Critique Of Descartes Research Articles

Post-secular Anthropology as Recognition and the Limits of Understanding

Abstract This article contributes to discussions around a post-secular anthropology that seek to engage seriously with religious traditions and theology. Conversations in Morocco with Muslims who experienced possession by jinn spirits point to the importance of recognition. To understand those experiences risks translating them into my concepts. Recognizing them accepts that what the other says has significance. They call me to visit the broader Islamic tradition that they creatively draw on in an effort to decenter my own thinking and to open up to possibility. This space for possibility and the limits of understanding are explored by putting into dialogue Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology as critique of Descartes's dualism of mind and world, with a discussion in the Islamic tradition, between al-Ghazālī and Ibn Sīnā.

Criticism of the guidelines of cartesian philosophy by Ch. Pierce

The article intends to show the significance of Ch. Peirce’s ideas for the development of contemporary philosophy, to find out the main directions of his criticism of the principles of Cartesian and more broadly modern philosophy (where it comes from Descartes) and to consider the positive program of his philosophy, which he offers as an alternative to Modern philosophy. Peirce starts from a pragmatic and semiotic approach to human nature, consciousness and cognition. Thanks to this approach, he managed to undermine the key ideas of the modern understanding of cognition, human, language, namely: individualism, linguistic atomism, dogmatism, dualism, representationism, nominalism, foundationalism, etc. And, instead, to propose a new theory of knowledge, a new ontology and anthropology. Peirce asserts the indirectness of human cognition by signs (linguistic, cultural, sensory), the impossibility of introspection and intuition, advocates holism, fallibilism, pragmatism, realism, synechism, inferentialism and offers a new understanding of the personality — all this makes him a relevant and contemporary thinker. Peirce’s ideas offer a fresh perspective on modern scientific practice. Peirce’s rethinking of the foundations of knowledge puts him alongside many thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The development of his ideas can be seen in modern anthropology, epistemology, research on artificial intelligence, semiotics, etc. The article is divided into four subsections, which are devoted to the main directions of Peirce’s criticism of Descartes’ philosophy: in the first — against Descartes’ skeptical methodology, Peirce puts the concept of fallibilism and the principle of belief, in the second — Peirce denies the possibility of intuition and proves the indirectness of our cognition by signs, in the third — it is about the advantages of the semiotic and communicative approach over individualism and linguistic atomism, in the fourth — Descartes’ nominalism and dualism, Peirce contrasts the realist approach and his theory of synechism, as well as semiotic anthropology.

Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy ed. by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender

