What are we to make of the cogito (cogito ergo sum) today, as the walls of Cartesian philosophy crumble around us? The enduring foundation of the cogito is consciousness. It is in virtue of a particular phenomenological structure that an experience is conscious rather than unconscious. Drawing on an analysis of that structure, the cogito is given a new explication that synthesizes phenomenological, epistemological, logical, and ontological elements. What, then, is the structure of conscious thinking on which the cogito draws? (...) What kind of certainty does the experience of thinking give one about one's thinking and about one's existence? What form of inference is the cogito, and what is the source of its validity and soundness? Does the cogito itself lead to an ontology of mind and body like Descartes's dualism? The discussion begins with Descartes's own careful formulations of some of these issues. Then the cogito is parsed into several different principles, the phenomenological principle emerging as basic. In due course the analysis sifts through Husserl's epistemology, Hintikka's logic (or pragmatics) of the cogito, and Kaplan's logic of demonstratives, as these bear specifically on the cogito. (shrink)

Though nativist hypotheses have played a pivotal role in the development of cognitive science, it remains exceedingly obscure how they—and the debates in which they figure—ought to be understood. The central aim of this paper is to provide an account which addresses this concern and in so doing: a) makes sense of the roles that nativist theorizing plays in cognitive science and, moreover, b), explains why it really matters to the contemporary study of cognition. I conclude by outlining a range (...) of further implications of this account for current debate in cognitive science. (shrink)

A philosophical genealogy of the development of liberal 'arts of government' through the work of John Locke and Michel Foucault.

R??SUM???? travers l?????tude de la correspondance philosophique entre Descartes et Henry More, je souhaiterais montrer que les th??mes centraux en sont la consid??ration de la nature de l???espace et le statut de l???infini, bien que la pol??mique aborde??galement le probl??me ontologique de la distinction entre l?????tendue et la pens??e, et les questions physiques de la n??gation du vide et de l???atomisme. More rejette l???hypoth??se cart??sienne d???un univers ind??fini, qu???il consid??re??tre une mani??re d??tourn??e de postuler le caract??re infini de l???univers, ce (...) qui revient?? attribuer tout autant l???infinit???? la mati??re qu????? Dieu, d???o?? le fait que Descartes soit un mat??rialiste selon Henry More. ABSTRACT The correspondence between Descartes and More covers a diversity of each author???s fundamental philosophical views. Their polemics range over not only general aspects of physics, but also extend to cosmology and theology. On the one hand, we have God as infinite and His creation as indefinite for Descartes; on the other hand, God as extant, ubiquitous and omnipresent, and His creation as limited for Henry More. It is this last problem that constitutes the focus of my essay, strictly speaking??? the problem of the universe as infinite. (shrink)