'Those most capable of being moved by passion are those capable of tasting the most sweetness in this life.'Descartes is most often thought of as introducing a total separation of mind and body. But he also acknowledged the intimate union between them, and in his later writings he concentrated on understanding this aspect of human nature. The Passions of the Soul is his greatest contribution to this debate. It contains a profound discussion of the workings of the emotions and of (...) their place in human life - a subject that increasingly engages the interest of philosophers and intellectual and cultural historians. It also sets out a view of ethics that has been seen as a radical reorientation of moral philosophy.This volume also includes both sides of the correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, one of Descartes's keenest disciples and shrewdest critics, which played a crucial role in the genesis of The Passions, as well as the first part of The Principles of Philosophy, which sets out the key positions of Descartes's philosophical system.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Between the years 1643 and 1649, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes exchanged fifty-eight letters—thirty-two from Descartes and twenty-six from Elisabeth. Their correspondence contains the only known extant philosophical writings by Elisabeth, revealing her mastery of metaphysics, analytic geometry, and moral philosophy, as well as her keen interest in natural philosophy. The letters are essential reading for anyone interested in Descartes’s philosophy, in particular his account of the human being as a union of mind and body, as well as (...) his ethics. They also provide a unique insight into the character of their authors and the way ideas develop through intellectual collaboration. Philosophers have long been familiar with Descartes’s side of the correspondence. Now Elisabeth’s letters—never before available in translation in their entirety—emerge this volume, adding much-needed context and depth both to Descartes’s ideas and the legacy of the princess. Lisa Shapiro’s annotated edition—which also includes Elisabeth’s correspondence with the Quakers William Penn and Robert Barclay—will be heralded by students of philosophy, feminist theorists, and historians of the early modern period. (shrink)

Si toute la philosophie est comme un arbre dont la medecine et la morale seraient les plus hautes branches, devons-nous penser que l'arbre cartesien a ete foudroye ou qu'il a peri sur pied avant de porter fruits? Car quelle est la morale de Descartes? Ou l'a-t-il exposee? S'agit-il de cette parfaite morale qui presuppose une entiere connaissance de toutes les autres sciences? Mais n'aurons-nous pas alors fini de vivre avant d'avoir pu commencer a l'appliquer? S'agit-il de sa morale provisoire? Mais (...) s'il est vrai qu'elle soit capable de nous procurer un souverain contentement, que peut-elle bien encore laisser a desirer? (shrink)

This paper aims at reconstructing the ethical issues raised by Spinoza's early Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. Specifically, I argue that Spinoza takes issue with Descartes’ epistemology in order to support a form of “ethical intellectualism” in which knowledge is envisaged as both necessary and sufficient to reach the supreme good. First, I reconstruct how Descartes exploits the distinction between truth and certainty in his Discourse on the Method. On the one hand, this distinction acts as the basis (...) for Descartes’ epistemological rules while, on the other hand, it implies a “morale par provision” in which adequate knowledge is not strictly necessary to practice virtue. Second, I show that Spinoza rejects the distinction between truth and certainty and thus the methodological doubt. This move leads Spinoza to substitute the Cartesian Cogito with the idea of God as the only adequate standard of knowledge, through which the mind can attain the rules to reach the supreme good. Third, I demonstrate that in the Short Treatise Spinoza develops this view by equating intellect and will and thus maintaining that only adequate knowledge can help to contrast affects. However, I also insist that Spinoza's early epistemology is unable to explain why human beings drop conceive of the idea of God inadequately. Thus, I suggest that in his later writings Spinoza accounts for the insufficiency of adequate knowledge in opposing the power of the imagination and passions by reconnecting the nature of ideas with the mind's conatus. (shrink)

This article describes the main topics of Descartes’ ethics through discussion of key primary texts and corresponding interpretations in the secondary literature. Although Descartes never wrote a treatise dedicated solely to ethics, commentators have uncovered an array of texts that demonstrate a rich analysis of virtue, the good, happiness, moral judgment, the passions, and the systematic relationship between ethics and the rest of philosophy. The following ethical claims are often attributed to Descartes: the supreme good consists in (...) virtue, which is a firm and constant resolution to use the will well; virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and natural philosophy; happiness is the supreme contentment of mind which results from exercising virtue; the virtue of generosity is the key to all the virtues and a general remedy for regulating the passions; and virtue can be secured even though our first-order moral judgments never amount to knowledge. -/- Descartes’ ethics was a neglected aspect of his philosophical system until the late 20th century. Since then, standard interpretations of Descartes’ ethics have emerged, debates have ensued, and commentators have carved out key interpretive questions that anyone must answer in trying to understand Descartes’ ethics. For example: what kind of normative ethics does Descartes espouse? Are the passions representational or merely motivational states? At what point in the progress of knowledge can the moral agent acquire and exercise virtue? Is Descartes’ ethics as systematic as he sometimes seems to envision? (shrink)

