, a
bibliography directs readers to numerous other sources on issues of
particular interest.
This is a book-length study of two of Descartes's most innovative
successors, Robert Desgabets and Pierre-Sylvain Regis, and of their
highly original contributions to Cartesianism. The focus of the
book is an analysis of radical doctrines in the work of these
thinkers that derive from arguments in Descartes: on the creation
of eternal truths, on the intentionality of ideas, and on the
soul-body union. As well as relating their work to that of fellow
Cartesians such as Malebranche and Arnauld, the book also
establishes the important though neglected role played by Desgabets
and Regis in the theologically and politically charged reception of
Descartes in early modern France. This is a major contribution to
the history of Cartesianism that will be of special interest to
historians of early modern philosophy and historians of ideas.
This is the first book-length study of two of Descartes's most innovative successors; Robert Desgabets and Pierre-Sylvain Regis; and of their highly original contributions to Cartesianism. Relating their work to that of fellow Cartesians such as Malebranche and Arnauld, the book establishes the important though neglected role played by Desgabets and Regis in the theologically and politically charged reception of Descartes in early-modern France. This major contribution to the history of Cartesianism is of interest to historians of early-modern philosophy and historians of ideas.
Causation is now commonly supposed to involve a succession that
instantiates some law-like regularity. Efficient Causation: A
History examines how our modern notion developed from a very
different understanding of efficient causation. This volume begins
with Aristotle's initial conception of efficient causation, and
then considers the transformations and reconsiderations of this
conception in late antiquity, medieval and modern philosophy,
ending with contemporary accounts of causation. It includes four
short "Reflections" that explore the significance of the concept
for literature, the history of music, the history of science, and
contemporary art theory.
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