Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern PhilosophyThis is the first book-length study of Descartes's metaphysics to place it in its immediate historical context, the Late Scholastic philosophy of thinkers such as Suárez against which Descartes reacted. Jorge Secada views Cartesian philosophy as an 'essentialist' reply to the 'existentialism' of the School, and his discussion includes careful analyses and original interpretations of such central Cartesian themes as the role of scepticism, intentionality and the doctrine of the material falsity of ideas, universals and the relation between sense and understanding, causation and the proofs of the existence of God, the theory of substance, and the dualism of mind and matter. His study offers a picture of Descartes's metaphysics that is both novel and philosophically illuminating. |
From inside the book
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Page 1
... conceived and deployed and about the influences to which he was subject and the influence which he exercised upon his con- temporaries and successors. There is, of course, no shortage of dispute about questions of detail and about ...
... conceived and deployed and about the influences to which he was subject and the influence which he exercised upon his con- temporaries and successors. There is, of course, no shortage of dispute about questions of detail and about ...
Page 2
... conceived this science as articulated around the fundamental and traditional division between God and creatures. Consequently, they held in common substantial beliefs about causation and the dependence of effects. Furthermore, Descartes ...
... conceived this science as articulated around the fundamental and traditional division between God and creatures. Consequently, they held in common substantial beliefs about causation and the dependence of effects. Furthermore, Descartes ...
Page 3
... conceived of by Descartes – as, that is, an essentialist response to the existentialism of the – we stand to gain historical knowledge and also to profit from an increased understanding of ourselves. School I am in fact unconvinced by ...
... conceived of by Descartes – as, that is, an essentialist response to the existentialism of the – we stand to gain historical knowledge and also to profit from an increased understanding of ourselves. School I am in fact unconvinced by ...
Page 11
... conceive what does not exist and has never been perceived either in itself or through its effects. They of course knew that the mind can fashion what has not, in any way, been sensed. But they believed that whatever the intellect ...
... conceive what does not exist and has never been perceived either in itself or through its effects. They of course knew that the mind can fashion what has not, in any way, been sensed. But they believed that whatever the intellect ...
Page 14
... conceived substances as existing determinable essences, and he took their non-essential real properties to be determinates of these essences: the idea of a mode of a substance involves the idea of its essence as the idea of a ...
... conceived substances as existing determinable essences, and he took their non-essential real properties to be determinates of these essences: the idea of a mode of a substance involves the idea of its essence as the idea of a ...
Contents
1 | |
5 | |
Part II Ideas and the road from essence to existence | 75 |
Part III Cartesian substances | 181 |
Epilogue | 265 |
Notes | 270 |
References | 307 |
Index | 323 |
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Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy Jorge Secada Limited preview - 2000 |
Common terms and phrases
According to Descartes actual apprehension Aquinas argued Aristotelian Aristotle Arnauld attribute awareness body Cartesian causal chapter claim clear and distinct clearly and distinctly colour conceived conception corporeal substance creatures dependence Descartes's determinable direct realist distinguished divine doctrine Duns Scotus effect efficient cause entity essence and existence essential definitions essentialist exist in reality existentialism existentialist explained extension external fact follows Fonseca formally Gassendi God’s grasp Hobbes human idea imagination immediate objects independent individual infinite infinite regress innate intellect intelligible Jesuit judgement knowledge Late Scholastic Leibniz matter metaphysics mind modes nature Nominalists notion objective reality ontological argument perceive philosophy possible Posterior Analytics predicate principle prior proof question real distinction real essences real properties refer relation Replies sceptical Scholasticism Second Meditation sensation sense sensory perception shape soul species St Thomas Suárez substantial suppose Third Meditation Thomist thought triangle true truth understanding unity universal