Descartes is not widely recognized for his ethics; indeed, most readers are unaware that he had an ethics. However, Descartes placed great importance on his ethics, claiming that ethics is the highest branch of his philosophical system. I aim to understand the systematic relationship Descartes envisions between his ethics and the rest of his philosophy, particularly his metaphysics and epistemology. I defend three main theses. First, I argue against the recent trend in the literature that (...) claims that the chief virtue in Descartes’ ethics—generosity—is acquired in the Meditations. On this view, the presence of moral virtue in the Meditations shows that ethical practice is intertwined with metaphysics and epistemology. I argue that generosity cannot be acquired in the Meditations because acquiring generosity presupposes several metaphysical and physical truths that the meditator cannot access given her epistemic position. Thus, I maintain that metaphysics and epistemology is foundational to ethics. Second, I resolve the tension between Descartes’ description of distinct virtues, and his insistence that there is only a single virtue—the disposition to judge well. Drawing from his theory of conceptual distinction in his metaphysics, I argue that Descartes offers a unique account of the unity of the virtues. Although Descartes describes different virtues, he thinks that all of them are identical to each other because they are reducible to the disposition to judge well. Nonetheless, we can conceptually distinguish between the virtues because we can regard the disposition to judge well in different ways given the various applications it has in different types of moral situations. Third, I show that some of Descartes’ ethical concepts inform his epistemology. I draw from Descartes’ theory of virtue to address “the problem of knowledge preservation,” that is, how to render perfect knowledge— scientia—stable in light of the instability of clear and distinct perceptions. I argue that Descartes intends to preserve scientia by grounding items of scientia in virtuous habits of belief. These habits of belief are established through repeated engagement with cognitive routes to clear and distinct perceptions, and are ultimately grounded in memory. This reading has the advantage of explaining Descartes’ notoriously confusing remarks about memory in response to the Cartesian circle. (shrink)

My main thesis in this article is that Descartes' ethics should be understood as involving a distinction between happiness and well-being. The distinction I have in mind is never clearly stated or articulated by Descartes himself, but I argue that we nevertheless have good reason to embrace it as an important component in a charitable reconstruction of his ethical thought. In section I, I present Descartes' account of happiness and of how he thinks happiness can (and cannot) be acquired. (...) Then, in section II, I introduce and develop the distinction between happiness and well-being. I do this via a discussion of a difficult passage in one of Descartes' letters to Elisabeth, where he may seem first to grant and then immediately to reject the view that people's happiness can vary in degree depending on the possession of goods or perfections that are outside their power to control. I believe my proposed distinction can help us make good sense of this passage. In the last two sections (III and IV), I then offer some further grounds or reasons for why the proposed distinction should be ascribed to Descartes. (shrink)

본 논문은 데카르트의 윤리학에서 사랑이 하는 역할을 살펴보고자 한다. 데카르트의 윤리는 관대함을 중심으로 한 덕 윤리인데, 여기서 관대함은 자유로운 주체들의 상호 존중을 내포한 “자기 존중”을 말한다. 반면에 사랑은 전체의 이익에 대한 계산적 모색을 가능하게 하는 정념이다. 따라서 본 논문에서는 마리옹과 캉부슈네라는 두 프랑스 주석가의 해석을 통해서 관대함의 윤리 안에서 이익에 대한 계산적 모색이 수행하는 역할을 살펴볼 것이다. 마리옹에 따르면 데카르트의 “관대함”은 주체의 순수한 자기촉발로 특징지어진다. 이러한 순수한 자기촉발 안에서 주체는 이익에 대한 계산 없이 타자를 타자로서 만나게 된다. 그리하여 계산을 염두에 (...) 둔 윤리는 진정한 윤리가 될 수 없다는 것이 마리옹의 생각이다. 반대로 캉부슈네는 데카르트가 전체의 이익에 대한 고려를 주체의 자기촉발 안에서 생각하고 있다는 것을 보여준다. 이는 상호 존중의 윤리 안에 전체의 이익에 대한 계산적 고려가 필수적인 부분임을 시사한다. (shrink)

