Download or read book Descartes A Beginner s Guide written by Kevin O'Donnell and published by Teach Yourself. This book was released on 2012-07-27 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This useful guide introduces the reader to the so-called 'father of modern philosophy' - Rene Descartes.
Download or read book Descartes written by Harry M. Bracken and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A modern primer to the father of modern philosophy The father of modern philosophy, Descartes is still one of the most widely discussed philosophers today. Putting rationalism above all else, he sought to base all knowledge of the world on a single idea: 'I think, therefore I am'. This introduction expertly summarises his thoughts on the dualism of mind and body, his proofs' for God's existence, and his responses to scepticism. Explaining how his life informed his philosophy, Bracken explains the philosopher's enduring significance.
Download or read book The Blackwell Guide to the Modern Philosophers written by Steven M. Emmanuel and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1991-01-16 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide brings together eighteen original interpretations of the modern philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche. The contributors succeed brilliantly in placing their figures within a rich historical, cultural, and philosophical context, noting some of the important ways in which their ideas and arguments were shaped by the intellectual currents of the time, and how they in turn shaped subsequent philosophical debate.
Download or read book Descartes Error written by Antonio Damasio and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-09-27 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.
Download or read book A Beginner s Guide to Descartes s Meditations written by Gareth Southwell and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2008 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a concise, readable summary of Descarte's 'Meditations', Southwell offers clear explanations of the central themes and ideas, terminology and arguments, while the text features an in-depth discussion of Descarte's correspondence with his contemporaries.
Download or read book A Beginner s Guide to Ideas written by Linda Smith and published by Lion Books. This book was released on 1991 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains 15 units on philosophy, ideology and theology. The book touches on topics such as: existentialism, psychology, politics and the existence of God. It draws on the ideas and writings of a range of thinkers, philosophers and theologians, including: Aquinas, Freud, Descartes, Locke and Hume.
Download or read book A Beginner s Guide to Philosophy written by Dominique Janicaud and published by Pegasus Books. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: General Adult. A primer on western philosophy by the late French philosopher and University of Nice professor covers a wide range of thinkers and topics from Plato and Aristotle to the existence of God and the question of freedom.
Download or read book Descartes and the Doubting Mind written by James Hill and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descartes' characterisation of the mind as a 'thinking thing' marks the beginning of modern philosophy of mind. It is also the point of departure for Descartes' own system in which the mind is the first object of knowledge for those who reason in an 'orderly way'. This ground-breaking book shows that the Cartesian mind has been widely misunderstood: typically treated as simply the subject of phenomenal consciousness, ignoring its deeply intellectual character. James Hill argues that this interpretation has gone hand in hand with a misreading of Descartes' method of doubt which treats it as all-inclusive and universal in scope. In fact, the sceptical arguments of the First Meditation aim to lead the mind away from the senses and towards the intellectual 'notions' that the mind has within it, and which are never the subject of doubt. Hill also places Descartes' concept of mind into the wider setting of his science of nature, showing how he wished to reveal a mental subject that would able to comprehend the new physics necessitated by Copernicus' heliocentrism.
Download or read book Epistemology written by Robert M. Martin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-07-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you know what you know? Epistemology is the philosophical study of knowledge. Without knowledge, scientific enquiry is meaningless and we can’t begin to analyse the world around us. What is knowledge? How do you know you are not dreaming? Should we trust our senses? Presuming no prior experience of philosophy, this book covers everything in the topic from scepticism and possible worlds to Kant’s transcendentalism. Clear and readable, Epistemology: A Beginner’s Guide is essential reading for students and aspiring thinkers.
Download or read book The Rationalists written by Pauline Phemister and published by Polity. This book was released on 2006-09-14 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz stand out among their seventeenth-century contemporaries as the great rationalist philosophers. Each sought to construct a philosophical system in which theological and philosophical foundations serve to explain the physical, mental and moral universe. Through a careful analysis of their work, Pauline Phemister explores the rationalists seminal contribution to the development of modern philosophy. Broad terminological agreement and a shared appreciation of the role of reason in ethics do not mask the very significant disagreements that led to three distinctive philosophical systems: Cartesian dualism, Spinozan monism and Leibnizian pluralism. The book explores the nature of, and offers reasons for, these differences. Phemister contends that Spinoza and Leibniz developed their systems in part through engagements with and amendment of Cartesian philosophy, and critically analyses the arguments and contributions of all three philosophers. The clarity of the authors discussion of their key ideas including their views on knowledge, universal languages, the nature of substance and substances, bodies, the relation of mind and body, freedom, and the role of distinct perception and reason in morals will make this book the ideal introduction to rationalist philosophy.
