René Descartes

L'eredità cartesiana. Conversazione con Giulia Belgioioso.

by Simone Guidi

in "Lo Sguardo", n. II, 2010 (I)

Recensione di Igor Agostini, "L'infinità di Dio. Il dibattito da Suarez a Caterus", Editori Riuniti University Press 2008

by Simone Guidi

in "Lo Sguardo", n. II, 2010 (I)

Unità e scissione del "capire" cartesiano. Gli "Scritti Su Cartesio" di Luigi Scaravelli

by Simone Guidi

in "La Cultura", 2 (2009), pp. 349-356

Recensione a Ettore Lojacono, "Cartesio. Dalla magia alla scienza", Il Prato 2010

by Simone Guidi

Published in LoSguardo.net, n. 6, 2011 (II)

Il teatro cartesiano: sulla funzione della "teatralità" barocca nella Prima Meditazione di Descartes

by Simone Guidi

In M. Gatto, L. Viglialoro (eds), "L'esperienza dell'arte", Galaad Edizioni 2011, pp. 21-55.

‘Sextus Empiricus Contra René Descartes’.

by Kenneth R Westphal

Descartes's Cogito as a Response to Skepticism

by peter odianosen

Conceptual Barriers to Creating Integrative Universities

by Jon Awbrey

Awbrey, S.M., and Awbrey, J.L. (May 2001), “Conceptual Barriers to Creating Integrative Universities”, Organization : The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory, and Society 8(2), Sage Publications, London, UK, pp. 269–284.

Today’s society looks to universities for solutions to broad-based issues that require cross-disciplinary expertise.... more Today’s society looks to universities for solutions to broad-based issues that require cross-disciplinary expertise. Yet, the organizational structure of our institutions remains locked in academic and administrative silos that have little genuine ability to communicate or to recognize the interdependence of knowledge. Why does the capacity to communicate between disciplines and units remain limited? How do formalizations of our experience create barriers? What kind of reflection would it take to subject our mental models of knowledge and learning to critical inquiry? This discussion highlights one of the most entrenched ‘group identity myths’ that underlie the structure of modern academic institutions, the ‘triviality of integration’ thesis.

Dissolving Nature: How Descartes Made Us Posthuman

by Andres Vaccari

Forthcoming in Techne: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 16:1 March 2012). This is an uncorrected proof.

This paper is a historical inquiry into the philosophical fault-line that leads from mechanicism to posthumanism. I... more This paper is a historical inquiry into the philosophical fault-line that leads from mechanicism to posthumanism. I focus on a central aspect of posthumanism: the erosion of the distinction between organism and machine, nature and art, and the biological and engineering sciences. I claim that shift can be placed in the seventeenth century, in Descartes’ biology. Although Descartes is known primarily as the philosopher of the cogito, the mythical cradle of rational humanism, I argue that the dawn of the modern human was also the place of its undoing. The Cartesian fusion of the natural and the technological opened the door to distinctly posthuman understandings of the living body, its relation to technological extensions, and the possibility of its drastic alteration. Descartes’ scientific writings are a kind of laboratory, rehearsing the theoretical and practical amalgamation of machines and organisms in at least two senses: (a) the prosthetic and instrumental enhancement of the body, its technological production, extension and mediation; and (b) the functional integration of machines and organisms in medical, industrial, military, and other contexts. Cartesian mechanicism demanded a reconceptualization of bodily boundaries, organismic unity, natural finality, causation, and bio/technological instrumentality-all of which Descartes boldly attempted to theorize in terms of the wondrous technologies of his day. As the living vanished into the immanent plane of the machine, nature could no longer be taken as a clear source of normative frameworks, and the category of ‘nature’ became nearly impossible to define. Also, Descartes’ radical proposal obscured the possibility of thinking the human as ontologically unique, or as having an ideal unity, despite its privileged relationship to the immaterial (the soul-body union). In what follows, we will examine the posthuman ramifications of these aspects.

