One of the most significant studies of Descartes in recent times. It concentrates on the Meditations to show Descartes' philosophy in the context of his overall scientific objectives, not all of them fully explicit in the texts.
First Published in 1999. The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher of major influence and significance. In this volume, the author offers what she believes to be a somewhat different over-all reading of Descartes’ philosophy, and particularly of the Meditations, from other commentators—especially those written in English.
First Published in 1999. The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher of major influence and significance. In this volume, the author offers what she believes to be a somewhat different over-all reading of Descartes’ philosophy, and particularly of the Meditations, from other commentators—especially those written in English.
Descartes's concept of the mind, as distinct from the body with which it forms a union, set the agenda for much of Western philosophy's subsequent reflection on human nature and thought. This is the first book to give an analysis of Descartes's pivotal concept that deals with all the functions of the mind, cognitive as well as volitional, theoretical as well as practical and moral. Focusing on Descartes's view of the mind as intimately united to and intermingled with the body, and exploring its implications for his philosophy of mind and moral psychology, Lilli Alanen argues that the epistemological and methodological consequences of this view have been largely misconstrued in the modern debate. Informed by both the French tradition of Descartes scholarship and recent Anglo-American research, Alanen's book combines historical-contextual analysis with a philosophical problem-oriented approach. It seeks to relate Descartes's views on mind and intentionality both to contemporary debates and to the problems Descartes confronted in their historical context. By drawing out the historical antecedents and the intellectual evolution of Descartes's thinking about the mind, the book shows how his emphasis on the embodiment of the mind has implications far more complex and interesting than the usual dualist account suggests.
Principles of Philosophy (Latin: Principia philosophiae) is a book by Rene Descartes. In essence it is a synthesis of the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version (Les Principes de la Philosophie) followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature-the Laws of Physics-as Descartes viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the principle that in the absence of external forces, an object's motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to as Newton's First Law of Motion. The book was primarily intended to replace the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British Universities. The work provides a systematic statement of his metaphysics and natural philosophy, and represents the first truly comprehensive, mechanistic account of the universe."
Philosophy for AS and A Level is an accessible textbook for the new 2017 AQA Philosophy syllabus. Structured closely around the AQA specification this textbook covers the two units shared by the AS and A Level, Epistemology and Moral Philosophy, in an engaging and student-friendly way. With chapters on 'How to do philosophy', exam preparation providing students with the philosophical skills they need to succeed, and an extensive glossary to support understanding, this book is ideal for students studying philosophy. Each chapter includes: argument maps that help to develop student’s analytical and critical skills comprehension questions to test understanding discussion questions to generate evaluative argument explanation and commentary on the AQA set texts ‘Thinking harder’ sections cross-references to help students make connections bullet-point summaries of each topic. The companion website hosts a wealth of further resources, including PowerPoint slides, flashcards, further reading, weblinks and handouts, all structured to accompany the textbook. It can be found at www.routledge.com/cw/alevelphilosophy.
At least since Descartes, philosophers have been interested in the special knowledge or authority that we exhibit when we speak about our own thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. Expression and the Inner contends that even the best work in contemporary philosophy of mind fails to account for this sort of knowledge or authority because it does not pay the right sort of attention to the notion of expression. Following what he takes to be a widely misunderstood suggestion of Wittgenstein's, Finkelstein argues that we can make sense of self-knowledge and first-person authority only by coming to see the ways in which a self-ascription of, say, happiness (a person's saying or thinking, "I'm happy this morning") may be akin to a smile--akin, that is, to an expression of happiness. In so doing, Finkelstein contrasts his own reading of Wittgenstein's philosophy of mind with influential readings set out by John McDowell and Crispin Wright. By the final chapter of this lucid work, what's at stake is not only how to understand self-knowledge and first-person authority, but also what it is that distinguishes conscious from unconscious psychological states, what the mental life of a nonlinguistic animal has in common with our sort of mental life, and how to think about Wittgenstein's legacy to the philosophy of mind.
Closely examining Jacques Lacan's unique mode of engagement with philosophy, Lacan with the Philosophers sheds new light on the interdisciplinary relations between philosophy and psychoanalysis. While highlighting the philosophies fundamental to the study of Lacan’s psychanalysis, Ruth Ronen reveals how Lacan resisted the straightforward use of these works. Lacan’s use of philosophy actually has a startling effect in not only providing exceptional entries into the philosophical texts (of Aristotle, Descartes, Kant and Hegel), but also in exposing the affinity between philosophy and psychoanalysis around shared concepts (including truth, the unconscious, and desire), and at the same time affirming the irreducible difference between the analyst and the philosopher. Inspired by Lacan’s resistance to philosophy, Ruth Ronen addresses Lacan’s use of philosophy to create a fertile moment of exchange. Straddling the fields of philosophy and psychoanalysis with equal emphasis, Lacan with the Philosophers develops a unique interdisciplinary analysis and offers a new perspective on the body of Lacan’s writings.