Margaret Wilson’s study of the Meditations traces Descartes’ replacement of Aristotelian Scholasticism by an "anti-empiricist metaphysics, a form of ’scientific realism'". Medits. 1 and 2 are seen as methodic preparations. A causal interpretation of the doubt is proposed, whereby "all truth-conferring connection between perceptions or beliefs and their causes" is severed. Wilson distinguishes the malign spirit from God, but since she accords them equivalent power the doubt extends through sensed particulars to simple universals. The probabilist reinstatement of external bodies via (...) sense and image in Medit. 6 attests to the force of the Deceiver Hypothesis. A "naive interpretation" of the cogito is defended. Since Descartes ascribes "epistemological transparency to his thought-states," that "I exist" emerges from "I think" is an enthematic inference. Since the Deceiver is still operative upon body, the mind-body separation is epistemic rather than metaphysical. It is likewise with the wax, whose analysis is seen as a thought experiment adumbrating the immaterial intellect and the concept of body required for the subsequent validation of the Cartesian scientific ontology. (shrink)

Iorio’s useful volume combines the first English translation of Malebranche’s last work with an analysis of the work in relation to Malebranche’s overall philosophy.

Castañeda offers a linguistically anchored approach to ontology entitled empirical semantico-syntactical structuralism. The entry to phenomenological ontology, or primary ontology, is natural language semantico-syntactical contrasts within given idiolects. The order of ontological inquiry, whose analogy with scientific method is stressed, is the following: 1) Proto-philosophy involves collecting and exegesizing empirical and semantico-syntactical data. 2) Sym-philosophy consists of hypothesizing connections between such data, proposing a theory concerning a given pattern, testing a theory by deduction concerning its ad hoc validity, establishing its (...) fecundity by testing against new data, and replicating the entire process in an attempt to embed the theory in a more comprehensive one. 3) Dia-philosophy involves studying partial isomorphisms and structural constants between theories which constitute the most basic structure of the world and experience. 4) Meta-philosophy, illustrated by the present work, and whose presuppositions address the relation between thinking and symbolism, concerns philosophical method. The fewer such presuppositions the more encompassing and fundamental the ontology. (shrink)

Collected in this volume are ten essays on Islamic philosophy, some of which have appeared before. The topics range from historical observations on the Islamic-European transmission of ideas to detailed examinations of Arabic developments in logic. The most comprehensive discussion of the latter concerns the theory of temporal modalities as found in Avicenna, al-Qazwini al-Katibi, et al. Of much wider interest is the inquiry into the Arabic concern with the notion of "existence." The author surprises the reader here by pointing (...) out that Al-Farabi was the first to deny that existence is an attribute; that Brentano's notion of "intentional inexistence" was anticipated by both Avicenna and Averroes; that certain teachings of al-Qazwini al-Katibi accord exactly with Russell's work concerning vacuous definite descriptions. The work as a whole provides considerable evidence for Rescher's thesis, fully articulated in the final essay, that "there is no such thing as an Arabic philosophy" but only "Greek philosophy carried forward in an Arabic-language setting." Indicative of this is the correspondence between Avicenna's formulation of the "logic of questions" and the Aristotelian table of categories. Another example is the commentary of Ibn al-Salah on Book II of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. More familiar is the syncretistic Arabic adaptation of the doctrines of Timaeus and De Caelo; this influence is discussed at length with respect to Al Kindi's cosmology. In summation, this author's work fills a number of gaps in the continuity of logical development from the Ancient-Medieval period to that of the early Renaissance.--W. S. (shrink)

Schouls argues that seventeenth century thinkers thought knowledge in any area demanded application of a unitary method. Method is imposed upon subject-matter since the method of resolution and composition are the essence of reasoning.