As a practicing life scientist, Descartes must have a theory of what it means to be a living being. In this paper, I provide an account of what his theoretical conception of living bodies must be. I then show that this conception might well run afoul of his rejection of final causal explanations in natural philosophy. Nonetheless, I show how Descartes might have made use of such explanations as merely hypothetical, even though he explicitly blocks this move. I conclude by (...) suggesting that there is no reason for him to have blocked the use of hypothetical final causes in this way. (shrink)

By pushing Descartes to more clearly explain the union of body and soul beyond the functioning of a ‘strong’ passion, namely sadness, Elisabeth wants Descartes to review his idea of the passions, and his understanding of the ‘theory of the four humors’. This chapter aims at showing that Descartes turns away from Galen’s theory of the humors, which he globally adopts in the 1633 Treatise of Man. With the shift in his conceptualization of the humors between this Treatise and the (...) Treatise of the Passions (1649), Descartes analyzed more specifically the inner feelings, consciousness, and the passions, by considering that a man is not simply a body, but a psychophysical being, with a body and a soul. (shrink)

This volume takes cue from the idea that the thought of no philosopher can be understood without considering it as the result of a constant, lively dialogue with other thinkers, both in its internal evolution as well as in its reception, re-use, and assumption as a starting point in addressing past and present philosophical problems. In doing so, it focuses on a feature that is crucially emerging in the historiography of early modern philosophy and science, namely the complexity in the (...) production of knowledge. The book explores the applicability of this approach to a long-considered armchair philosopher, namely René Descartes, who is now more and more understood as a full-blown scientist, networker, and intellectual éminence grise rather than as the mere philosopher of the cogito, as well as the originator of different ‘Cartesianisms’ which encompassed many ideas and approaches for long captured by dichotomic historiographical categories as rationalism and empiricism, or speculative and experimental philosophy. The essays gathered in the volume aim to address the ways in which Descartes’s philosophy evolved and was progressively understood by scientists, philosophers, and intellectuals from different contexts and eras, either by considering direct interlocutors of Descartes such as Isaac Beeckman and Elisabeth of Bohemia, early modern thinkers who developed upon his ideas and on particular topics as Nicolas Malebranche or Thomas Willis, those who adapted his overall methodology in developing new systems of knowledge as Johannes Clauberg and Pierre-Sylvain Régis, and contemporary thinkers from continental and analytic traditions like Emanuele Severino and Peter Strawson. (shrink)

In the _Meditations_ and related texts from the early 1640s, Descartes argues that the self can be correctly considered as either a mind or a human being, and that the self’s properties vary accordingly. For example, the self is simple considered as a mind, whereas the self is composite considered as a human being. Someone might object that it is unclear how merely considering the self in different ways blocks the conclusion that a single subject of predication—the self—is both simple (...) and composite, which is contradictory. In response to this objection, this paper develops a reading of Descartes’s various ways of considering the self. I argue that the best reading of Descartes’s qualified claims about the self, i.e., about the self _qua_ mind or the self qua human being, presupposes an account of the unqualified self, that is, of the self _simpliciter_. I argue that the self _simpliciter_ is not a mind, and that it is not a human being either. This result might suggest the pessimistic conclusion that Descartes’s view of the self is incoherent. To avoid this result, I introduce a new metaphysical account of the Cartesian self. On my view, the self is individuated by a unified mental life. The self is constituted by the beings that jointly produce this mental life, and derives its unity from it. (shrink)

