RESUMENEl estudio se centra en la filosofía práctica cartesiana: la dimensión técnica y la moral. Una parte de su filosofía muchas veces poco estudiada. A lo largo del Discurso del Método, Descartes parece dialogar con Michel de Montaigne para superar su posición escéptica. Lo consigue desde el punto de vista teórico, pero no en relación a la acción moral. En ese ámbito, Descartes lejos de alejarse de las posiciones montañistas, las reproduce. Las reglas de la moral provisional ya están en (...) Montaigne y, como él, Descartes se tiene que conformar con lo probable en la acción moral.PALABRAS CLAVEDESCARTES, MONTAIGNE, ÁMBITO TEÓRICO, ÁMBITO PRÁCTICOABSTRACT This study is about Descartes’ philosophy: both its technical dimension and morality. Little attention has been paid to this part of his philosophy. Along the Discourse on Method, Descartes seems to speak with Michel de Montaigne with a view to overcome his sceptical position. He reaches this goal from the theoretical point of view, but not in the practical realm. In this area Descartes, far from moving away from Montaigne’s position, reproduces it. The rules of provisional morality are already in Montaigne and, like him, Descartes has to conform to a probabilistic approach in the moral action.KEY WORDSDESCARTES, MONTAIGNE, THEORETICAL REALM, PRACTICAL REALM. (shrink)

Researchers of Kant’s political philosophy have not paid enough attention to the problem of certainty in politics which is inseparable from the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon. The primacy of practical reason means that morality has a higher value than knowledge. This is a fundamental presupposition of Kant’s philosophy. However, this emphasis on the importance of morality leads to the problematic question of certainty in politics. The recognition of the primacy of morality seems to lead to a situation where politics (...) loses the certainty that belongs to the sphere of noumenon. Such a situation seems to lead to an impossible situation when the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon reappears in the theory of practical reason. The paper puts forward a thesis that for Kant morality is the only ground that allows speaking about the certainty of politics. However, his understanding of certainty in politics has its drawbacks. Politics is dependent not only on the ontology of morality that was emphasized by Kant, but it is also dependent on the kind of certainty that one finds in the sphere of interpersonal relationships. Kant did not pay enough attention to this aspect which remains outside the sphere of the universal law of morality. (shrink)

A interrogação que preside a este ensaio não busca, à maneira heideggeriana, o impensado esquecimento de um certo desenvolvimento historial, mas há de apenas delimitar o estado da arte da visão cartesiana do mundo. Para o efeito, no entanto, não vai além do horizonte epistêmico da Filosofia da Biologia, porque o seu principal objectivo consiste em diagnosticar a “crise de identidade” da Biologia, cujo sucesso experimental não deve camuflar a sua “depressão epistemológica”. Na verdade, trata‑se de uma disciplina que, entre (...) física e metafísica, ainda não encontrou o seu espaço teórico. Ora, é possível remontar tal dificuldade à raiz filosófica da Modernidade. Assim sendo, impõe‑se uma avaliação da mutação paradigmática que Descartes introduz na ordem do saber, de acordo com a qual a investigação racional passa a ter por destino o domínio da Natureza. (shrink)

Descartes’ Meditations raised a serious question about whether he committed a logical fallacy while proving God’s existence and veracity. The crux of the allegation is him saying the truth of the clear and distinct perceptions depend on God’s veracity while its validity rests on some clear and distinct perceptions such as Cogito. At first glance Meditations justify this charge if not been attentively read. Disposal of the Cartesian circle claim depends on showing at least some clear and distinct perceptions are (...) spared from evil demon hypothesis. In this article I will argue that Cogito argument, truth rule and principles of reason specifically causality don’t need divine guarantee to grant their truth. Hence, I will defend that his arguments on proving God’s existence and veracity are circularity-proof. But still metaphysic foundations of Descartes’ epistemology rely substantially on God because without his veracity we are doomed to accept a fatal solipsism and never attain a solid ground for science, especially for physics. (shrink)

This Master of Arts thesis is in two parts: a novel, An Anarchy of Man, and an exegesis which places the novel in relation to philosophical concerns about the self and the way those concerns are portrayed in selected works of Western literature. The novel is set in Canberra and Sydney and tells the story of the relationship between two characters: Joe and Gin. It explores the way we in the modern Western world think about ourselves and those around us. (...) Chapter One considers the view of the self in the work of the philosopher Rene Descartes and explores how this view is portrayed in three contemporary Australia novels, and in An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Two examines post-Cartesian views of the self, especially those in the work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and then considers the way the self is portrayed in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, and in my own An Anarchy of Man. Chapter Three examines postmodern conceptions of the self and considers how these conceptions are portrayed in the work of the contemporary American novelist Don DeLillo and in my own An Anarchy of Man. (shrink)