Reviewed by: Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy ed. by Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender Nick Westberg and Jean-Luc Solère Dominik Perler and Sebastian Bender, editors. Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy. Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2020. Pp. vi + 361. Cloth, $112.00. This volume is a welcome addition to early modern scholarship, providing a source of reflection on the connection between cognition theory and causation theory. The collection's great merit is exploiting this cognition-causation connection to provide a new avenue for historical research that is at the same time philosophically significant. Several of the essays advance our understanding of key figures by using this connection to settle longstanding interpretive disputes. (Besides those detailed in the present paragraph, the excellent pieces by Julia Jorati on Leibniz, Sebastian Bender on Berkeley, and Martine Pécharman on Hobbes also fall under this heading.) For instance, in "Descartes on the Causal Structure of Cognition," Alison Simmons rejects both the concurrentist and the occasionalist readings and argues that Descartes, in fact, does not endorse any view about the metaphysics of causation. Instead, he is more interested in showing the success of mechanism. Mechanistic physics can account for all the bodily interactions that lead up to perception. Thus, philosophers may dispense with the Aristotelian assimilation thesis and its underlying physics. In "Knowing Mind through Knowing Body," Daniel Garber provides an answer to the "Pancreas Problem" in Spinoza scholarship. Awareness is distinguished from mere perception, which may be not conscious. Moreover, awareness results from the body's interaction with an external body, whereas (unconscious) perception does not require such interaction and can be purely internal. This helps explain Spinoza's criticism of Descartes's cogito argument. By extension from the definition of awareness, self-consciousness—that is, the idea of the idea of one's body—depends upon interaction with external bodies. So, one cannot separate self-consciousness from causal relations with the external world. Peter Kail likewise uses the cognition-causation connection to engage a longstanding debate, defending the view that David Hume is not a radical skeptic. He argues that Hume's criticism of causation only precludes one sense in which the mind is a cause of inferences, that is, the sense in which it deductively infers. Hume instead treats reason as a reliable mechanism that leads us to nondeductive inferences. Other essays use the cognition-causation connection not to wade into perennial scholarly disputes, but rather to open up historical inquiry to lesser-known philosophers. These figures are often taken to be minor on account of their quirky positions. But this collection reveals that an unorthodox position in one domain (causation or cognition) is often the result of a unique thesis defended in the other. For instance, in "Nothing Is Simply One Thing," Julia [End Page 688] Borcherding shows that Anne Conway advances her non-unitary theory of mind because she significantly alters Descartes's account of change. Likewise, in "Cartesian Causation and Cognition," Tad Schmaltz argues that Géraud de Cordemoy embraces occasionalism about the mind's perceptions because he reasons that Cartesian metaphysics renders causation between finite substances impossible. Again, Dominik Perler, in "Suárez on Cognition and Causation," illuminates Suárez's unorthodox view of the intellect as a coordinated efficient cause of ideas. He shows that Suárez's view is a last-ditch attempt within Aristotelianism to replace a failed assimilation thesis. The pieces by Sarah Hutton on Cudworth, David Cunning on Cavendish, and Han Thomas Adriaenssen on John Sergeant and Antoine Le Grand fall in the same group of essays that explore lesser-known figures. The excellent contributions of Martin Lin on Spinoza's causal axiom, Stephan Schmid on Malebranche, and James Van Cleve on Reid form a third group. Not only are they analytically thorough, but they also bring illuminating contemporary analysis to bear on this collection's theme. The collection is not without its issues. For one thing, the pieces do not fit together as a cohesive whole. This is due to the broad scope of figures (eighteen philosophers, spanning divergent perspectives from about 1600 to about 1750) and the differing interpretive methods. The...

Descartes, Bergson, and Continuous Creation

René Descartes with his theory of continued creation occupies an exceptional place in the philosophy of Henri Bergson: Descartes is subjected to Bergson’s repeated criticism like no other philosopher. Yet, in L’évolution créatrice Bergson appears to oscillate in his criticism of Descartes. Bergson discovers in the theory of continued creation a thought of freedom, of an indeterminate future, which is not far from his own thought of duration. Bergson thus advances a thesis in accordance with which Descartes’ theory of continued creation has two irreconcilable aspects: continued creation and continuous creation. The difference between these two aspects, however, is not just about the choice between a participle and an adjective. The aim of this article is to show how Descartes’ theory of continued creation lends itself to such a double interpretation. While the former aspect originates in Descartes’ project of mechanistic physics, the latter aspect is accessible but from the standpoint of human freedom, as well as Descartes’ critique of finalism. The article thus shows that Descartes’ theory of continued creation constitutes a point of convergence between the questions of mechanism and human freedom, where the latter is an exception to the former. However, the exceptional status of human freedom in Descartes’ philosophy renders Bergson’ thesis about Descartes’ oscillation between two aspects somewhat problematic.

God’s Possibility and the Compossibility of Ideas. How Leibniz Tries to Lay the Foundations for Descartes’ Ontological Proof (Part I)