RESUMEN A pesar de que la reducción de R. Descartes de los animales a meras máquinas puede explicarse como una consecuencia lógica de su punto de partida metafísico y gnoseológico, se puede argüir que esta reducción parece muy difícil de defender, puesto que se nos antoja contradictoria con nuestra experiencia cotidiana. Por otra parte, uno de los propósitos de la filosofía de Descartes es la “conservación de la salud”, que puede conseguirse mediante el establecimiento de una medicina “fundada en demostraciones (...) infalibles”. De cara a conseguir tal medicina el primer paso es alcanzar el conocimiento más preciso posible del cuerpo humano a fin de tener éxito en la práctica de la cirugía. De ahí que sea bastante plausible afirmar que la metafísica y la teoría del conocimiento de Descartes no serían sus principales intereses teóricos, sino solamente una explicación y justificación ingeniosas de lo que la ciencia de su tiempo llevaba haciendo no menos de cien años antes de él, así como una inteligente manera de obviar los escrúpulos cuando se anatomizaban cadáveres humanos y animales. En consecuencia, en este artículo mantendremos que el mecanicismo y dualismo cartesianos son una verdadera filosofía de la ciencia, desde el momento en que ambos estaban dedicados a explicar y justificar lo que la ciencia estaba haciendo en la práctica. ABSTRACT Despite of the fact that R. Descartes’s reduction of animals to mere machines can be explained as a logical consequence of his metaphysical and gnoseological starting point, one can argue that this reduction seems to be very difficult to defend, since it appears to be contradictory to our everyday experience. On the other hand, one of the explicitly confessed purposes of Descartes’s philosophy is the “conservation of health”, which can be achieved by establishing a medicine “founded in infallible demonstrations”. The first step in order to get such medicine is to acquire the most accurate as possible knowledge of the human body in order to be successful in practicing surgery. That is why it is fairly plausible to state that Descartes’s metaphysics and theory of knowledge were not his main theoretical concerns, but only a witty explanation and justification of what the science of his time was doing for no less than one century before him, as well as a clever manner to avoid scruples when anatomising both human corpses and animals. Consequently, in this paper we will claim that Cartesian mechanicism and dualism are actual philosophies of science, given the fact that both were devoted to explain and justify what science was in practice doing. (shrink)

Philosophy and Memory Traces defends two theories of autobiographical memory. One is a bewildering historical view of memories as dynamic patterns in fleeting animal spirits, nervous fluids which rummaged through the pores of brain and body. The other is new connectionism, in which memories are 'stored' only superpositionally, and reconstructed rather than reproduced. Both models, argues John Sutton, depart from static archival metaphors by employing distributed representation, which brings interference and confusion between memory traces. Both raise urgent issues about control (...) of the personal past, and about relations between self and body. Sutton demonstrates the role of bizarre body fluids in moral physiology, as philosophers from Descartes and Locke to Coleridge struggled to control their own innards and impose cognitive discipline on 'the phantasmal chaos of association'. Going on to defend connectionism against Fodor and critics of passive mental representations, he shows how problems of the self are implicated in cognitive science. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar a articulação feita por Malebranche entre a física mecanicista o finalismo em sua teoria da preexistência dos germes. Pretendemos mostrar como essa articulação permite que o oratoriano forneça uma resposta ao problema, deixado por Descartes, da explicação mecânica da geração dos corpos organizados. Assim, tomamos como ponto de partida as tentativas de Descartes de fornecer uma explicação mecânica à geração para, em seguida, analisar a noção de finalidade no ocasionalismo de Malebranche e, finalmente, (...) a articulação entre mecanicismo e finalismo na teoria da preexistência dos germes. (shrink)

At various points in his work on physiology and medicine, Descartes refers to a “principle of life.” The exact term changes—sometimes, it is the “principle of movement and life”, sometimes the “principle underlying all [the] functions” of the body —but the message seems consistent: the phenomena of living bodies are the product of a single, underlying principle. That principle is generally taken to be cardiac heat.1 The literature has, quite reasonably, taken this message at face value. Thus, Shapiro: “Descartes insists (...) again and again that the human body is properly to be described as a machine whose workings are […] driven by the heat in the heart that... (shrink)

Es ya un tópico, aquél que establece una relación entre la obra de Montaigne y la de Descartes, bien como adversarios, bien como precedente el uno del otro o como alternativas por relación al concepto de sujeto, que no llegaron a formular plenamente con sus características actuales. Sin embargo, al hilo del estudio del papel del cuerpo en ambos pensadores trataremos de mostrar, primero, su cercanía contextual y, luego, sus filiaciones conceptuales. Ambos autores están mucho más cerca de lo que (...) suele creerse y las deudas intelectuales de Descartes con Montaigne se resumen, además, en una noción de individuo realmente existente y una concepción de la “vida” como alternativa a la filosofía tradicional, que pueden ser de gran interés para el pensamiento actual. There is a cliché that establishes a relationship between the works of Montaigne and the writings of Descartes, either as adversaries, either as a precedent one of the other or as alternatives in relation to a concept that they did not fully draw up with its contemporary characteristics, that is, the subject. However, in connection with the study of the role of the body in both thinkers we will try to show first its contextual closeness and then its conceptual affiliations. Both authors are much closer to what we usually believe and the intellectual debts of Descartes to Montaigne are also summarized in a notion of an existing individual and a conception of “life” as an alternative to traditional philosophy, which can be of great interest for current thinkers. (shrink)