This article brings to light the role and importance of Descartes' concept of freedom for his ethics of belief. For Descartes, I argue, correctly assigning epistemic praise/blame means tracking authentic freedoms: ascertaining whether an act of assent is spontaneous or perverse both before and after eliciting the act of will. Authentic spontaneity ensures that the agent receives praise for his epistemic accomplishment, which includes the right results as well as the right order of steps. Authentic perversity leads to the (...) agent being blamed for not accepting the truth while fully aware of the gravity of the gesture. (shrink)

This paper offers a reconstruction of Descartes’ theory of the emotions, with special focus on the virtue ‘générosité’ which he proposed as the master virtue to help humans manage and control their desires so that they can achieve the highest level of happiness which transcends the unpredictability and arbitrariness of fate. It first provides an analysis of Descartes’ notion of ‘divine providence’, ‘vain desires’, and ‘regret’; then proceeds to offer an investigation of ‘générosité’ both as an emotion and as a (...) virtue; and concludes with an examination of ‘générosité’ as a tool to master and control the emotions. (shrink)

I begin my discussion by considering how to relate Descartes’s more general concern with the conduct of life to the metaphysics and epistemology in the foreground of his philosophical project. I then turn to the texts in which Descartes offers his developed ethical thought and present the case for Descartes as a virtue ethicist. My argument emerges from seeing that Descartes’s conception of virtue and the good owes much to Stoic ethics, a school of thought which saw a significant (...) revival in the seventeenth century. It does, however, deviate from classical Stoicism in critical ways. Towards the end of my discussion, I return to the question of the relation between Descartes’s ethics and his metaphysics and epistemology, and I suggest that the Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting Reason and the Meditations on First Philosophy are invested with the virtue ethical considerations of moral education and the regulation of the passions, respectively. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Cartesian Philosophy and the Conduct of Life Putting the Pieces of Descartes's Ethical Writings Together: Cartesian Virtue Ethics Key Texts The “Perfect Moral System” and the Morale Par Provision Cartesian Virtue Descartes's Virtue Ethics and His Metaphysics and Epistemology, Revisited Conclusion Notes References and Further Reading.

Descartes is not well known for his contributions to ethics. Some have charged that it is a weakness of his philosophy that it focuses exclusively on metaphysics and epistemology to the exclusion of moral and political philosophy. Such criticisms rest on a misunderstanding of the broader framework of Descartes’ philosophy. Evidence of Descartes’ concern for the practical import of philosophy can be traced to his earliest writings. In agreement of wisdom that is sufficient for happiness. The Third part of (...) his Discourse on the Method presents what he calls a provisional morality, a morality to govern our behaviour while we are in the process of revising our beliefs and coming to certainty. In the tree of philosophy, in the Preface to the French translation of the Principles of Philosophy, morals are listed as one of the fruits of the tree, along with medicine and mechanics. It is also a theme in the letters he exchanged with the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia in the mid-1640s, together with another concern the passions, what they are, and more importantly, how to control them. These themes are intertwined again in Descartes last major work, The Passions of the Soul (1649). Descartes did not write extensively on ethics, and this has led some to assume that the topic lacks a place within his philosophy. It is an attempt to outline Descartes’ ethical ideas mainly in Discourse on the Method. (shrink)