As is well known, Leibniz criticises Descartes for not having shown that God (considered as ens perfectissimum ) is possible, and tries to fill this gap by proving God’s possibility on the basis of absolutely positive and simple perfections. For many readers, however, these perfections have appeared problematic or unintelligible. In my paper, I primarily want to show, that they can be made comprehensible by working out their foundations in Plato’s theory of ideas. On this basis, I want to explain, how this allows to understand the compossibility of perfections, essences or ideas (in the Leibnizian regio idearum ) and how such an understanding fits into his version of the ontological proof. For this purpose, the first part of my paper follows two closely related lines of investigation. On the one hand, I focus on Leibniz’s theory of ideas and try to explain in which way he combines his criticism of Descartes’s proof with a criticism of the Cartesian understanding of clear and distinct ideas. On the other hand, I discuss his transformation of Platonic ideas into essences leading from actually existing entities to real possibilities. In order to provide a foundation for this, I start with a glance at Descartes’s ontological proof and at his replies to Caterus and Mersenne concentrating on the problem of God’s possibility. The second part of my paper will work out Leibniz’s own version of the ontological proof and its Platonic background.

The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater

The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater

Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II, by Ernest Sosa.

Reflective Knowledge is the second volume of Sosa’s Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, following A Virtue Epistemology (2007). Reflective Knowledge extends his account of virtue epistemology, primarily by focusing on reflective knowledge and issues of epistemic circularity. Part one prepares the way for Sosa’s own views through a series of critical discussions of Moore, Chisholm, Strawson, Reid, Sellars, and Davidson. These are models of philosophically informed history of philosophy that engage philosophical issues but are sensitive to interpretative issues and take our understanding beyond textbook history. In part two, Sosa defends the value of reflective knowledge, and argues that virtue epistemology neither undermines knowledge nor makes it ‘too easy’. The most striking aspect of the book is the defence of an externalist analysis of the idea of a virtuous circle. Sosa argues for a form of virtue reliabilism according to which a belief is knowledge only if it is true and apt by virtue of its ‘correctness deriving from its manifesting certain cognitive virtues of the subject, where nothing is a cognitive virtue unless it is a truth-conducive disposition’ (p. 135). He is thus an externalist who criticizes Moore for thinking that ordinary perceptual knowledge requires knowing one is not dreaming, rather than simply not dreaming. However, he also distinguishes ‘reflective’ knowledge from ‘animal’ knowledge. The former requires defensibly apt belief, that is, belief about the aptness of one’s belief and a sufficiently coherent perspective on its aptness that allows one to defend it against relevant sceptical objections. So at the level of reflective knowledge, Sosa is also a coherentist, criticizing Moore for thinking that reflective knowledge requires prior knowledge that one isn’t dreaming rather than simply presupposing it in a web of mutually supporting belief that enhances the justification of all. The reflective/animal distinction, Sosa argues, corresponds to Descartes’ distinction between scientia, which Descartes enjoys once he has achieved his theological perspective on the truth-conduciveness of his clear and distinct judgements, and cognition, possessed by atheist mathematicians who lack such a reflective perspective. It is also key, Sosa thinks, to the understanding of his own epistemological project. Sosa thus rejects Reid’s criticism of Descartes’ project as viciously circular.

Hume and the Role of Testimony in Knowledge

ABSTRACTIt has been argued that Hume's account of testimony is seriously inadequate: an autonomous knower of the sort Hume defends cannot, through simple inductive methods, justify accepting another's testimony as true. This conclusion is no doubt correct. But Hume does not defend the idea of an autonomous knower, nor does he defend relying upon simple inductive methods. An examination of Hume's critique of Descartes’ method of doubt shows him as a defender of what might be called the responsible knower, and reveals the sophistication of the inductive methods he wishes to defend. It is shown that Hume can and does use these methods to justify accepting the testimony of others.

The principle of noncontradiction and Descartes' god

The article analyzes the status of the principle of non-contradiction as an eternal truth in Descartes' metaphysics, and tries to answer the question is it caused. After making the difference between created and uncreated eternal truths, the reached conclusion is that the principle of non-contradiction is created eternal truth. As such, it could be applied even to God but only if we understand him as the most perfect being. The very essence of God, that is absolute power i.e. causa sui is beyond the range of this principle, because absolute power as the essence of God is the realm of absolute identity between His essence and His existence. Since man can think only in accordance with the principle of non-contradiction, even God's infinite power he must understand with regard to that principle. Nevertheless, since the principle of non-contradiction is not applicable on God's absolute identity, its absence man understands as its negation, and because of that, that identity appears to him as self-contradictory. In the end, it is shown a (partial) lack of ground of Lebniz's critique of Descartes concerning ontological argument.

