Scorned by analytic philosophers for much of the twentieth Century, thea priorihas been newly befriended in recent years. This development is healthy but there is reason to be concerned about how it is unfolding. In particular, it is largely characterized by a certain historical myopia: contemporary philosophers are able to see back to Kant but not much beyond him. While it may be true that thea priorichanged with Kant, this in itself provides us with a reason to go back before (...) him. For other conceptualizations of thea priori,all but forgotten now, might help us to meet worries about it that Kant's familiar version cannot. (shrink)

Scorned by analytic philosophers for much of the twentieth century, the a priori has been newly befriended in recent years. This development is healthy but there is reason to be concerned about how it is unfolding. In particular, it is largely characterized by a certain historical myopia: contemporary philosophers are able to see back to Kant but not much beyond him. While it may be true that the a priori changed with Kant, this in itself provides us with a reason (...) to go back before him. For other conceptualizations of the a priori, all but forgotten now, might help us to meet worries about it that Kant's familiar version cannot. (shrink)

Descartes's general rule that “whatever is clearly and distinctly perceived is true” has traditionally been criticized on two closely related grounds. As Leibniz, for example, puts it, clearness and distinctness are of no value as criteria of truth unless we have criteria of clearness and distinctness; but Descartes gives none. And consequently, the standards of judgment which the rule in fact evokes are purely subjective and psychological. There must hence be set up analytic, logical “marks” by means of which it (...) can infallibly and without arbitrariness be recognized whether any ideas or propositions are or are not clear and distinct. (shrink)

This book deals with a neglected episode in the history of logic and theories of cognition: the way in which conceptions of inference changed during the seventeenth century. The author focuses on the work of Descartes, contrasting his construal of inference as an instantaneous grasp in accord with the natural light of reason, with the Aristotelian view of inference as a discursive process. Gaukroger offers a new interpretation of Descartes`s contribution to the question, revealing it to be a significant advance (...) over humanist and late Scholastic conceptions. He argues that Descartes's account played a pivotal role in the development of our understanding of the nature of inference. (shrink)

Spinoza's Ethics is one of the most remarkable, important, and difficult books in the history of philosophy: a treatise simultaneously on metaphysics, knowledge, philosophical psychology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy. It presents, in Spinoza's famous 'geometric method', his radical views on God, Nature, the human being, and happiness. In this wide-ranging 2006 introduction to the work, Steven Nadler explains the doctrines and arguments of the Ethics, and shows why Spinoza's endlessly fascinating ideas may have been so troubling to his contemporaries, (...) as well as why they are still highly relevant today. He also examines the philosophical background to Spinoza's thought and the dialogues in which Spinoza was engaged - with his contemporaries, with ancient thinkers, and with his Jewish rationalist forebears. His book is written for the student reader but will also be of interest to specialists in early modern philosophy. (shrink)

During the seventeenth century the major cognitive faculties--sense, imagination, memory, and understanding or intellect--became the central focus of argument in metaphysics and epistemology to an extent not seen before. The theory of the intellect, long an important auxiliary to metaphysics, became the focus of metaphysical dispute, especially over the scope and powers of the intellect and the existence of a `pure' intellect. Rationalist metaphysicians such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche claimed that intellectual knowledge, gained independently of the senses, provides the (...) framework for constructing a new theory of nature. Other writers, including Hobbes and the early Gassendi, denied the existence of a distinct intellectual faculty, and so challenged the metaphysicians' abilities directly to perceive the essences of substances. The theory of the senses, which had long been a part of philosophical discussion, took on a new urgency, for adherents of the new corpuscularian philosophy needed to replace the dominant Aristotelian theory of real sensory qualities and sensible species. The revival of skepticism and a renewed interest in method also brought the faculties into prominence, for skeptical challenges typically were directed toward the faculties of sense and understanding, and the theory of method was conceived as providing instructions for the proper use of one's cognitive equipment. The theory of the faculties, then, is an important key to theories of knowledge in the seventeenth century. Indeed, rather than speaking of seventeenth century epistemology, it would be less anachronistic and more informative to speak of theories of cognition. The familiar (and over-stated) point that epistemology became fundamental to metaphysics during that century can then be restated as the point that the theory of faculties became central in metaphysical dispute. (shrink)