This book carefully and courageously revisits a notorious problem at the heart of Descartes's dualistic metaphysics - the problem of mind-body interaction - and shows how it is not a problem for Descartes after all.

: Descartes' conceptual distinction (or distinctio rationis) is commonly understood to be a distinction created by the mind's activity without a foundation in re. This paper challenges this understanding partially based on a letter to an unknown correspondent in which Descartes claims not to admit distinctions without a foundation. He goes on to claim that his conceptual distinction is not a distinctio rationis ratiocinantis (i.e. a distinction of reasoning reason) but is something like a formal distinction or, more precisely, a (...) distinctio ! rationis ratiocinatae (i.e. a distinction of reasoned reason). This remark is then explored through Descartes' other writings and his scholastic intellectual heritage. I conclude that Descartes' conceptual distinction just is a formal distinction understood as a distinctio rationis ratiocinatae as expressed in the works of Scotus, Suarez and Eustachius, and so it has a foundation in re in very much the same way as a formal distinction. (shrink)

I contend that Descartes’s view of mind-body union is not a Platonic view in which the soul uses the body as its vehicle, but hylomorphic in that mind and body form a single unit. I argue that Descartes’s view is most like Ockham’s, and therefore Descartes is entitled to maintain a hylomorphic theory to the same extent that Ockham is. I argue further that the soul is the substantial form of human being, and that mind and body are incomplete substances (...) that are substantially united to form the human substance. Finally, I address Descartes’s claim that the whole soul has its principle seat in the pineal gland, and conclude that this does not imply a Platonic view as one might suspect. This hylomorphic interpretation avoids the problem of mind-body interaction, which might be seen as preventing the possibility of the soul’s immortality, because an explanation of the behavior of one entity is required instead of an explanation of the interaction between two, apparently incompatible, entities. (shrink)

I contend that Descartes’s view of mind-body union is not a Platonic view in which the soul uses the body as its vehicle, but hylomorphic in that mind and body form a single unit. I argue that Descartes’s view is most like Ockham’s, and therefore Descartes is entitled to maintain a hylomorphic theory to the same extent that Ockham is. I argue further that the soul is the substantial form of human being, and that mind and body are incomplete substances (...) that are substantially united to form the human substance. Finally, I address Descartes’s claim that the whole soul has its principle seat in the pineal gland, and conclude that this does not imply a Platonic view as one might suspect. This hylomorphic interpretation avoids the problem of mind-body interaction, which might be seen as preventing the possibility of the soul’s immortality, because an explanation of the behavior of one entity is required instead of an explanation of the interaction between two, apparently incompatible, entities. (shrink)

Arnauld raised the concern that Descartes’s real distinction argument proved too much, because it seemed to lead us back to the Platonic view according to which the mind uses the body as its vehicle. Descartes responds by pointing out that he argued against this account of mind-body union in the Sixth Meditation. Descartes believes he did not prove too much, because he offers an argument against this view whose premises and conclusion are consistent with the real distinction argument. In this (...) paper, the union argument is reconstructed and evaluated in order to see if, through his rejection of the Platonic view, Descartes adequately addresses Arnauld’s concern. In the end, Descartes adequately addresses this concern only if God’s veracity provides a secure foundation for a crucial inference. Finally, these considerations show a way for those committed to the real distinction of mind and body to avoid the problem of their interaction. (shrink)

Jean Paul Sartre in his essay, "On 'The Sound and the Fury': Time in the work of Faulkner," states that the technique of the fiction writer always relates back to his metaphysics (OSF 79). Faulkner's clock-based or chronological metaphysics of time found in The Sound and the Fury is the focal point of Sartre's criticism of this work. His main criticism that the novel's metaphysics of time leaves its characters with only pasts and no futures led some Faulkner scholars to (...) seek the future in it while providing their own interpretation of time in Faulkner's work. However, although many of these works were inspired by Sartre's original contribution, none of them have attempted to provide an expanded Sartrean interpretation of the novel's metaphysics of time in light of some of his more elaborate remarks on time and temporality found in Being and Nothingness. The primary purpose of this study is to provide this expanded interpretation by first elucidating Sartre's criticisms of Faulkner's chronological metaphysics found in his original essay, and then analyzing each of the novel's four main sections under Sartre's theory of temporality and emotions. (shrink)

Jean Paul Sartre in his essay, "On 'The Sound and the Fury': Time in the work of Faulkner," states that the technique of the fiction writer always relates back to his metaphysics. Faulkner's clock-based or chronological metaphysics of time found in The Sound and the Fury is the focal point of Sartre's criticism of this work. His main criticism that the novel's metaphysics of time leaves its characters with only pasts and no futures led some Faulkner scholars to seek the (...) future in it while providing their own interpretation of time in Faulkner's work. However, although many of these works were inspired by Sartre's original contribution, none of them have attempted to provide an expanded Sartrean interpretation of the novel's metaphysics of time in light of some of his more elaborate remarks on time and temporality found in Being and Nothingness. The primary purpose of this study is to provide this expanded interpretation by first elucidating Sartre's criticisms of Faulkner's chronological metaphysics found in his original essay, and then analyzing each of the novel's four main sections under Sartre's theory of temporality and emotions. (shrink)