Causation in Collisions ‐ An Empiricist but Non‐Humean Account

Abstract: Hume's regularity theory of causation was partly motivated by a criticism of Descartes' causal account of collisions. According to Descartes, bodies are things with extension, and since having extension does not entail any ability to cause changes of motion in other bodies, such changes must be explained by attributing a ‘causal power’ to bodies, logically independent of their extension. Hume's point is that we can't observe any such causal power and we should not use ideas about such unobserved qualities of bodies. Given his form of empiricism, the regularity theory is the only choice; causation is no more than constant correlation. However, there is a third option beside attributing a metaphysical ‘causal power’ and mere regularity; if we follow Newton and say that bodies are characterised and individuated by their mass, not their extension, we can give another analysis of causal interaction between bodies. It is by having mass a body can cause changes in the motion of other bodies. Thus, using classical mechanics we can give an alternative to Hume's regularity theory of causation in which the necessary connection between cause and effect is understood as a conceptual connection between certain descriptions of cause and effect. It does not satisfy Hume's strictures on concept formation, but no additional metaphysics is necessary. In a sense it is an intermediate position between Humean regularity and an account in terms of metaphysical necessity.

Malebranche's criticism of descartes's proof that there are bodies

In the first edition of The Search After Truth Malebranche said that it was very difficult to prove demonstratively that there are bodies, but said little about why.1 And while he indicated that an...

The English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution, 1630-1660 by Nicholas McDowell (review)

MLRy 100.3, 2005 781 allegedly purposeful and controlled. She is involved in an 'encyclopedie, comprehen? sive literary project' whose purpose is to pursue 'a conscious and deliberate explo? ration ofthe various forms and genres available to her at the time' (p. 9), and to engage in 'experiments in genre' (p. 196) to develop original hybrid forms which are more appropriate for her purposes, which include challenging traditional constructions of both gender and genre. Sara Mendelson's intriguing piece sees Cavendish's plays demolishing the line between fiction and life-writing, arguing that they combine thinly disguised autobiography with 'dreamlike inversions of Cavendish's own life experi? ences', which Mendelson calls 'anti-autobiography' (p. 201). Gisele Venet argues that her 'entirely new creative approaches' require an 'aesthetic of fragmentation' as a way of breaking away from conventions and of staging new attitudes towards others or a new convention of the self (p. 213). It is easier to assert purposeful irony than to prove it,however, and some essays seem to imply a particular insight into Cavendish's intentions which is not always borne out by the evidence. The collection's Cavendish is purposeful rather than incoherent. Moreover, far from being ignorant, she is well-read, and is engaged in a critical debate with other authors and scientists. Thus James Fitzmaurice convincingly reads The Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle as a purposefully hybrid form which combines narrative, scrapbook, household accounts, and maxims, and as a critique of Plutarch; Lisa T. Sarasohn reads the Philosophical Letters as a critique of Descartes, Hobbes, and other contemporary scientists; and Sarah Hutton goes so far as to read the Description of a New World Called the Blazing World as a wholesale 'satire on contemporary science' (p. 161) modelled on Lucian of Samosata. This collection of eleven 'international and interdisciplinary' (p. 8) essays, many by established Cavendish scholars, began as a series of conference papers, and attempts to cover the whole range of Cavendish's writing, from scientific and philosophical writings to life-writings, poetry, prose fiction, and plays. It attempts 'to locate her within literary conventions as a "complete author"', an enterprise 'never before attempted ' (p. 10). It is more coherent than many essay collections, but at the price of some repetition. Moreover, Cavendish sometimes seems to inspire in her critics contradictions resembling those attributed to her. Line Cottegnies's essay sees her both as a postmodern subject deconstructing the unitary self and as celebrating the myth of the stable self, and as both critiquing memory and fearing oblivion. While there is much here that will interest academies working on Cavendish, it is not likely to find a wider audience. University of Manchester Jacqueline Pearson The English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution, 1630-1660. By Nicholas McDowell. (Oxford English Monographs) Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 2003. x + 2i9pp. ?45. ISBN 0-19-926051-6. The rather tired generalities and predictable collocations of the title of this study do not in the least prepare the reader for its challenging and exciting contents. This is no bland general overview of Levellers, Diggers, Quakers, et al. rehearsing the familiar connections between masterless men, mechanic preachers, the gift of free grace, and social insubordination. On the contrary,its business is to 'revise our understanding of radicalism in the English revolution' by challenging the 'starkly adversarial' relation? ship between 'radical belief and elite culture' presented both by seventeenth-century radicals themselves and by their twentieth-century champions (p. 1). Nicholas Mc? Dowell disputes both the socially underprivileged origins of seventeenth-century radicalism and its dependence upon oral and untutored cultural and literary habits of expression. 782 Reviews That a heterodox lower-class culture, ignorant of the intellectual heritage of the Renaissance, found its voice during the 1640s and 1650s was, of course, Christo? pher Hill's recurrent theme, and this view still constitutes the prevailing scholarly orthodoxy. Hill argued that this grass-roots movement did not suddenly appear from nowhere: it had been a feature of English life at least since Wyclif and the Lollards, and probably for longer. What brought it into view was the revolutionary fervour of the 1640s, coupled with the power...

