6 results
Human Being
- from ENTRIES
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- By Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
- Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
- Published online:
- 05 January 2016
- Print publication:
- 01 January 2015, pp 369-379
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Summary
Despite his famous claim that mind and body are really distinct substances, Descartes repeatedly points out that a human being is not a mere composite of two entities. For example, he calls the human being “a true ens per se” and asserts that the mind “is united in a real and substantial manner to the body” (AT III 493, CSMK 206). If we intend to give a full account of a human being, we need notions not just of mind and of body but also of the union of mind and body – the latter notion being as primitive as the other two and therefore irreducible to them (AT III 665, 691; CSMK 218, 226). Only this third notion enables us to describe and explain the features that are distinctive of a living human being – namely, sensory perceptions and passions (see primitive notion).
Given this thesis, it is hardly surprising that Descartes does not conceive of himself as a purely immaterial mind once he has completed an analysis of mind and body. Nor does he claim that his body is only accidentally connected to his mind, serving as a mere instrument. In the Sixth Meditation, he unmistakably holds that his mind is not in his body as a sailor is present in a ship. It is rather “very closely joined” to the body and, as it were, “intermingled with it” (AT VII 81, CSM II 56). Should there be no intermingling, no sensations of hunger, thirst, and pain could arise, because it is neither the mind alone nor the body alone that has these states, but the union of mind and body.
Distinction (Real, Modal, and Rational)
- from ENTRIES
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- By Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
- Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
- Published online:
- 05 January 2016
- Print publication:
- 01 January 2015, pp 202-211
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Summary
Descartes famously claims that mind and body are really distinct substances, a view known as substance dualism (AT VII 78, 169–70; CSM II 54, 119–20). This claim is part of a larger theory of distinctions, which has both a metaphysical and an epistemological side. On the one hand, it explains what kinds of entities there are in the world and how they are related to each other; on the other, it also spells out how we can gain knowledge of these relations and how we are thereby able to provide an adequate description of the world – a description that fits not only human beings but also purely material substances (e.g., plants and animals) and purely mental substances (God and angels) as well as their attributes and modes.
The theory of distinctions has Scholastic roots. It was originally developed to resolve various theological puzzles (e.g., the connection between the three divine persons and the relation between God's essence and his attributes) but soon became a general instrument for distinguishing different types of metaphysical relations (Adams 1987, 16–29). Descartes came to know it through late Scholastic authors, among them Francisco Suárez and Eustachius a Sancto Paulo (Ariew 2011), and used it primarily in a nontheological context (for an application to some theological problems, see Armogathe 1977). On his view, which he sets forth in detail in Principles I.60–62, there are three types of distinction.
First, there is a real distinction. It obtains between two or more substances, and we can recognize it “from the fact that we can clearly and distinctly understand one apart from the other” (AT VIIIA 28, CSM I 213). This is precisely the distinction that exists between mind and body, but also between two (or more) minds and, should there be more than one, between two (or more) bodies (see individuation and substance).
Eustachius a Sancto Paulo (Eustache Asseline) (1573–1640)
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- By Dominik Perler, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Philosophie
- Edited by Lawrence Nolan, California State University, Long Beach
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Descartes Lexicon
- Published online:
- 05 January 2016
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- 01 January 2015, pp 257-259
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Summary
Eustachius studied philosophy and theology in Paris, obtained a “license” in 1604, and taught philosophy at the Collège de Calvi, an arts college associated with the Sorbonne. In 1606 he entered the Feuillants, a Cistercian order, and became involved in the education of the members of the order. Eustachius was the author of the Summa philosophiae quadripartita (1609), an influential survey of late Scholastic Aristotelianism. Its four parts cover the main areas of philosophy: logic, ethics, natural philosophy, and metaphysics (see Ariew et al. 1998, 69–71). In a letter to Mersenne from 1640, Descartes remarked that he had bought a copy of this work, “the best book of its kind ever made” (AT III 232, CSMK 156). He intended to print it with critical comments to compare traditional Aristotelianism with his own philosophical program, but he never carried out this plan. The reasons are unclear. Perhaps he feared that an open attack on Scholastic philosophy would upset traditional philosophers, especially those teaching in the universities, and prevent them from approving his Meditations. Perhaps he was busy with other projects in subsequent years, in particular with his extensive correspondence and his replies to the objections written against the Meditations. Or perhaps he abandoned the project because he was unable to secure Eustachius's permission, since the latter died in 1640 (see AT III 260, CSMK 161).
The Summa, which combines elements from Thomism and Scotism, contains many traditional doctrines, among them syllogistic logic, hylomorphism, an account of the four Aristotelian causes, and a theory of categories. It is hardly surprising that Descartes chose it as the target of his critique because it provided a much shorter account of traditional Aristotelianism than the long Jesuit commentaries, known as the “Conimbricenses,” or the extensive treatises by Franciscus Toletus and Antonius Rubius (Gilson 1913, Ariew 2011). He believed that anyone who had the chance to read his comments on this book would easily see its deficits and “learn to scorn it at the same time” (AT III 259–60, CSMK 161).
