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.
Descartes' Meditations is one of the most thoroughly analyzed of all philosophical texts. Nevertheless, central issues in Descartes' thought remain unresolved, particularly the problem of the Cartesian Circle. Most attempts to deal with that problem have weakened the force of Descartes' own doubts or weakened the goals he was seeking.
This is a collection of Paul Hoffman's wide-ranging essays on Descartes composed over the past twenty-five years. The essays in Part I include his celebrated "The Unity of Descartes' Man," in which he argues that Descartes accepts the Aristotelian view that soul and body are related as form to matter and that the human being is a substance; a series of subsequent essays elaborating on this interpretation and defending it against objections; and an essay on Descartes' theory of distinction.
Rene Descartes is arguably the most important seventeenth-century thinker and the father of modern philosophy. His seminal works are widely studied by students of philosophy. Yet his unique method and its divergence from the method of his scholastic predecessors and contemporaries raises complex and often challenging issues.
The Renaissance and Seventeenth Century Rationalism
This fourth volume traces the history of Renaissance philosophy and seventeenth century rationalism, covering Descartes and the birth of modern philosophy.
