Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes’s theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings of many seventeenth-century authors. In his illuminating account of Cartesian physiology in its historical context, Des Chene focuses on the philosopher’s innovative reworking of that field, including the nature of life, the problem of generation, and the concepts of health and illness. Des Chene begins (...) by surveying works that Descartes would likely have encountered, from late Aristotelian theories of the soul to medical literature and treatises on machines. The Cartesian theory of vital operations is examined, with particular attention to the generation of animals. Des Chene also considers the role of the machine-model in furnishing a method in physiology, the ambiguities of the notion of machine, and of Descartes’s problem of simulation. Finally, he looks at,the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul. Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene’s highly regarded exploration -- begun in his previous book, Life’s Form -- of the scholastic and Cartesian sciences as well as the dialogue between these two worldviews. Introduction 1 Part One - Tales of the Bête-Machine [ 1 ] - Self-Movers 13 [ 2 ] - Where Do Machines Come From? 32 [ 3 ] - The Uses of Usus 53 Part Two - Machines, Mechanisms, Bodies, Organs [ 4 ] - Tools of Knowledge 71 [ 5 ] - Jeux D’Artifice 103 [ 6 ] - Unity of the Body 116 Conclusion 153 Bibliography 159 Index 177. (shrink)

Two longstanding questions about Hume's later moral theory have preoccupied scholars of his work: First, what does Hume mean by "humanity" in the second Enquiry, and what are we to make of its seeming replacement of "extensive sympathy" as the source of our moral sentiments? Second, what happened to the associationist account of sympathy emphasized so keenly in the Treatise? My primary task in this paper will be to answer the first of these two questions. To do this, I conduct (...) a careful analysis of Hume’s notion of humanity with heavy emphasis on the text of the second Enquiry. This is not to say I will skip over sympathy. On the contrary, if I am right that humanity is dependent on sympathy (or at a minimum, the process of sympathizing), then we must also take a close look at the Enquiry account of sympathy. -/- However, I do not directly discuss the mysterious disappearance of the associationist account of sympathy from the Enquiry in this paper. Instead, I address that part of the puzzle in a second, related article (published in the subsequent issue of BJHP in the same year). What we find in that related analysis, however, is that the associationist explanation of sympathy never really disappeared from the Enquiry . Taken together, then, the arguments of the two papers goes some distance towards confirming that there is no real inconsistency between Hume’s position in the Enquiry and the Treatise regarding humanity, sympathy, and the source of our moral sentiments. (shrink)

Many prominent scholars of Hume's philosophy have suggested that Hume eventually abandoned his associationist account of sympathy, which he made so much of in the Treatise, by the time he came to write the second Enquiry. In this paper I reconsider the seeming disappearance of the associationist account of sympathy, but with the ultimate aim of defending a no-change hypothesis. That is, I’ll argue that careful analysis reveals that Hume not only retained the associationist theory of sympathy in his later (...) work, he made no substantive changes to this theory, including in particular, in EPM. (shrink)

In the Synopsis to the Meditations Descartes assures us that ‘extensive doubt… [provides] the easiest route by which the mind may be led away from the senses’. And in the Fifth Replies Descartes adds that it is essential to a proper understanding of the Meditations that ‘the entire testimony of the senses should be regarded as uncertain and even as false’. But to deny our ordinary trust in the senses on the grounds of such ‘hyperbolic’ or ‘metaphysical’ doubts as that (...) one might be dreaming or the victim of an evil demon is, as Descartes himself puts it, quite mad: ‘no sane person has ever seriously doubted that there really is a world and that human beings have bodies’. We seem, then, to be confronted with a dilemma: on the one hand, the skepticism about the senses that we find in the First Meditation must be taken seriously. On the other hand, it is, in some sense, a sham. How, then, are we to understand these doubts? (shrink)

