This paper examines Descartes' problematic relational theory of motion, especially when viewed within the context of his dynamics, the Cartesian natural laws. The work of various commentators on Cartesian motion is also surveyed, with particular emphasis placed upon the recent important texts of Garber and Des Chene. In contrast to the methodology of most previous interpretations, however, this essay employs a modern "spacetime" approach to the problem. By this means, the role of dynamics in Descartes' theory, which has often been (...) neglected in favor of kinematic factors, is shown to be central to finding a solution to the puzzle of Cartesian motion. (shrink)

Descartes was the first to hold that, when we perceive, the representation need not resemble what it represents but should correspond to it. Descartes developed this ground-breaking, influential conception in his work on analytic geometry and then transferred it to his theory of perception. I trace the development of the idea in Descartes’ early mathematical works; his articulation of it in Rules for the Direction of the Mind; his first suggestions there to apply this kind of representation-by-correspondence in the scientific (...) inquiry of colours; and, finally, the transfer of the idea to the theory of perception in The World. (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)

The book provides an overview of the contemporary discussion of the mind-body problem. This discussion takes its modern form during the 17th century in the works of René Descartes. The book covers the most important points of view in modern philosophy of mind. An important thesis of the book is that contemporary debates are still heavily influenced by Descartes’ arguments, especially those related to the nature of consciousness. (Google translate).

According to Kepler and Descartes, the geometry of the triangle formed by the two eyes when focused on a single point affords perception of the distance to that point. Kepler characterized the processes involved as associative learning. Descartes described the processes as a “ natural geometry.” Many interpreters have Descartes holding that perceivers calculate the distance to the focal point using angle-side-angle, calculations that are reduced to unnoticed mental habits in adult vision. This article offers a purely psychophysiological interpretation of (...) Descartes’s natural geometry. In his account of perceived limb position from the Treatise on Man, he envisioned a central brain state that controls ocular convergence and thereby co-varies with the distance from observer to object. A psychophysiological law relates the visual perception of distance to this brain state. Descartes also invokes more traditional theories of distance and size perception based on unnoticed judgments, yielding a hybrid account. (shrink)

Descartes. An Intellectual Biography by Stephen Gaukroger, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1995. xx + 499pp. 25.00 ISBN 0-19-823994-7 Descartes. Biographie by Gen vieve Rodis-Lewis, Calmann-L vy, Paris, 1995. 371pp.

This version has been superseded by the one published in Spring, 2014.

The early dissemination of Copernicus' work and theories is an intricate and multilayered history. The reception of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, which was the first early modern work in mathematical astronomy introducing a heliocentric planetary theory, was not purely technical. Rather, the cultural debates surrounding it were affected by physical, philosophical, ethical, and theological concerns from its inception. Georg Joachim Rheticus, who authored the first report on Copernicus' achievement, deemed it appropriate to put a call for independence of spirit on (...) the title page of the Narratio... (shrink)

While Newton tried to make his telescope into a proof of the supremacy of his theory of colours over older theories, his instrument was welcomed as a way to shorten telescopes, not as a way to solve the problem of chromatic aberration. This paper argues that the image published together with the report on Newton’s telescope in Philosophical Transactions (1672) encouraged this reception. The differences between this visualization and other images of Newton’s telescope, especially that published in Opticks (1704), are (...) discussed. This paper shows that the image in Opticks adopted characteristics of a Cartesian program of visualization of machines and instruments which complemented a rhetoric which attributed primacy to theory over practice. The differences between the images in Philosophical Transactions and Opticks are also considered within the broader institutional context of Newton’s attitude towards the Royal Society. (shrink)

As the word “optics” was understood from antiquity into and beyond the early modern period, it did not mean simply the physics and geometry of light, but meant the “theory of vision” and included what we should now call physiological and psychological aspects. From antiquity, these aspects were subject to geometrical analysis. Accordingly, the geometry of visual experience has long been an object of investigation. This chapter examines accounts of size and distance perception in antiquity (Euclid and Ptolemy) and the (...) Middle Ages (Ibn al-Haytham), before turning to "natural geometry" in Kepler and Descartes. It finds a purely mechanical realization of natural geometry in Descartes (primarily in his L'Homme, 1664), in which he conceives states of the visual system as varying in accordance with distance, much as his geometrical compasses vary their spatial relations in accordance with geometrical proportions. This reading challenges the notion that a two-dimensional sensation (without three-dimensional phenomenality) was universally accepted prior to the nineteenth century by positing a direct psychophysiological account of the experience of distance in Descartes. It thereby challenges the interpretations of Descartes on natural geometry of George Berkeley, Nancy Maull, Margaret Wilson, Erwin Panofsky, and Jonathan Crary. (shrink)

This book contains a selection of the papers presented at the Logic, Reasoning and Rationality 2010 conference in Ghent. The conference aimed at stimulating the use of formal frameworks to explicate concrete cases of human reasoning, and conversely, to challenge scholars in formal studies by presenting them with interesting new cases of actual reasoning. According to the members of the Wiener Kreis, there was a strong connection between logic, reasoning, and rationality and that human reasoning is rational in so far (...) as it is based on logic. Later, this belief came under attack and logic was deemed inadequate to explicate actual cases of human reasoning. Today, there is a growing interest in reconnecting logic, reasoning and rationality. A central motor for this change was the development of non-classical logics and non-classical formal frameworks. The book contains contributions in various non-classical formal frameworks, case studies that enhance our apprehension of concrete reasoning patterns, and studies of the philosophical implications for our understanding of the notions of rationality. (shrink)