Despite this harsh critique, there are striking similarities between the Scholastic doctrines expressed by Eustachius and Descartes’ own opinions (Van der Pitte 1988). The most obvious parallel is in the theory of ideas (Perler 1996).
28 - Skepticism
- from IV - Soul and knowledge
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- By Dominik Perler, Humboldt Universität
- Edited by Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado Boulder
- Edited in association with Christina van Dyke, Calvin College, Michigan
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2014
- Print publication:
- 19 June 2014, pp 384-396
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Summary
Searching for skepticism in medieval philosophy seems to be a vain enterprise, because no philosopher in the Christian tradition radically doubted or even denied the possibility that human beings can have knowledge. Nor did thinkers in the Jewish or Islamic tradition categorically refute the claim that human knowledge is possible, despite their criticisms of the incompleteness and fallibility of our cognitive faculties. All of them agreed that our faculties enable us to acquire a wide range of knowledge – of material things as well as of mental, mathematical, and other intelligible objects. Their main concern was not to establish that we can have knowledge but to explain how, that is, by what kind of cognitive mechanism, we are able to acquire it. There is no evidence that they were interested in Pyrrhonism, one of the main forms of ancient skepticism that aimed to show how one can reach “mental tranquility” and a happy life by suspending all beliefs. Although a Latin translation of Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism was available before 1300, this key text had no visible impact on debates in Western Europe. All philosophers in the Latin tradition subscribed to the thesis that we are entitled to have beliefs; they even claimed that we need beliefs to choose specific actions and to pursue a happy life. Thanks to Cicero’s Academica and Augustine’s Contra academicos, Academic skepticism, the second major form of ancient skepticism, was to some extent known during the Middle Ages. But it did not spark an extensive debate or a “skeptical crisis.” Medieval authors in the Latin West occasionally referred to skeptical arguments and examples presented in these texts (such as cases of sensory illusions and dream experiences), but without drawing radical skeptical conclusions.
28 - Skepticism
- from IV - Soul and knowledge
- Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado Boulder
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy
- Published online:
- 28 May 2011
- Print publication:
- 17 December 2009, pp 384-396
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Summary
Searching for skepticism in medieval philosophy seems to be a vain enterprise, because no philosopher in the Christian tradition radically doubted or even denied the possibility that human beings can have knowledge. Nor did thinkers in the Jewish or Islamic tradition categorically refute the claim that human knowledge is possible, despite their criticisms of the incompleteness and fallibility of our cognitive faculties. All of them agreed that our faculties enable us to acquire a wide range of knowledge – of material things as well as of mental, mathematical, and other intelligible objects. Their main concern was not to establish that we can have knowledge but to explain how, that is, by what kind of cognitive mechanism, we are able to acquire it. There is no evidence that they were interested in Pyrrhonism, one of the main forms of ancient skepticism that aimed to show how one can reach “mental tranquility” and a happy life by suspending all beliefs. Although a Latin translation of Sextus Empiricus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism was available before 1300, this key text had no visible impact on debates in Western Europe. All philosophers in the Latin tradition subscribed to the thesis that we are entitled to have beliefs; they even claimed that we need beliefs to choose specific actions and to pursue a happy life. Thanks to Cicero’s Academica and Augustine’s Contra academicos, Academic skepticism, the second major form of ancient skepticism, was to some extent known during the Middle Ages. But it did not spark an extensive debate or a “skeptical crisis.” Medieval authors in the Latin West occasionally referred to skeptical arguments and examples presented in these texts (such as cases of sensory illusions and dream experiences), but without drawing radical skeptical conclusions.
5 - Duns Scotus’s Philosophy of Language
- Edited by Thomas Williams, University of Iowa
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus
- Published online:
- 28 May 2006
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- 09 December 2002, pp 161-192
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Unlike many thirteenth- and fourteenth-century authors, Scotus never wrote a grammar or logic handbook. Nor did he compose a treatise dealing explicitly with the grammatical and semantic issues that were eagerly debated at his time - for instance a treatise about the famous “properties of terms” or the “modes of signifying.” The only work concerning grammar and semantics, entitled Tractatus de modis significandi sive Grammatica speculativa, that was attributed to him until the beginning of the twentieth century, proved to be inauthentic; it was written by his contemporary Thomas of Erfurt, a leading representative of the school of the “modistae.” Given such an apparent lack of writings dedicated to grammatical and semantic problems, one may have the impression that Scotus was not particularly interested in linguistic analysis and that he should be regarded as a theologian, metaphysician, and moral philosopher, but not as a philosopher of language.
Yet such an impression would be quite misleading. Although Scotus never wrote a grammar or logic handbook, he had a keen interest in linguistic theory. This interest is most obvious in his commentaries on the Isagoge, on the Categories, and on Peri hermeneias. In these early writings, Scotus does not confine himself to paraphrasing Aristotle’s and Porphyry’s view. He rather uses their opinion as a starting point for a thorough discussion of fundamental issues in philosophical semantics – a discussion that allows him to critically examine various linguistic theories of his contemporaries and to develop his own theory. Such a discussion can also be found in some parts of his later works, especially in his metaphysical and theological writings.