Practices of the self are prominent in Spinoza, both in the Ethics and On the Emendation of the Intellect. The same can be said of Descartes, e.g., his Discourse on the Method. What, if anything, distinguishes their practices of the self? Michel Foucault’s concept of “spirituality” isolates how Spinoza ’s practices are relatively unusual in the early modern era. Spirituality, as defined by Foucault in The Hermeneutics of the Subject, requires changes in the ethical subject before one can begin philosophizing, (...) and claims to result in a complete transfiguration or perfection of the subject. Both these characteristics are present in Spinoza ’s Emendation while both are lacking in Descartes’ Discourse. Turning to the Ethics’ practices of the self, I show how affects can be moderated through other affects, and that this text establishes a thorough training of the self which will strengthen one’s overall power well into the future. My treatment of the Ethics differs in emphasis from many other readings which focus on reason’s power over affects, or on cognitive therapy which moderates individual affects to lessen current sadness. In both works, Spinoza ’s practices of the self promise significant changes to those who undergo them. (shrink)

This book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works.

In a much admired paper Bernard Williams once observed that 'there is not much room for deciding to believe.' This is because beliefs are 'things which we, as it were, find we have', though of course we can decide whether to express them or not. That we cannot decide to believe something on command is not, Williams goes on to say, just a brute empirical fact about our makeup: it is not a mere contingent aspect of our nature, like, for (...) example, our inability to blush just by willing it. The fact that we cannot decide to believe something, just like that, depends, rather, on a feature that is analytically connected to the very concept of belief, namely that beliefs aim at truth. So if I could acquire a belief at will, presumably I could decide to acquire it, as it were, whether it was true or not. 'If, in full consciousness, I could will to acquire a "belief" irrespective of its truth, it is unclear that before the event I could seriously think of it as a belief, i.e., as something purporting to represent reality'. (shrink)

Introduction -- The first meditation -- The second meditation -- The third meditation : the truth rule and the "chief and most common mistake" -- The third meditation : two demonstrations of God's existence -- The fourth meditation -- The fifth meditation -- The sixth meditation.

I argue that descartes thinks he can be metaphysically certain about each premise in the argument for god's existence, Even before he draws the argument's final conclusion that all his distinct ideas are metaphysically certain. The certainty of the personal premises is secured in the second meditation. The certainty of the causal premises, I argue, Arises from their central role in generating reasons for doubt of the kind that interest descartes.

Surveying this large field with more amplitude and exactitude than anything else on offer, this book will be important for scholars of the humanities and specialists.

"This stunning work is without question a major contribution to Cartesian studies, to the field of early modern philosophy, and to general epistemology--original, provocative, and philosophically interesting.

This book is a penetrating study of the theory of mind and morality that Hume developed in his Treatise of Human Nature and other writings. Hume rejects any conception of moral beliefs and moral truths. He understands morality in terms of distinctive desires and other sentiments that arise through the correction of sympathy. Hume's theory presents a powerful challenge to recent cognitivist theories of moral judgement, Bricke argues, and suggests significant limitations to recent conventionalist and contractarian accounts of morality's content.

I want to discuss the puzzling, but, in some ways, persuasive view that I have a familiar and unproblematic kind of freedom with respect to my beliefs.

Annette Baier's aim is to make sense of David Hume's Treatise as a whole. Hume's family motto, which appears on his bookplate, was True to the End. Baier argues that it is not until the end of the Treatise that we get his full story about truth and falsehood, reason and folly. By the end, we can see the cause to which Hume has been true throughout the work. Baier finds Hume's Treatise of Human Nature to be a carefully crafted (...) literary and philosophical work which itself displays a philosophical progress of sentiments. His starting place is an overly abstract intellectualism that deliberately thrusts passions and social concerns into the background. In the three interrelated books of the Treatise, his self-understander proceeds through partial successes and dramatic failures to emerge with new-found optimism, expecting that the exact knowledge the morally self-conscious anatomist of human nature can acquire will itself improve and correct our vision of morality. Baier describes how, by turning philosophy toward human nature instead of toward God and the universe, Hume initiated a new philosophy, a broader discipline of reflection that can embrace Charles Darwin and Michel Foucault as well as William James and Sigmund Freud. Hume belongs both to our present and to our past. (shrink)

