Cartesian Psychophysics and the Whole Nature of Man (eBook)

On Descartes's Passions of the Soul

Richard F. Hassing (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015
278 Seiten
Lexington Books (Verlag)
9781498522366 (ISBN)

Infos

This book describes Descartes's The Passions of the Soul as a foundational work of the Enlightenment, a precursor of later notions of the historicity of the human, and the first psychology of modern type: to understand and heal ourselves, we look not outward at the world in immediate relation to it, but inward, at the self, its brain, and its past history. Special attention is given to Descartes’s account of imagination and its problematic impact on passion and volition.

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In The Passions of the Soul Descartes proclaims his intention to explain the passions ';only as a Physicist,' and titles Part I ';About the passions in general, and incidentally about the whole nature of man'not an incidental item. Two questions orient the present inquiry: What does Descartes mean by ';the whole nature of man,' and how does a general theory of the human emotions based on his physics account for it? Not surprisingly, Descartes does not fulfill the letter of his intention; rather, he explains the passions ';only [partly] as a Physicist.' The other part of his studyirreducible to any physicsconsists in his own analysis of the life of the human being as union of soul and body. The resulting account is an unusual combination of scientific (hypothetico-deductive) psychophysics and prescientific insight into human experience. In it, a quasi-mechanical theory of the impact of imagination on passion and volition is combined with a distinctive emphasis on the human propensity to esteem what we imagine to be great. Human history and therewith ';the whole [problematic] nature of man' is constituted in significant measure by the particular and variable objects of esteem. The correction and improvement of our nature is the aim of Descartes's culminating doctrine of the one thing that is truly estimable: the firm and constant resolution to use well (autonomously) one's own (individual) powers of cognition and volition. With the return of religious war The Passions of the Soul is newly relevant.

Autor

Richard F. Hassing is research associate professor in the School of Philosophy at Catholic University.

Inhalt

Treatise of ManMeditation 6Discourse 5The Passions of the Soul, Part I, aa. 1–44: General Theory of the Passions (the Use of Physics)The Passions of the Soul, Part I, aa. 45–50: The Soul’s Power in Relation to its Passions (Leaving Physics Behind) 7 The Passions of the Soul, Part II, aa. 51–67: The Causes, Use, and Derivation of the Principal Passions (to the Standpoint of the Self-Conscious I) Appetites (art. 47, continued) Accompaniment to the Self-Conscious I) Redirection of Thumos)Gravitas: Autobiography of a Childhood but Persistent Prejudice (the Psychogenesis of Anthropomorphism)ConclusionAppendix Descartes: Concepts Engineer

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 19.11.2015
• Zusatzinfo: 2 Illustrations including: - 1 Black & White Illustrations; - 1 Tables.
• Verlagsort: Lanham
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Geschichte der Philosophie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften
• Schlagworte: Aristotle • Early modern philosophy • History of Philosophy • History of Science • Individualism • Metaphysics • Natural Philosophy • Political Philosophy • Psychology • scholastic metaphysics • Thomas Aquinas
• ISBN-13: 9781498522366 / 9781498522366