How to Read Descartes's Meditations consists of seven independent studies of Descartes's Meditations. The discussion in each chapter is organized around one problem which either has never or very seldom been explored in Cartesian scholarship. For example, in the study of the Letter to the Sorbonne, Janowski centers his discussion around the decree of the Lateran Council, showing the unorthodox character of Descartes's conception of the soul. Further, in his chapter devoted to the notoriously difficult proof for the existence of (...) God in the Third Meditation, Janowski shows that to understand properly Descartes's explicitly Scholastic proof is to read it as a reformulation of Duns Scotus's own proof. And in the final chapter on the Sixth Meditation, the author shows that Modern (Cartesian) Man ? the man whose soul is no longer the Scholastic anima but blood that animates his bones, veins, and muscles - germinated in the writings of Francis Bacon, a predecessor never properly acknowledged by Descartes. How to Read Descartes's Meditations is the first collection of essays on the Meditations that makes a conscious effort to read Descartes's philosophy as a reaction against or an acknowledgment of Scholastic, Renaissance, and the Reformation sources. It will become a standard book for students of modern philosophy. (shrink)

L'auteur a l'intuition que Descartes avait directement lu, autant, voire plus que les thomistes, saint Augustin ; mieux, malgré ou en vertu de sa réticence à l'avouer, il en avait aussi subi l'influence indirecte, sous le poids des débats théologiques et philosophiques de son temps. Une série de rapprochements entre les textes canoniques de Descartes et certains passages de saint Augustin.

In the Letter to the Faculty of Theology of the Sorbonne, Descartes makes a reference to Leo's X's encyclical Apostolici Regiminis (1513), which supports the Aristotelian-Scholastic conception of the soul as anima corporis forma According to Descartes' doctrine of the eternal truths, God's power is absolutely unlimited. One of the consequences of this doctrine is that God could join a rational (human) soul to any body, which implies that the union of soul and the body in the Cartesian system is (...) not substantial in the Scholastic sense of the word. In bringing in Leo's X's encyclical to support his conception of the soul, Descartes used a papal document for purposes contrary to those for which it had been designed. Dans la Lettre à la Faculté de théologie de la Sorbonne, Descartes fait référence à l'encyclique Apostolici Regiminis (1513), qui soutient la conception aristotélico-scolastique de l'âme en tant qu'anima corporis forma Or, selon la doctrine de la création des vérités éternelles, le pouvoir de Dieu est sans limites : une de ses conséquences en est que Dieu eût pu unir l'âme rationnelle (humaine) à n'importe quel corps, ce qui implique que l'union de l'âme et du corps dans la philosophie cartésienne ne soit pas substantielle — du moins au sens scolastique du terme. En citant l'encyclique Apostolici Regiminis au commencement des Meditations, Descartes a en fait utilisé le document pontifical à l'opposé du but pour lequel il avait été conçu. (shrink)

In Leszek Kolakowski's title essay, "My Correct Views on Everything", the former Communist "High Priest" accounts for his apostasy from communism and explains why communism had to fail. Next, in a number of scholarly articles, he explains why communism assumed the pernicious form it had. The two other sections of the book, on Christianity and Liberal ideologies, are equally prescient. Each is both a pointed, incisive, often humorous exposition, even indictment, and yet each offers an intimate portrait of Kolakowski's spiritual (...) and intellectual development. Included also are two interviews with the author. Far from believing that the author has "correct views on everything," the reader is likely to be convinced that Kolakowski is right on more than one point. One's rejection of Marxist ideology does not have to lead, he implicitly suggests, to the dismissal of the Marxist dream of a world without greed. Being criticial of this or that item in the Church's politics should not have to make one reject Jesus's teaching. Finally, being concerned with liberalism's inability to generate moral values should not lead us past the compelling reason to accept the liberal state as the only viable political alternative both to the political and cultural follies of our times and the dangers of religious theocratic temptations. What Kolakowski offers in this wonderful collection of essays is, in short, a "catechism" for non-ideological Marxists, Christians, liberals, and conservatives alike. Book jacket. (shrink)

