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 ix
... thought that it would contain a fourth part exploring the origins and development of idealism. However, I have recently come to realize that the present essay is complete as it stands and that that final part is in fact an independent ...
... thought that it would contain a fourth part exploring the origins and development of idealism. However, I have recently come to realize that the present essay is complete as it stands and that that final part is in fact an independent ...
Page 2
... thought (as opposed, say, to his conception of mind as a thinking substance, or to his scientific programme). For one thing, I do not believe that there is one such central aspect. Nor do I think that there is a single key to the ...
... thought (as opposed, say, to his conception of mind as a thinking substance, or to his scientific programme). For one thing, I do not believe that there is one such central aspect. Nor do I think that there is a single key to the ...
Page 12
... thought of, must have if it exists. Substances are in a sense constituted by their natures: the essence identifies the substance as what it is; it preserves its identity through change; it brings different properties together under a ...
... thought of, must have if it exists. Substances are in a sense constituted by their natures: the essence identifies the substance as what it is; it preserves its identity through change; it brings different properties together under a ...
Page 14
... thought or consciousness; and its modes are doubt, desire, understanding, knowledge, sensation, feeling, and the other determinations of thought. The essence of body is extension conceived as size, shape, and movement or rest; and its ...
... thought or consciousness; and its modes are doubt, desire, understanding, knowledge, sensation, feeling, and the other determinations of thought. The essence of body is extension conceived as size, shape, and movement or rest; and its ...
Page 17
... thought, sensations are the objects of clear and distinct intellectual self-awareness. But their proper objects, 'pain and pleasure, light, colours, sounds, smells, tastes, heat, hardness and the other tactile qualities', are grasped ...
... thought, sensations are the objects of clear and distinct intellectual self-awareness. But their proper objects, 'pain and pleasure, light, colours, sounds, smells, tastes, heat, hardness and the other tactile qualities', are grasped ...
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