In this paper I compare two models of expert judgment: the art critic in Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste” and the “wise man” in “Of Miracles.” The art critic is a true judge of beauty because he has made himself into a person who is optimally receptive to beauty. He possesses the virtues of taste: “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice” (“Of the Standard of Taste,” 241). But the (...) virtues of the art critic, I argue, are also those of the “wise man,” the person who consistently “proportions his belief to the evidence” (EHU 10.4; SBN 110). Comparison of these two characters reveals that for Hume the virtues fundamental to the art critic’s critical competence are also epistemic virtues. Hume’s exposition of aesthetic excellences should thus be of interest for virtue epistemology. Because contemporary virtue epistemologists have tended to focus almost exclusively on the relationships between intellectual and moral virtues, Hume offers something new: an account of epistemic virtues based on aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to determine and analyze the meaning of the transitio and the posset that not only enable the radical modal experience of the Amor Dei intellectualis but which are also central features in the attainment of human perfection and of the highest knowledge. I wish to answer the following questions. What power is attributable to the Amor Dei intellectualis? In other words, what is the power that corresponds to human perfection and to the possession of (...) blessedness? And why does Spinoza explain this relation in terms of love? In this article, I intend to give a possible definition of human nature, a definition whose determination implies a maximal affirmation of modal power. At this point more questions arise: by attributing this maximal power to human nature, are we underlining a specific necessity, i.e., a constitutive relation capable of giving a specific form to this power and to human nature? Does the third kind of knowledge imply modifications in human nature itself, e.g., in the body or soul? Finally, does the correlation between the third kind of knowledge and the Amor Dei intellectualis allow for the determination of a model of human nature that surpasses the one given by Spinoza in the preface to part four of the Ethics? (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introductory Remarks The Cartesian Background Impressions and Ideas Passions as Reflective Impressions Direct and Indirect Passions Association and the Individuation of Passions Perception and Perceiving Passions and Moral Sentiments Notes References Further reading.

Hume is famous for his criticism of substantial minds, free will, and self-consciousness—central elements in traditional philosophical accounts of persons. His empiricism dissolves self-inspecting minds into heaps of distinct perceptions and turns cognitive faculties into successions of causally related, discrete impressions and ideas. Whatever regularities the complex ideas and their bundles or heaps display are explained by laws of association of ideas, which are supposed to play the same role in the mental world as Newton’s laws of gravitation play in (...) physical nature. This paper explores some strands of the new science of man proposed in Hume’s Treatise, in particular his account of personal identity.. (shrink)

Ce livre n'est pas un expose de la metaphysique cartesienne, mais s'attache a la pensee qui l'anime et qui cherche en elle son expression. Ce mot expression introduit un premier postulat: une philosophie n'a de sens que par reference a une certaine vision du monde dont precisement elle veut etre l'expression. A l'origine il y a un esprit qui regarde l'univers, l'homme, Dieu et qui s'etonne de les voir comme on ne les a encore jamais vus: c'est cette vision neuve (...) qu'il veut exprimer dans un texte qui est, a la fois, pensee coherente et parole communicable. Qui dit expression dit donc volonte de communication. La vision du monde - c'est le second postulat - n'est en aucune facon une sorte d'essence intemporelle et elle ne peut etre separee de son environnement historique. Ainsi tout texte a deux contextes: l'ensemble ordonne d'idees duquel il tient son sens et un certain dialogue qu'il doit rendre propice a la transmission de ce sens, les interlocuteurs n'appartenant pas tous au meme milieu culturel, comme on dit aujourd'hui. (shrink)

