Fable, Method, and Imagination in Descartes [Hardcover]

What role do fables play in Cartesian method and psychology? By looking at Descartes use of fables, James Griffith suggests there is a fabular logic that runs to the heart of Descartes philosophy. First focusing on The World and the Discourse on Method, this volume shows that by writing in fable form, Descartes allowed his readers to?break from Scholastic methods of philosophizing. With?this fable-structure or -logic in mind, the book reexamines the relationship between analysis, synthesis, and inexact sciences; between metaphysics and ethico-political life; and between the imagination, the will, and the passions.

James Griffith is Assistant Professor of Political Thought and Philosophy at Bratislava International School of Liberal Arts, Slovakia

What role do fables play in Cartesian method and psychology? By looking at Descartes use of fables, James Griffith suggests there is a fabular logic that runs to the heart of Descartes philosophy. First focusing on The World and the Discourse on Method, this volume shows that by writing in fable form, Descartes allowed his readers to?break from Scholastic methods of philosophizing. With?this fable-structure or -logic in mind, the book reexamines the relationship between analysis, synthesis, and inexact sciences; between metaphysics and ethico-political life; and between the imagination, the will, and the passions.

Shows that the traditional readings of Descartes are overly reductive, in particular the traditional claims that the Cartesian method is unrelated to fields like rhetoric and history and that the imagination is a passl³J