My main concern in this paper is to develop and defend an account of why we ought to devote our lives to virtue—of the ground or reason for why we ought to do so—according to René Descartes. On my account, the answer is that we thereby, and indeed only thereby, do everything in our power to promote our own degree of intrinsic perfection or goodness. Descartes’s moral philosophy, as I understand it, thus constitutes a form of ethical perfectionism. While I (...) am not the first to interpret Descartes as an ethical perfectionist, there is as of yet no detailed account in the literature of what his particular form of ethical perfectionism would then entail. This is something that I hope to remedy here. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with Descartes’s view on the passions’ moral value, that is, their value with respect to achieving the ethical ends of virtue and happiness. In this regard, there is no question that the passions possess a kind of conative value because of their power to move or incline us in ways that contribute to ethical ends. This paper’s question is whether the passions also contribute to ethical ends in a cognitive sense by informing us of the moral (...) value of things, in other words, telling us whether things are good or bad with respect to the ends of virtue and happiness. The answer to this question is less clear for two reasons. Firstly, in order for the passions to inform us in this way they would have to be the sort of mental state that purports to tell us the way things are, in other words, that contain some sort of presentation or assessment of things. To borrow language from present day philosophy of mind, they would have to be contentful mental states. But this way of thinking about the passions is opposed by a long tradition, running from Descartes’s contemporaries to today, that regards Cartesian passions as purely conative or appetitive movements, along the lines of Thomistic passions. Secondly, even if the passions are contentful, it is not clear whether their contents accurately report the value of things with respect to ethical goals. Descartes frequently warns that the passions provide unreliable ethical guidance because they report on good and evil with respect to more bodily and animalistic aims: bodily health, self-preservation and the continuation of the species In taking up this question, I am guided by the work of Cambridge Platonist, Henry More. More offered a positive assessment of Descartes’s theory of the passions, which served as the basis for More’s ethical theory in the Enchiridion Ethicum. More’s astute reading of Descartes is useful to my investigation both because he reads the Cartesian passions as contentful mental states and because he uses this reading to explain their accuracy and reliability with respect to virtue. Following More's interpretation, I argue that Descartes recognizes a category of passions—including, most notably, the passion of generosity and the passions following from it—that are more ethically reliable and that serve roughly the same ethical functions as the affections of More's boniform faculty. (shrink)

데카르트 윤리학을 ‘윤리적 이기주의’로 해석하는 입장이 있다. 바로 데카르트가 자신의 철학에서 덕(virtue)을 강조하는 이유는 덕이 우리에게 완전성(perfection)을 주기 때문이고, 따라서 데카르트의 윤리학은 개인의 완전성만을 최우선으로 삼는 ‘윤리적 이기주의(Ethical Egoism)’ 혹은 ‘이기주의적 개인주의(Egoistical Individualism)’라는 주장이다. 하지만 데카르트 윤리학은 윤리적 이기주의가 아니라 이타주의 혹은 공동체주의를 향해 있다. 대표적인 예가 데카르트가 엘리자베스에게 1645년 9월 15일에 보낸 편지이다. 이 논문에서는 데카르트 윤리학을 ‘윤리적 이기주의’로 해석할 수만은 없다는 점을 보이고자 한다. 데카르트는 오히려 공동체의 이익을 우선으로 여기는 공동체주의자라고 할 수 있으며 이런 의미에서 데카르트 윤리학을 덕윤리의 (...) 관점에서 이해할 수 있는 가능성이 열린다. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the emotional make-up of Descartes’s generous person. Described as having complete control over the passions, the generous person is not passion-free; she feels compassion for those in need but unable to bear their misfortunes with fortitude, hates vice, takes satisfaction in her own virtue, etc. To bring to light the coherence of the generous person’s emotional configuration, a compare and contrast analysis with Descartes’s deficient moral type, the abject person, is provided. Real life as well as (...) literary examples (Queen Christina of Sweden, Descartes himself and Kadhy Demba, one of the main characters of Marie NDiaye’s novel Trois Femmes Puissantes) further refine the portrait of Descartes’s generous person and show that generosity is achievable by anyone who uses their will well. Descartes’s position on harmonizing the passions is reconstructed as a developmental trajectory: harmonizing the emotions is possible courtesy of God who put this sphere of created affairs under our jurisdiction; harmonizing the passions is required since the alternative is sub-optimal (souls enslaved and miserable); finally, harmonizing the emotions is satisfying. Since, as the above examples demonstrate, in the process of making their emotional composition coherent, different people take different routes and thus “create for themselves a personal, quite personal ideal,” acquiring Cartesian generosity points the way to Nietzsche’s later notion of self-creation. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the emotional make-up of Descartes’s generous person. Described as having complete control over the passions, the generous person is not passion-free; she feels compassion for those in need but unable to bear their misfortunes with fortitude, hates vice, takes satisfaction in her own virtue, etc. To bring to light the coherence of the generous person’s emotional configuration, a compare and contrast analysis with Descartes’s deficient moral type, the abject person, is provided. Real life as well as (...) literary examples (Queen Christina of Sweden, Descartes himself and Kadhy Demba, one of the main characters of Marie NDiaye’s novel Trois Femmes Puissantes) further refine the portrait of Descartes’s generous person and show that generosity is achievable by anyone who uses their will well. Descartes’s position on harmonizing the passions is reconstructed as a developmental trajectory: harmonizing the emotions is possible courtesy of God who put this sphere of created affairs under our jurisdiction; harmonizing the passions is required since the alternative is sub-optimal (souls enslaved and miserable); finally, harmonizing the emotions is satisfying. Since, as the above examples demonstrate, in the process of making their emotional composition coherent, different people take different routes and thus “create for themselves a personal, quite personal ideal,” acquiring Cartesian generosity points the way to Nietzsche’s later notion of self-creation. (shrink)

