Fable, Method, and Imagination in Descartes

New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2018)
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Abstract

What role do fables play in Cartesian method and psychology? By looking at Descartes’ use of fables, James Griffith suggests there is a fabular logic that runs to the heart of Descartes’ philosophy. First focusing on The World and the Discourse on Method, this volume shows that by writing in fable form, Descartes allowed his readers to break from Scholastic methods of philosophizing. With this fable-structure or -logic in mind, the book reexamines the relationship between analysis, synthesis, and inexact sciences; between metaphysics and ethico-political life; and between the imagination, the will, and the passions.

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9783319702377   9783319702384   3319889087   3319702378

DOI

10.1007/978-3-319-70238-4
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Conclusion

This work has considered the effect that attending to Descartes’ use and mention of the fable has on conceptualizations of Cartesian method and imagination. Attending to the fable, especially insofar as establishing a fable-structure or -logic, needed to occur first. Only once it has become clear th... see more

Imagination

Following from the complication of the method that attending to the fable makes seen, the next concern is the faculty psychology of that self that generates and obeys the rules of the method. Attending to the fable also has an effect on this concept, not only on the concept of the faculty psychology... see more

Method

Coming out of an investigation of the fable, where it is shown to hold a crucial pedagogical role both in terms of how the world is to be interpreted and how the self can construct itself, it is now possible to examine what effect this fabular structure has on our understanding of the Cartesian meth... see more

Fable-Structure or -Logic

Investigating Descartes’ use of the fable in the strict sense has shown how he distinguishes the rule-generation and rule-obedience of fable from the chaos of poetry and shown that this form serves the pedagogical purpose of inaugurating a mental movement on the part of his readers. However, since ‘... see more

Fable in The World and the Discourse

The question of how to begin, how to inaugurate a new form, style, or path of thinking opened Descartes onto the fable. Because so much concerning his metaphysical and epistemological claims hinge on methodological problems in the very inauguration of the how and why of what is learned, a defense of... see more

Introduction

I would like to show three things here, the first two of which can be considered together and the third of which emerges from them. First, I want to show that there is a structure and purpose akin to fables in early moments of Descartes’ texts throughout his career; second, that this structure and p... see more

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James Griffith
Middle East Technical University

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