L'Index scolastico-cartesien elabore par Etienne Gilson se concoit avant tout comme un instrument de travail apportant des materiaux pour l'application d'une these audacieuse qui sera plus tard developpee dans les Etudes sur le role de la pensee medievale dans la formation du systeme cartesien, et que Gilson inaugure en ces termes : On a longtemps considere que le principal titre de gloire de Bacon et Descartes avait ete de constituer une philosophie radicalement detachee de toutes les philosophies anterieures, et d'en (...) construire l'edifice entier a nouveaux frais. [...] Une pareille conception du cartesianisme peut a la limite se soutenir en ce qui concerne la physique, mais la psychologie, la doctrine de la connaissance, la morale et la metaphysique de Descartes sont remplies d'elements empruntes a la scolastique. La doctrine du temps, des elements et qualites des corps, de Dieu et de ses attributs, des preuves de son existence, de la creation et conservation du monde, de la substance et de son rapport aux accidents, des idees innees et de notre mode de connaissance, des etats actifs et passifs de l'ame, du rapport de la volonte a l'entendement, enfin les vues de Descartes sur la religion et ses rapports avec la philosophie temoignent que sa pensee n'est pas sans devoir quelque chose a la philosophie de l'Ecole. (shrink)

Oxford Philosophical Texts Series Editor: John Cottingham The Oxford Philosophical Texts series consists of authoritative teaching editions of canonical texts in the history of philosophy from the ancient world down to modern times. Each volume provides a clear, well laid out text together with a comprehensive introduction by a leading specialist, giving the student detailed critical guidance on the intellectual context of the work and the structure and philosophical importance of the main arguments. Endnotes are supplied which provide further commentary (...) on the arguments and explain unfamiliar references and terminology, and a full bibliography and index are also included. The series aims to build up a definitive corpus of key texts in the Western philosophical tradition, which will form a reliable and enduring resource for students and teachers alike. David Hume's aim in writing An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding was to introduce his philosophy to a European culture in which many educated people read original works of philosophy. He gives an elegant and accessible presentation of strikingly original and challenging views about the limited powers of human understanding, the attractions of scepticism, the compatibility of free will and determinism, and weaknesses in the foundations of religion. Hume's philosophy was highly controversial in the eighteenth century and remains so today. The text printed in this edition is that of the Clarendon critical edition of Hume's works. A substantial introduction by the editor explains the intellectual background to the work and surveys its main themes. The volume also includes detailed explanatory notes on the text, a glossary of terms, a full list of references, and a section of supplementary readings. (shrink)

Originally published: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932.

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also arguably the most radical and controversial. This was the first complete biography of Spinoza in any language and is based on detailed archival research. More than simply recounting the story of Spinoza's life, the book takes the reader right into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza's exile from Judaism, right into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual (...) and religious world of the young Dutch Republic. Though the book will be an invaluable resource for philosophers, historians, and scholars of Jewish thought, it has been written for any member of the general reading public with a serious interest in philosophy, Jewish history, seventeenth-century European history, and the culture of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza: A Life has recently been awarded the Koret Jewish Book Award. (shrink)

The foundation for a system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark of moral and political thought. Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.

The infamous inspiration for the novel which slowly corrupts Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray is translated by Robert Baldick with an introduction by Patrick McGuinness in Penguin Classics. A wildly original fin-de-siècle novel, Against Nature contains only one character. Des Esseintes is a decadent, ailing aristocrat who retreats to an isolated villa where her indulges his taste for luxury and excess. Veering between nervous excitability and debilitating ennui, he gluts his aesthetic appetites with classical literature and art, exotic jewels (with which (...) he fatally encrusts the shell of his tortoise), rich perfumes and a kaleidoscope of sensual experiences. Against Nature, in the words of the author, exploded 'like a meteorite' and has enjoyed a cult following to this day. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. (shrink)

Spinoza’s claims about true ideas are central to the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. It is therefore worth trying to reconstruct what he means when he says that an idea is true. I argue that the three leading interpretations – correspondence, coherence, and causal – don’t explain key passages. I then propose a new interpretation. Roughly, I propose that an idea is true if and only if it represents an essence and was derived in the right kind of (...) way by the intellect from an innate idea of one’s own essence. In the final section I sketch why I believe this interpretation extends to his claims about truth and adequacy in the Ethics. (shrink)