“COGITOR ERGO SUM”: ON THE MEANING AND RELEVANCE OF BAADER's THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF DESCARTES

AbstractThis paper examines the arguments on the basis of which Franz Baader (1765–1841), the almost forgotten contemporary of Hegel and Schelling, rejected Descartes’ philosophy so decisively, that, at the end of his life, he wrote to a friend that he passionately wanted to put an end to Cartesianism. I defend the thesis that Baader's hostility to Cartesianism was ultimately grounded in a theological idea, and that his holistic and emphatically Christian thought can only be adequately understood in the light of his critique of Descartes and Cartesianism. I also suggest reasons why Baader's work might well be considered as a source of inspiration for contemporary discussions of postmodernism.

Desgabets on the Creation of Eternal Truths

For many philosophers Robert Desgabets's1 doctrine of the creation of eternal truths will be of interest for the light it throws on Descartes's doctrine of the creation of eternal truths, a doctrine receiving considerable scrutiny the past several years.2 Desgabets was one of the few followers of Descartes to defend this doctrine; and he not only defended it, he made it central to his philosophy.3 He spoke of the [End Page 21] doctrine as "being of the greatest importance and having great and incomparable consequences;" and he referred to it as being "so lofty, so fine, so saintly and so worthy of God" that Descartes ought never to have departed from it (RD 208, 209).4 But, Desgabets thinks, Descartes sometimes forgets his own doctrine and says things incompatible with it. More important, he thinks, Descartes fails to realize how important the doctrine is and fails to extend it to its full consequences. In Desgabets we get from a Cartesian and a near contemporary of Descartes: an interpretation of Descartes's doctrine of the creation of eternal truths, a criticism of Descartes's version of the doctrine purportedly based on Descartes's own principles, and the development of the supposedly correct version of the doctrine that Descartes would have advocated had he been truer to his own principles.5 Recent discussions have brought to the fore several controversies about how to interpret Descartes's comments on the creation of the eternal truths. I piece together both where Desgabets's own doctrine stands on these controversies and how Desgabets interprets Descartes's position on them, and I note some consequences that Desgabets draws from the doctrine that are clearly opposed to Descartes's explicit views. 1. Desgabets's Interpretation of Descartes In Critique de la Critique, Desgabets first states Descartes's doctrine of the creation of eternal truths as follows: That the Whole is greater than its part, that the circle has its diameters equal, that man is a rational animal, that two & two are four, etc., are not such of themselves but . . . God has made & established them with a sovereign indifference being able not to establish them so that what is now true & necessary should not be so if he had not established it. (CdC 73) This states the core of Descartes's doctrine of the creation of eternal truths, and I doubt that anyone would deny that it is in Descartes. In the next paragraph, however, Desgabets both expands and limits the scope of what he takes to be Descartes's doctrine: Descartes claims that there is neither nature, nor essence, nor reality, nor conceivability, nor truth among created things that God has not made or established with a sovereign indifference, so that before we conceive that he has freely resolved to make & establish things & truths there is nothing conceivable except his unique Essence. And we must not listen to those who say that before his free decrees & before his [End Page 22] indifferent action he already necessarily saw natures & determined essences that had by themselves a real possibility that they did not owe to him & that distinguished them from chimeras & beings of reason. (CdC 74) Whether or not Descartes subscribes to the views expressed in this paragraph, they clearly go beyond the core doctrine of the creation of eternal truths expressed in the previous paragraph. First, Desgabets expands Descartes's doctrine to include opposition not just to the view that the eternal truths exist independently of God, but also to the view that God creates by giving actual existence to pre-existent essences that determine what is possible. Desgabets believes that for Descartes God does not create by contemplating pre-existent essences, to some of which he gives actual existence. Rather, God creates the essences themselves (cf. RD 32-33, 232). Moreover, Desgabets believes that for Descartes God gives existence not just to essences but also to possibilities. God does not confront...