Cet article mène une lecture raisonnée des œuvres de Levinas allant de 1930 à 1961, dans le but d’expliquer la genèse et la logique de l’usage éthique de Descartes jusqu’à Totalité et infini où il se cristallise. Levinas, dans ses premiers textes sur la phénoménologie, confronte les pensées nouvelles de Husserl et Heidegger à l’idéalisme cartésien au détriment de celui-ci. Mais il met peu à peu en lumière la pertinence descriptive du cogito et de l’idée de l’infini, qu’il reprend dans (...) ses propres recherches philosophiques. En reprenant l’ordre cartésien formant le mouvement général des trois premières Méditations métaphysiques, Totalité et infini dessine le cadre définitif de l’interprétation de Descartes : l’usage de Descartes est la reprise dans l’éthique de l’intrigue liant le cogito à l’infini. (shrink)

Descartes claims in the Discourse on Method (1637) to have devised a morale par provision in 1619-20, but, later, in the Conversation with Burman (1648), he divulged that he “does not like writing on ethics”, asserts that his morale was hastily written immediately before the publication of the Discourse, and, even more striking, adds that he was “compelled” to include this content due to “people like the Schoolmen.” These facts have led commentators to be skeptical whether Descartes created his (...) morale during his early philosophy as he claims in Part 3 of the Discourse. In response, I argue that the Ancient and Renaissance skeptical traditions contain a version of his provisional morality and that Descartes was most likely aware of this tradition during his early philosophy. Further, there is compelling evidence that Descartes adopted a ‘lived morale’ during this period. Last, I show that he endorsed his provisional morality during his mature philosophy and, based on this evidence, I conclude that he held his morale throughout his philosophical career, from the Rules for the Direction of the Mind (1620s) to the Passions of the Soul (1648). (shrink)

나는 이 연구에서 데카르트의 윤리학을 인간의 본성에 속하는 능력들의 완전한 사용을 통해 기쁨과 만족을 추구하는 삶에 대한 이론으로 해석하려 시도한다. 데카르트는 인간의 본성을 최고의 완전성으로 고양시키는 보편학문을 위한 철학적 기획을 가지고 있었으며 이 기획은 행복한 삶을 추구하는 윤리학을 포함하고 있었다. 그리고 그는 인간이 도달해야 할 완전성을 인간 본성에 속하는 모든 능력들의 완전한 사용으로 이해했으며 이 능력들의 완전한 사용이 정신의 만족감을 가져온다고 생각했다. 나는 이 논문에서, 최근의 여러 연구들과 달리, 데카르트의 행복 개념은 자유의지의 완전성 뿐 아니라 인간 본성에 속하는 다른 모든 (...) 능력들의 완전성을 원인으로 인정하는 포괄적인 개념이라는 점을 주장한다. 이 테제를 뒷받침하기 위해 나는 데카르트가 행복을 “어떤 완전성(quelque perfection)”의 소유가 생산하는 정신의 만족감으로 정의했다는 사실에 주목하고 이 정의를 행복에 대한 그의 일반적 정의로 간주한다. 그에 의하면, 의지의 완전한 사용, 즉 덕에 따르는 만족감은 이 일반적 정의의 특수하며 동시에 탁월한 경우이며 정신이 가질 수 있는 최상의 만족감이다. 그러나 각 개인이 자신의 삶 전반에 걸쳐 추구하는 모든 선들의 획득은 자유의지 뿐 아니라 인간본성에 속하는 다른 여러 능력들 적합하고 완전한 사용 역시 요구한다. 이 선들의 획득에 필요한 능력들의 완전한 사용 역시, 데카르트의 행복에 대한 일반적 정의를 따르면, 행복을 가져다주는 원인으로 고려되어야 한다. (shrink)