4. On Language, Concepts, and Automata: Rational and Irrational Animals in Aristotle and Descartes

by Catherine Rowett

Available in Oxford Scholarship Online

This chapter considers whether language or concepts are necessary for intelligent purposive agency, and argues that... more This chapter considers whether language or concepts are necessary for intelligent purposive agency, and argues that neither humans nor animals require propositional thought or concepts for normal decisions and purposive behaviour. The idea that second order reflection on reasons and intentions is additionally available to humans is shown to be irrelevant to first order intention. Descartes' mechanistic account of human and animal behaviour is inspired by Aristotle's discussion in De motu animalium, but deliberately rejects ‘imagination’ (phantasia), which served for Aristotle to secure intelligent agency by means of stored perceptions, without mental concepts or complex propositions. Aristotle's account (including Posterior Analytics B19) is compared to Plato's notion of recollection (anamnesis) as a source of concepts in humans and animals, with a view to illustrating the similarity of the two models, and the relative merits of the Platonic one.

Subjectivity and Structuralism

by Michael Austin

Presented at the Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy Annual Congress, October 7th, 2011.

While attention has been payed to the pre-evental in Badiou insofar as such an analysis could foster political... more While attention has been payed to the pre-evental in Badiou insofar as such an analysis could foster political revolution, nothing substantial has been said on the possibility of a primal or ur-event. In attempting to understand what could constitute the first event, we will explore Badiou's anthrocentrism and his connection to the structuralist understanding of the relation of humanity to nature as one of alienation as exemplified in his allegiance with Lacan and Rousseau. It will be suggested that to accept Badiou's model of subjectivity, one must also accept the structuralist thesis that the human is equiprimordial with language.

La question de l'union de l'âme et du corps en général

by Vlad Alexandrescu

published in Vlad Alexandrescu, Dana Jalobeanu, Esprits modernes. Etudes sur les modèles de pensée alternatifs aux XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles, Editura Universităţii din Bucureşti, «Vasile Goldiş» University Press, Bucarest, Arad, 2003, pp. 95-116;

Clear and Distinct Perceptions and Clear and Dtistinct Ideas: The Cartesian Circle

by Marco Motta

This paper explores a famous criticism to Descartes’ argument concerning the cogito and its relation to the arguments... more This paper explores a famous criticism to Descartes’ argument concerning the cogito and its relation to the arguments for the existence of God, which is traditionally referred to as the Cartesian Circle. In an attempt to provide a clear formulation of the problem itself, this article will attempt to draw a distinction between the concepts of clear and distinct perceptions and clear and distinct ideas. While clear and distinct perceptions, like the cogito, or the mathematical geometrical truths, would yield no more than a performative necessity, clear and distinct ideas, like the idea of God, imply a formal/objective necessity.
In conclusion, this paper argues that, despite Descartes does not explicitly solve the problem of the Cartesian Circle, the distinction he draws between the epistemological truth yielded by perceptions and the formal/objective truth given in ideas, clears the ground for different possible solutions which will be explored by following philosophers.

A temporalidade do pensamento em Descartes

by Elaine Guinevere

Com o objetivo de chegar a um entendimento claro e distinto acerca da temporalidade do pensamento a partir da filosofia cartesiana, investigamos o que concerne a este tema nas Meditações Metafísicas, nos Princípios da Filosofia e nas Regras para a Direção do Espírito. As noções de tempo e de duração compuseram o conteúdo principal de nossos estudos. Através delas, tentamos levar à compreensão de como nossa mente é capaz de perceber a passagem do tempo e de conhecer a duração das coisas. Além disso, percorremos com Descartes o caminho trilhado para chegar descoberta da Razão para saber como o conceito de tempo está envolvido na fundamentação do cogito. Para abordar os problemas conceituais e elucidar as questões envolvidas na noção de tempo cartesiana, fizemos o estudo atento de algumas das principais obras de Descartes, e também recorremos aos textos de alguns dos seus principais comentadores.

