Descartes' Meditations A Critical Guide [Paperback]

This book provides new insights into understanding Descartes' philosophy of mind, especially the role and significance of the senses and emotions.Descartes' Meditations, one of the most influential works in western philosophy, continues to provoke discussion and debate. These essays by leading established and emerging early modern scholars examine a range of central and less-studied topics in the Meditations.Descartes' Meditations, one of the most influential works in western philosophy, continues to provoke discussion and debate. These essays by leading established and emerging early modern scholars examine a range of central and less-studied topics in the Meditations.Descartes's Meditations, one of the most influential works in western philosophy, continues to provoke discussion and debate. This volume of original essays by leading established and emerging early modern scholars ranges over all six of the Meditations and explores issues such as scepticism, judgement, causation, the nature of meditation and the meditators relation to God, the nature of personhood, Descartes theory of sense perception, and his ideas on the nature of substance. The contributors bring new insights to both central and less-studied topics in the Meditations, and connect the work with the rich historical and intellectual context in which Descartes forged his thought. The resulting volume will appeal to a wide range of scholars of early modern thought.Introduction; Part I. Skepticism: 1. The skepticism of the first meditation Thomas M. Lennon and Michael W. Hickson; 2. Descartes and content skepticism Deborah Brown; Part II. Substance and Cause: 3. Descartes against the materialists: how Descartes' confrontation with materialism shaped his metaphysics Daniel Garber; 4. Thinking: the nature of Descartes' mental substance Martha Brandt Bolton; 5. Causation and causal axioms Tad M. Schmaltz; Part III. Sensations: 6. Sensation and knowledge of body in Descartes' Meditations John Carriero; 7.lâ