Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on references
- Introduction
- 1 Volo ergo sum: the unity and significance of Les Passions de l'âme
- 2 Perturbations or sweet pleasures? Descartes' place in two traditions regarding the passions
- 3 The natural integration of reason and passion
- 4 Representing and referring
- 5 Action and passion: metaphysical integrationism
- 6 Wonder and love: extending the boundaries of the Cartesian knower and the Cartesian self
- 7 Several strange passages on desire and fortune
- 8 Generosity breeds content: self-mastery through self-esteem
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on references
- Introduction
- 1 Volo ergo sum: the unity and significance of Les Passions de l'âme
- 2 Perturbations or sweet pleasures? Descartes' place in two traditions regarding the passions
- 3 The natural integration of reason and passion
- 4 Representing and referring
- 5 Action and passion: metaphysical integrationism
- 6 Wonder and love: extending the boundaries of the Cartesian knower and the Cartesian self
- 7 Several strange passages on desire and fortune
- 8 Generosity breeds content: self-mastery through self-esteem
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As Descartes saw it, the real you is not your material body, but rather a nonspatial thinking substance, an individual unit of mind-stuff quite distinct from your material body.
(Churchland, 1984: 8)What Dualist philosophers have grasped in a confused way is that our direct acquaintance with the mind, which occurs in introspective awareness, is an acquaintance with something that we are aware of only as something that is causally linked, directly or indirectly, with behaviour.
(Armstrong, 1980: 25)Descartes is often accused of having invented the modern mind by having invented the modern notion of consciousness, the unmediated awareness that the mind has of itself and of its thought contents. Although not denied an important part in the constitution of the human being, the human body and its worldly acts appear to have no obviously indispensable role in the functioning of the Cartesian mind, and it is this very autonomy of the mental that many find so unpalatable. This sentiment hasn't prevented us from continuing to feed Descartes to our children. The Meditations is still core reading for every philosophy major, but the pedagogy behind this is often like that of the conscientious parent whose idea of moral instruction is a family outing at a public flogging. We can't accept the Cartesian mind but we can't seem to avert our gaze either, and we despair of finding a better way of introducing the mind–body problem to our kids.
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- Descartes and the Passionate Mind , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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