Rocking the Foundations of Cartesian Knowledge: Critical Notice of Janet Broughton, Descartes's Method of Doubt

Janet Broughton's Descartes's Method ofDoubtl is a systematic study of the role of doubt in Descartes's epistemology. The book has two parts. Part 1 focuses on the development of doubt in the First Meditation, exploring such topics as the motivation behind methodic doubt; the targeted audience; the method's game-like character (on her view); its relations to ancient skepticism, its reasonableness; the method's presuppositions relative to commonsense belief; Michael Williams's recent criticisms of Descartes; and more. Part 2 focuses on how doubt figures in the constructive epistemology of the Meditations-on how Descartes employs doubt as a tool for founding knowledge. I'll have much more to say about part 2. A careful treatment of the topics of this book has been long overdue. Broughton's ideas are innovative, engaging, and clearly developed at every stage. The wide-ranging issues addressed remind the reader of why Descartes's thought is of continuing philosophical interest. Throughout, her interpretation is sensitive to the exegetical concerns of scholars. This rich book deserves the attention of every serious student of Descartes.

Vico, genealogist of modernity

In this lucid and probing study, Robert C. Miner argues that Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was the architect of a subversive, genealogical approach to modernity. Miner documents the genesis of Vico's stance toward modernity in the first phase of his thought. Through close examination of his early writings, centering on Vico's critique of Descartes and his elaboration of the 'verum-factum' principle, Vico, Genealogist of Modernity reveals that Vico strives to acknowledge the technical advances of modernity while unmasking its origins in human pride. Miner's careful analysis of the often neglected Universal Law shows how Vico uses Augustine to articulate a new conception of natural law that mediates between the idealism of Plato and Aristotle and the realism of Tacitus and Machiavelli. Vico emerges as a penetrating reader of traditional philosophy and philology, as well as a radical pioneer of modern historical consciousness. Miner also traces important connections between Vico's magnum opus, the New Science, and his earlier writings, arguing that the New Science is not merely a work of scientific history. Miner contends that this work is more fundamentally a genealogy that enacts Nietzsche's desire to treat etymology and language as signposts for understanding the development of moral concepts. Miner shows how Vico's genealogy attempts to disclose hidden continuities between the culture of secular modernity and the pagan institutions of idolatry, divination, and sacrifice. Throughout this engaging work, Miner portrays Vico's genealogy as expressly Augustinian and Catholic, yet sufficiently complex to resist assimilation to reactionary anti-modernism. According to Miner, the goal of Vico's genealogy is to encompass the best of ancient and medieval traditions within an encyclopedic fusion of history and philosophy that is both modern and Christian. Although Vico sees the age of man as moving toward the barbarism of reflection, his trust in divine providence saves him from nihilistic despair. Miner concludes that Vico's thought not only anticipates later efforts to infuse philosophy with historical consciousness, but also contains the seeds of a coherent alternative to the program of postmodern genealogy.