Descartes is usually taken to be a strict reductionist, and he frequently describes his work in reductionist terms. This dissertation, however, makes the case that he is a nonreductionist in certain areas of his philosophy and natural philosophy. This might seem like simple inconsistency, or a mismatch between Descartes's ambitions and his achievements. I argue that here it is more than that: nonreductionism is compatible with his wider commitments, and allowing for irreducibles increases the explanatory power of his system. Moreover, (...) Descartes depends on nonreductionist knowledge and on irreducibles in order to maintain his epistemology and metaphysics. That is, there is more in the Cartesian world than mind, matter, and God. (shrink)

This paper elucidates the philosophical origins of the conception of plants as machines and analyses the contemporary technical and ethical consequences of that thinking. First, we explain the historical relationship between the explicit animal machine thesis of Descartes and the implicit plant machine thesis of today. Our hypothesis is that, although it is rarely discussed, the plant machine thesis remains influential. We define the philosophical criteria for both a moderate and radical interpretation of the thesis. Then, assessing the compatibility of (...) current botanical knowledge with both interpretations, we find that neither withstands scrutiny. We trace how biological and agricultural sciences have historically relied upon thinking of plants as machines and how they continue to do so today through rhetoric centred on breeding, biotechnology, and production. We discuss some of the most important legal and ethical consequences of obscuring the vitality of plants. Finally, we explore less reductive and destructive ways of thinking about, and using, plants. (shrink)

"Organização" é um conceito amplamente empregado nos romances filosóficos de Sade. O sentido do termo, contudo, parece mudar conforme a teoria do personagem. Tal polissemia não é uma invenção de Sade, pois pode-se discernir, em obras filosóficas dos séculos XVII e XVIII, pelo menos cinco significados diferentes para a palavra: um sinônimo de máquina cartesiana, uma disposição específica da matéria que possibilita a vida, a forma com que a matéria viva se dispõe num todo contínuo, um mero arranjo geométrico de (...) partículas, uma propriedade da matéria. O objetivo deste artigo é esclarecer problemas de interpretação do romance sadiano referentes ao uso do conceito de organização pelos personagens. Para isso, será preciso, primeiro, examinar os principais sentidos do conceito nos séculos XVII e XVIII para aplicar, em seguida, os diferentes significados aos discursos dos libertinos. Trata-se de analisar como a plurivocidade do conceito na Idade Moderna se estende ao romance sadiano e de que maneira um sentido específico de organização modifica teorias acerca de um mesmo objeto ou acorda discursos sobre assuntos diferentes. (shrink)

The mind-body problem in philosophy is typically understood as a discourse concerning the relation of mental states to physical states, and the experience of sensation. On this level it seems to transcend issues of race and racism, but Another Mind-Body Problem demonstrates that racial distinctions have been an integral part of the discourse since the Modern period in philosophy. Reading figures such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant in their historical contexts, John Harfouch uncovers discussions of mind and body that engaged (...) closely with philosophical and scientific notions of race in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, in particular in understanding how the mind unites with the body at birth and is then passed on through sexual reproduction. Kant argued that a person’s exterior body and interior psyche are bound together, that non-White people lacked reason, and that this lack of reason was carried on through reproduction such that non-Whites were an example of a union of mind and body without full being. Charting the development of this phenomenon from sixteenth-century medical literature to modern-day race discourse, Harfouch argues for new understandings of Descartes’s mind-body problem, Fanon’s experience of being ‘not-yet human,’ and the place of racism in relation to one of philosophy’s most enduring and canonical problems. -/- “Harfouch has written an important book on the intersection of race and the Western construction of the mind-body problem … This book is a significant resource for theorists dealing with race and decolonization issues, but it is more significant for the critique of philosophy itself and the continued teaching of mind-body issues. Readers will need some knowledge of philosophy, but the volume is in general accessible. It should be required reading for scholars of philosophy. Harfouch establishes a logically strong argument and makes a unique contribution to the field.” — CHOICE. (shrink)