Descartes's approach to practical judgments about what is beneficial or harmful, or what to pursue or avoid, is almost exactly the opposite of his approach to theoretical judgments about the true nature of things. Instead of the cautious skepticism for which Descartes is known, throughout his ethical writings he recommends developing the habit of making firm judgments and resolutely carrying them out, no matter how doubtful and uncertain they may be. Descartes, strikingly, takes irresolution to be the source of (...) remorse and repentance, of vice, and of a weak soul. In order to explain its dangerousness, this essay offers an analysis of irresolution as a failure of the will to determine itself to follow a judgment in the face of ignorance or uncertainty. This analysis connects irresolution to weakness of will and explains why Descartes regards resolution as an essential component of virtue. (shrink)

While Descartes’s Passions of the Soul has been taken to hold a place in the history to human physiology, until recently philosophers have neglected the work. In this research summary, I set Descartes’s last published work in context and then sketch out its philosophical significance. From it, we gain further insight into Descartes’s solution to the Mind--Body Problem -- that is, to the problem of the ontological status of the mind--body union in a human being, to the nature of body--mind (...) causation, and to the way body-caused thoughts represent the world. In addition, the work contains Descartes’s developed ethics, in his account of virtue and of the passion of générosité in particular. Through his taxonomy of the passions and the account of their regulation, we also learn more about his moral psychology. (shrink)

In his reflections on ethics, Descartes distances himself from the eudaimonistic tradition in moral philosophy by introducing a distinction between happiness and the highest good. While happiness, in Descartes’s view, consists in an inner state of complete harmony and satisfaction, the highest good instead consists in virtue, i.e. in ‘a firm and constant resolution' to always use our free will well or correctly. In Section 1 of this paper, I pursue the Cartesian distinction between happiness and the highest good (...) in some detail. In Section 2, I discuss the question of how the motivation to virtue should be accounted for within Descartes’s ethical framework. In Section 3, I turn to Descartes’s defence of the view that virtue, while fundamentally distinct from happiness, is nevertheless sufficient for obtaining it. In the final section of the paper , my concern is instead with a second and sometimes neglected distinction that Descartes makes between two different senses o.. (shrink)

Noa Naaman-Zauderer’s book aims to bring to light the ethical underpinnings of Descartes’ system: on her view, in both the practical and the theoretical spheres Descartes takes our foremost duty to lie in the good use of the will.The marked ethical import of Cartesian epistemology takes the form of a deontological, non-consequentialist view of error: epistemic agents are praised/blamed when they fulfill/flout the duty to not assent to ideas that are less than clear and distinct.Extra-theoretical realms admitting of no clear (...) and distinct perceptions are subject to ‘softer’ duties of acting on the basis of the best available reasons. Since Cartesian epistemology involves ethical considerations,and since the late Cartesian ethics of virtue crucially depends on metaphysical knowledge about the nature and function of the will, Descartes’ ethics is not just a fruit of his tree of knowledge but it also nourishes its own roots. (shrink)

To confront the philosophical system of Rene Descartes is to contemplate a magnificently laid out map of human cognitive endeavour. In following Descartes arguments, the reader is drawn into some of the most fundamental and challenging issues in all of philosophy. In this dictionary, John Cottingham presents an alphabetied guide to this most stimulating and widely-studied of philosophers. He examines the key concepts and ideas in Cartesian thought and places them in the context both of the seventeenth-century intellectual climate and (...) of subsequent interpretation. The entries range over a wide variety of areas including cosmology, physics, theology, psychology and ethics. The book is designed to appeal to the newcomer to Descartes, whether student or general reader, while also providing detailed critical comment and precise textual references for the more advanced reader. Also included are a general introduction describing Descartes' life and works, and bibliographic guide to the Cartesian texts and the mass of interpretative literature on Descartes. (shrink)