The Power of an Idea: Spinoza's Critique of Pure Will

One of the most important claims in the Ethics is Proposition 49 of Part 2: In the Mind, there is no volition, or affirmation and negation, except that which the idea involves insofar as it is an idea.' With Spinoza's characteristic economy of expression, this proposition simultaneously embodies commitments to a representational account of mental states and to an understanding of belief solely in terms of the causal role of mental states. These dual commitments-so widespread in contemporary philosophyare in 2p49 tightly linked with Spinoza's views on mental actions and passions, the efficacy of representational content, the self-contained nature of the realms of thought and of extension, and the universal striving for selfpreservation. 2p49 thus represents, as I will show, a crystallization of much of Spinoza's metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Further, a particular theme of this paper is the way in which this proposition manifests various anti-Cartesian strands in Spinoza. Of course, as has been widely recognized, 2p49 is directed against Descartes' view that judgment or affirmation consists in part of an act of will separate from the idea affirmed, an act, one might say, of pure will. However, one aspect of the lack of full appreciation of the significance of 2p49 has been a failure to grasp how this criticism of Descartes is deeply connected with Spinoza's criticisms of Descartes on some of the other topics in metaphysics and philosophy of mind that I just mentioned, and even, as I will argue briefly at the end, with Spinoza's criticism of Descartes' account of the causation of motion. 2p49 is thus not only a crystallization of Spinoza's philosophy of

Dreaming with Open Eyes

Dreaming with open is a tagline for Spinoza's critique of Descartes; the dreams in question are principally those of volition and the active imagination. In this article, I compare the Cartesian theory of imagination as an active, but not fully rational, power of the mind and the Cartesian account of the volitional self to Spinoza's views. Descartes's own dreams and theories of dreaming are the focus of the first part of the article. Thereafter I examine Spinoza's critique of Descartes and his alternative account of imagination. Finally, I argue that there is a positive sense of dreaming with open eyes to be recuperated in Spinoza's thought. Construed positively, to dream with open eyes is to understand dreams and imagination as natural phenomena and so to be able to respond constructively to them in ethical and political, as well as epistemological, life.

The Rhetoric of the Geometrical Method: Spinoza's Double Strategy

A double strategy may be apprehended in the first definitions, axioms and propositions of Spinoza's Ethics: the one is rhetorical, the other, system- atic. Insofar as these opening passages constitute a geometrical argument that leads ultimately to the strict monism that lies at the heart of Spinoza's philosophy, they function systematically as grounding principles. However, insofar as they are designed to uncover errors at the heart of the Cartesian system, they function rhetorically as a critique of Descartes's equivocal theory of substance. The geometrical mode of presentation lends an aura of necessity to the systematic strategy and tends to eclipse the rhetorical strategy that functions as a critique of Cartesian dualism. 1 To this extent, the systematic strategy itself functions rhetorically. On the other hand, to the extent that any seventeenth-century attempt to establish a monistic sys- tem would inevitably have had to involve a critique of Cartesian dualism, the rhetorical strategy itself functions systematically. Thus, although two distinct strategies are simultaneously discernible in the opening passages of the Ethics, the two work together, each arguing on a different front, to establish Spinoza's monism. By focusing on the rhetorical side of this double strategy, the underlying nature of Spinoza's critique of Descartes can be clarified and certain gaps in the systematic, geometrical argument for mo- nism can be explained.

Princess Elisabeth and the Problem of Mind-Body Interaction

This paper focuses on Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia's philosophical views as exhibited in her early correspondence with Rene Descartes. Elisabeth's criticisms of Descartes's interactionism as well as her solution to the problem of mind-body interaction are examined in detail. The aim here is to develop a richer picture of Elisabeth as a philosophical thinker and to dispel the myth that she is simply a Cartesian muse.