Nadler's book is the most complete account of Arnauld's philosophy available in English. First, the author tries to determine Arnauld's philosophical position independently of Descartes' influence. Secondly, and this is a main virtue of Nadler's book, it seeks to clear up the old debate between earlier commentators such as Lovejoy, Church, and Ginsburg about Arnauld's realism. Thirdly, much of the content of the book focuses on the role of the term "idea" in Arnauld's thought. The problem is whether ideas exist (...) independent of our minds or are as mind-dependent for Arnauld as they were for his critic Malebranche. Nadler tries to solve the problem in light of the theological debate which went on in the seventeenth century. If we hold Malebranche's position, Arnauld argues, we surround the mind with a "palace of ideas," cutting it off from external objects. Malebranche's reasoning, Nadler argues, is defective from a theological point of view; if ideas are êtres representatifs distingués des perceptions, or to use Descartes' language, "modalities of the soul are essentially representative of objects which are distinct from the soul," a question arises as to why God had joined soul to body "and yet not allowed the soul to perceive that body [immediately but by means of ideas?]". (shrink)

« Depuis le mythique Index scolastico-cartésien, qu’en un geste vraiment inaugural Étienne Gilson a publié, on sait non seulement que Descartes connaissait fort bien la tradition philosophique, mais surtout que ses innovations ne peuvent nous devenir intelligibles que par leur confrontation exacte avec les auteurs qu’il réfutait.En fin connaisseur de l’époque cartésienne, mais aussi de l’histoire de ses interprétations, Zbigniew Janowski a eu l’intuition que Descartes avait directement lu, autant, voire plus que les thomistes, saint Augustin. Avec une impressionnante érudition, (...) une grande précision critique aussi, Zbigniew Janowski livre une série de rapprochements précis et prudents entre les textes canoniques de Descartes et certains passages des œuvres majeures de saint Augustin. »Jean-Luc Marion. (shrink)

The central metaphysical question of Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics is how to distinguish the actions of God from those of his creatures. In his letter to Arnauld of April 30, 1687, Leibniz wrote that as long as one does not have the knowledge of what a substance is "one will have nothing on which to settle... a solid principle." Thus it seems that the answer to the question of substance is at the same time the solution to the problem of (...) metaphysics. Alas the problem begins where the solution lies. There are four different theories of substance in Leibniz's writings, so the question arises as to which of them provides the answer to Leibnizian metaphysics. (shrink)

The central metaphysical question of Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics is how to distinguish the actions of God from those of his creatures. In his letter to Arnauld of April 30, 1687, Leibniz wrote that as long as one does not have the knowledge of what a substance is "one will have nothing on which to settle... a solid principle." Thus it seems that the answer to the question of substance is at the same time the solution to the problem of (...) metaphysics. Alas the problem begins where the solution lies. There are four different theories of substance in Leibniz's writings, so the question arises as to which of them provides the answer to Leibnizian metaphysics. (shrink)

Yovel's Spinoza is the first book in any language in which an author tries to do justice to the historical and social influences of the Marranos culture on Spinoza's thought and on later thinkers. The study is divided into two parts which can be read independently. In the first volume, The Marrano of Reason, Yovel seeks to place Spinoza's thought within the framework of the culture of the Marranos, Jewish converts to Christianity. The events of the years 1411-12 in Spain, (...) when the Jews were forced to convert, created a mixture of Catholic and Jewish traditions, which along with the Marranos's later settlement in the Calvinist Netherlands, became, according to Yovel, the background for Spinoza's philosophy. (shrink)

In this lucid and elegant book, originally written in 1966, Kolakowski's goal is to trace "the presence of myth" in nonmythical areas of experience such as science, logic, and love. The author's understanding of myth goes slightly beyond the traditional usage, "the truth symbolically presented." The function of myth, Kolakowski claims, "is to catch a permanently constitutive element of culture", which keeps our culture alive. But what is this element? Myth, according to Kolakowski, imposes meaning on the world of phenomena, (...) and at the same time explains our place in it. (shrink)