Cartesian Reflections

by John Cottingham

A collection of essays on Descartes’s philosophy

published by Oxford University Press, September 2008

These essays cover central areas of Descartes’s rich and wide-ranging, philosophical system, including his account of thought and language, of freedom and action, of our relationship to the animal domain, and of human morality and the conduct of life. They also explore ways in which his philosophy has been misunderstood. The Cartesian mind-body dualism that is so often attacked is only a part of Descartes’s account of what it is to be a thinking, sentient, human creature, and the way he makes the division between the mental and the physical is considerably more subtle, and philosophically more appealing, than is generally assumed. Although Descartes is often considered to be one of the heralds of our modern secular world-view, the ‘new’ philosophy which he launched retains many links with the ideas of his predecessors, not least in the all-pervasive role its assigns to God (something that is ignored or downplayed by many modern readers). The character of the Cartesian outlook is multifaceted, sometimes anticipating Enlightenment ideas of human autonomy and independent scientific inquiry, but also sometimes harmonizing with more traditional notions of human nature as created to find fulfilment in harmony with its creator.

“The topics covered by Cottingham extend very widely and offer nuanced and often instructive reflections both on controversial Cartesian views that still challenge his commentators, and on their simplified canonical images that continue to haunt contemporary discussions. They range from Descartes's scientific agenda to his treatment of specific problems like the nature of thought, animal consciousness, color, language, will, belief and reason, theology and ethics. Taken together, they offer a stimulating picture both of Descartes's influential and often controversial views and of Cottingham's long-standing engagement with them.”

Lilli Alanen (Uppsala University) Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Part One: Overview

1. Descartes, the Synoptic Philosopher

Part Two: Descartes’s position in philosophy

2. The Cartesian Legacy

3. A New Start? Cartesian Metaphysics and the Emergence

of Modern Philosophy

Part Three: Mind and World

4. Descartes on Thought

5. ‘The only sure sign . . .’ Descartes on Thought and Language

6. Intentionality or Phenomenology? Descartes and the

Objects of Thought

7. Descartes on Colour

8. A Brute to the Brutes? Descartes’s Treatment of Animals

9. Cartesian Trialism

Part Four: Ethics and Religion

10. The Intellect, the Will and the Passions: Spinoza’s Critique of Descartes

11. Descartes and the Voluntariness of Belief

12. Cartesian Ethics: Reason and the Passions

13. The role of God in Descartes’s Philosophy

14. Descartes as Sage: Spiritual Askesis in Cartesian Philosophy

15. Plato’s Sun and Descartes’s Stove: Contemplation and Control in Cartesian Philosophy

Bibliography

Index

xiii+332pp

ISBN 987-0-19-922697-9