이 논문의 목적은 데카르트 윤리학에서 덕 개념을 해명하는 것이다. 데카르트 윤리학에서 최고선은 덕이기 때문에 이 덕 개념을 해명하면 데카르트 윤리학의 다른 핵심 개념들이 더 분명하게 드러난다. 데카르트에게 행복은 ‘정신의 완전한 만족과 내적인 충족’이고, 이러한 만족과 충족은 외부에서 오는 것이 아니라 자기 자신의 노력으로만 얻을 수 있는 것이다. 하지만 데카르트 윤리학은 행복을 최고선으로 규정한 아리스토텔레스 윤리학과 달리 행복은 최고선이 아니라 최고선을 전제한다. 또 데카르트에 따르면, ‘최고선=덕=이성이 최선이라고 판단한 것을 수행하려는 확고하고 지속적인 의지(결의)’이다. 이러한 데카르트의 덕 개념은 데카르트 철학 내에서 매우 독특한데, (...) 왜냐하면 데카르트는 그저 최선이라고 판단되는 것을 수행하라고 말하기 때문이다. 즉 데카르트는 이론적 영역에서의 ‘형이상학적 확실성’과 실천적 영역에서 ‘도덕적 확실성’을 구분한다. 또 데카르트는 덕이 습관이라는 사실, 습관을 통해서 얻을 수 있는 ‘정신적 성향’임을 강조한다. 데카르트의 덕 개념이 가지고 있는 또 다른 특징은, 데카르트에게는 복수의 덕이 아니라 하나의 덕만이 존재하기 때문에 아리스토텔레스의 덕 개념과도 다르고, 행복이 최고선은 아니지만 최고선인 덕이 행복의 충분조건이라는 점에서 스토아 철학의 덕 개념과도 차이가 난다는 점이다. (shrink)

Descartes is often regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, and is credited with placing at centre stage the question of what we know and how we know it. Descartes: Belief, Scepticism and Virtue seeks to reinsert his work and thought in its contemporary ethical and theological context. Richard Davies explores the much neglected notion of intellectual virtue as it applies to Descartes' inquiry as a whole. He examines the textual dynamics of Descartes' most famous writings in relation to background (...) debates about human endeavour from Plato down to Descartes' own contemporaries. Bringing these materials together in a novel format, Davies argues for a new approach to Descartes' ideas of scepticism and the sciences. The book also offers fresh interpretations of key passages of the Meditations. Descartes: Belief, Scepticism and Virtue offers an original reassessment of some of the most important bodies of work in Western Philosophy. (shrink)

Spinoza discovered and studied Descartes's philosophy at the school of Van den Enden and then at the University of Leiden. Spinoza is seen as providing metaphysical views of unparalleled audacity, which remain highly exciting and offer a source of inspiration and a source of theoretical models in a wide variety of fields, including neurobiology. The most general of Spinoza's intentions is to expound in accordance with “the prolix Geometric order” what Descartes had left in a more informal one. Spinoza's (...) original distance from Cartesian conceptions, before becoming obvious in the metaphysical views of the Ethics, is already noticeable in the TIE. In metaphysics, the Spinoza‐Descartes relationship is complex, but cannot be said to take the form of an implicit dialogue or a community of inspiration. Descartes's emphasis on the use of free will, the gap between the two authors in matters of moral anthropology is therefore quite limited. (shrink)

This paper analyses Cartesian ethics and politics. It defends that Descartes's position in these areas coincides with his metaphysical and physical conceptions, searching a difficult equilibrium between individualism and altruism, quiet life and social commitment.

This paper analyses Cartesian ethics and politics. It defends that Descartes's position in these areas coincides with his metaphysical and physical conceptions, searching a difficult equilibrium between individualism and altruism, quiet life and social commitment.

In this long awaited volume, John Marshall invites us to reconsider Rene Descartes as an ethicist.

This book offers a new way of approaching the place of the will in Descartes' mature epistemology and ethics. Departing from the widely accepted view, Noa Naaman-Zauderer suggests that Descartes regards the will, rather than the intellect, as the most significant mark of human rationality, both intellectual and practical. Through a close reading of Cartesian texts from the Meditations onward, she brings to light a deontological and non-consequentialist dimension of Descartes' later thinking, which credits the proper use of free (...) will with a constitutive, evaluative role. She shows that the right use of free will, to which Descartes assigns obligatory force, constitutes for him an end in its own right rather than merely a means for attaining any other end, however valuable. Her important study has significant implications for the unity of Descartes' thinking, and for the issue of responsibility, inviting scholars to reassess Descartes' philosophical legacy. (shrink)