Ronald Rubin's new book provides a refreshingly even-handed interpretation and analysis of Descartes's Meditations. Rubin skillfully employs short expositions of Latin philosophical terminology, textual analysis, and contemporary analytic method to arrive at a largely sympathetic understanding of this seminal work. But his development and employment of the heuristic device of the "Demon's Advocate" surely sets this work apart from the other, vast literature on the Meditations.The first three chapters lay the groundwork for Rubin's study. Chapters 1–2 examine Descartes's use of (...) the opposing terms of 'doubt' and 'certainty' and shows how this is an opposition between the vacillation and stability of belief. Rubin's point is that Descartes establishes doubt in order to achieve a stable system of beliefs. This commonplace conclusion is, however, nicely augmented by Rubin's development of the "Demon's Advocate" in chapter three. In this chapter, Rubin imagines that Descartes the author has two personae in the Meditations. The one is Descartes himself—the seeker of stability—while the other is the Demon's Advocate, who holds all of the same beliefs as Descartes but. (shrink)

The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender is composed of four nations that are profoundly out of balance. The creators of the show put a lot of care into designing each nation with its own culture. This chapter shows how ethical‐epistemological maps can be changed and adapted to new experiences in the physical world. Human experience, however, is not limited to just the physical for Native Americans. Throughout the series, the Aang Gaang uses Inuit Traditional Knowledge, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit, found within (...) Southern Water Tribe culture to build their ethical‐epistemological maps. These maps were built step by step from a wide variety of experiences. Luckily, they didn't limit themselves to just their day‐to‐day experiences in the physical world. The Aang Gaang would've missed out on a lot of useful knowledge and guidance had they ignored dreams, visions, and spiritual experiences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.2 (2006) 321-322 [Access article in PDF] Thomas Holden, The Architecture of Matter: Galileo to Kant. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004. Pp. x + 305. Cloth $74.00. Most scholars believe that the problem of infinite divisibility that plagued early modern natural philosophy was an entirely mathematical issue and, therefore, resulted from the short-comings of early modern mathematics. Accordingly, advances in geometry, topology and the (...) logic of infinity are often thought to lay this debate to rest, thereby reducing it to some quaint footnote in the history of natural philosophy. Thomas Holden, however, through thorough textual and philosophical analysis, convincingly argues that this debate was more metaphysical in nature than previously supposed. He shows how the various paradoxes concerning the structure of matter stem from two widely-accepted theses central to the new science. The first resulted from the early modern method of applying the principles of geometry to physics. This geometrical method dictated that bodies are metaphysically divisible (m-divisible) in infinitum, because they occupy regions of space that can, at least by the power of God, be subdivided into those parts occupying corresponding sub-regions of space, and those sub-parts into those sub-sub-parts occupying their respective corresponding sub-sub-regions of space in infinitum. The other thesis is that "the parts of material bodies are each concrete existents in their own right" (3). Such actual parts exist prior to any act of division, whereas parts that are only potential would not exist prior to division but only after a divisive act has occurred. Holden argues that the actual parts doctrine was a metaphysical thesis just as fundamental to Enlightenment natural philosophers as the geometrization of matter. Indeed, it is these two theses that came into conflict and gave rise to a plethora of antimonies at the heart of the new science.Holden should be applauded for the skill he employs in challenging the received scholarship. In chapter 1, after some historical and terminological preliminaries, Holden reconstructs several of the more popular paradoxes of material structure found throughout the period's vast literature and successfully shows how these paradoxes would not arise if the problems of material structure were merely mathematical. He shows how the metaphysical doctrine of actual parts gave rise to these difficulties because of its conflict with the assumed geometrical doctrine that extension is infinitely m-divisible. For example, some thought it followed from the actual parts doctrine that there must be an actual infinity of parts, because actual parts exist prior to any process of division and, therefore, in order for both actual parts and infinite m-divisibility to be true, there must be an actual infinity of parts. This raised issues about the intelligibility and piety of an actual infinite as well as issues about equal and unequal infinities, e.g., half an infinite number of parts would still be infinite but half as much as the whole collection of parts. Hence, this and other paradoxes would not arise in the absence of the actual parts doctrine, and so the debate is more metaphysical in nature than previously supposed. [End Page 321]Chapter 2 examines in more detail the actual parts metaphysic and how it leads to tension with infinite m-divisibility. Chapter 3 examines various "short-circuit" arguments designed to undermine the actual parts doctrine. And chapter 4 examines the actual parts doctrine via the argument from composition found in Kant's pre-critical work, Physical Monadology. In chapter 5, Holden briefly examines the potential parts doctrine and how some actual-parts partisans tried to undermine it. It is eventually concluded that actual-parts and potential-parts advocates are at an impasse due to the question-begging nature of their respective arguments. Finally, chapter 6 is "something of an addendum" (74), since it examines a fascinating synthesis of the two conflicting positions, viz. the Kant-Boscovich force-shell atom theory.Given that the book is about material structure, it is a propos that my critical comment is about the structure of the book. It seems... (shrink)