In order to achieve a clear and distinct understanding of the temporality of thought in the Cartesian philosophy, we... more In order to achieve a clear and distinct understanding of the temporality of thought in the Cartesian philosophy, we investigated this subject in Metaphysical Meditations, Principles of Philosophy, and Rules for the Direction of the Mind. The concepts of time and duration constituted the initial content of our studies. Through these concepts, we try to lead to a comprehension of how mind is capable of perceiving time flow and knowing the duration of things. Besides, we followed Descartes through the path that leads to the discovery of Reason, in order to know how his concept of time is involved in the foundation of the “cogito”. To approach conceptual problems and questions entailed in the Cartesian notion of time, besides the attentive study of some of the main writings of Descartes, we also used the ones of some of chief commentators.

A Third Type of Distinction in the Treatise

by Jani Hakkarainen

In this paper, I argue that Hume's system in the Treatise is compatible with a third kind of distinction besides real... more In this paper, I argue that Hume's system in the Treatise is compatible with a third kind of distinction besides real and rational distinction. There is no proper term for this third kind of distinction in the late Scholastic and Rationalist debate on distinctions, nor in Hume’s own writings. So a more anachronistic term must be found for it. That is David Lewis' slightly modified partial distinction, which means that if A and B are partially distinct, they are not identical but share parts. I show that according to Hume's metaphysics of space, perceptions of extension consist of unextended coloured or tangible points. As these points are the ultimate proper parts of perceptions of extension and their own improper parts, the perceptions of extension and points have common parts. They are not identical because a perception of extension is not the points that compose it; it is these points arranged in a certain manner. Therefore, the perceptions of extension are partially distinct from the points. That Hume's system is compatible with partial distinction implies that it also allows of necessary connections between distinct perceptions.

Cogito and its Critics. Descartes, Hume, and Kant (in Russian)

by Arseniy Khitrov / Арсений Хитров

in: Aspects, ed. III, (Moscow, 2005): pp. 75–91.

Cogito и его критики. Декарт, Юм и Кант. В кн.: Аспекты, вып. III, М., 2005, С. 75–91.

The Idea of Method and the French Literary Classicism (in Russian)

by Arseniy Khitrov / Арсений Хитров

in: Collage-5. Social-philosophical and philosophical-anthropological literary miscellany, (Мoscow, 2005): pp. 91–111.

The full text of the volume can be accessed here: http://iph.ras.ru/uplfile/root/biblio/kollazh/Kollazh_5.pdf

Идея метода и доктрина литературного классицизма. В кн.: Коллаж–5. Социально-философский и философско-антропологический альманах, М., 2005, С. 91–111.

Полный текст книги доступен здесь: http://iph.ras.ru/uplfile/root/biblio/kollazh/Kollazh_5.pdf

Kant’s Criticism of Descartes’ Cogito (in Russian)

by Arseniy Khitrov / Арсений Хитров

in: Forum of young researchers of Kant's philosophy, (Moscow, 2005): pp. 44–51.

Критика Кантом учения Декарта о cogito. В кн.: Форум молодых кантоведов, М., 2005, C. 44–51.

The Lover's Capacity in Jean-Luc Marion's _The Erotic Phenomenon_

by Stephen E. Lewis

Published in: _Quaestiones Disputatae_ Vol. 1 no. 1 (Fall 2010): 226-244.

What Anchors Semiosis: How Descartes Changed the Subject

by Marc Champagne

Published in RS/SI (Recherches Sémiotiques / Semiotic Inquiry), vol. 28, no. 3 (2008); vol. 29, no. 1 (2009), pp. 183-197.

The goal of this article is twofold. First, it revises the historiographic partition proposed by John Deely in Four... more The goal of this article is twofold. First, it revises the historiographic partition proposed by John Deely in Four Ages of Understanding (2001) by arguing that the moment marking the beginning of philosophical Modernity has been vividly recorded in Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy with the experiment with the wax. Second, an upshot of this historical study is that it helps make sense of Deely’s somewhat iconoclastic use of the words “subject” and “subjectivity” to designate mind-independent worldly things. The hope is that successfully accomplishing these twin tasks will give semiotic inquiry a better appreciation of its own history, as well as resources genial to furthering its ongoing development.