Download or read book How To Read Descartes written by John G. Cottingham and published by Granta Books. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I realized it was necessary to demolish everything and start again right from the foundations, if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.' Ren Descartes Revered as the 'father of modern philosophy', Descartes is one of the most influential philosophers of all time, but his ideas are also highly controversial and have been subjected to intense criticism by present-day philosophers. John Cottingham examines Descartes's remarkable attempt to construct a new basis for scientific understanding, his famous first principle, 'I am thinking, therefore I exist,' and his notorious and often misunderstood account of the relation between mind and body. He also tackles fascinating and lesser-known aspects of Descartes's philosophy, including his views on language, human and animal nature, the role of the emotions in the good life, and the place of God in science and ethics. Extracts are taken from the whole range of Descartes's writings, including the Discourse on the Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy and his last book, the Passions of the Soul, as well as extracts from his philosophical letters.
Download or read book Philosophy of Mind written by Edward Feser and published by Oneworld. This book was released on 2006-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively introduction to the philosophy of mind, important questions are tackled with clear explanations of all the theories of mind, from the classic accounts of Descartes and Aquinas to the developments in computing and cognitive science.
Download or read book Descartes written by Georges Dicker and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-14 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A solid grasp of the main themes and arguments of the seventeenth-century philosopher René Descartes is essential for understanding modern thought, and a necessary entrée to the work of the Empiricists and Immanuel Kant. It is also crucial to the study of contemporary epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. This new edition of Georges Dicker's commentary on Descartes's masterpiece, Meditations on First Philosophy, features a new chapter on the Fourth Meditation and improved treatments of the famous cogito ergo sum and the notorious problem of the Cartesian Circle, among numerous other improvements and updates. Clear and accessible, it serves as an introduction to Descartes's ideas for undergraduates and as a sophisticated companion to his Meditations for advanced readers. The volume provides a thorough discussion of several basic issues of epistemology and metaphysics elicited from the main themes and arguments of the Meditations. It also delves into the work's historical background and critical reception. Dicker offers his own assessments of the Cartesian Doubt, the cogito, the causal and ontological proofs of God's existence, Cartesian freedom and theodicy, Cartesian Dualism, and Descartes's views about the existence and nature of the material world. The commentary also incorporates a wealth of recent Descartes scholarship, and inculcates -- but does not presuppose -- knowledge of the methods of contemporary analytic philosophy.
Download or read book The Rationalists written by Derk Pereboom and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1999 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together thirteen articles on the most discussed thinkers in the rationalist movement: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche. These articles address the topics in metaphysics and epistemology that figure most prominently in contemporary work on these philosophers. The articles have all been produced since 1980, and their authors are among the most respected in the field.
Download or read book Philosophy for Beginners written by Richard Osborne and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2007-08-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does philosophy give some people a headache, others a real buzz, and yet others a feeling that it is subversive and dangerous? Why do a lot of people think philosophy is totally irrelevant? What is philosophy anyway? The ABCs of philosophy - easy to understand but never simplistic. Beginning with basic questions posed by the ancient Greeks - What is the world made of? What is a man? What is knowledge? What is good and evil? - Philosophy For Beginners traces the development of these questions as the key to understanding how Western philosophy developed over the last 2,500 years.
Download or read book Sophie s World written by Jostein Gaarder and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-03-20 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A page-turning novel that is also an exploration of the great philosophical concepts of Western thought, Jostein Gaarder's Sophie's World has fired the imagination of readers all over the world, with more than twenty million copies in print. One day fourteen-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find in her mailbox two notes, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl. Who is Hilde? And why does her mail keep turning up? To unravel this riddle, Sophie must use the philosophy she is learning—but the truth turns out to be far more complicated than she could have imagined.
Download or read book Meditations Objections and Replies written by René Descartes and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2006-03-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edition features reliable, accessible translations; useful editorial materials; and a straightforward presentation of the Objections and Replies, including the objections from Caterus, Arnauld, and Hobbes, accompanied by Descartes' replies, in their entirety. The letter serving as a reply to Gassendi--in which several of Descartes' associates present Gassendi's best arguments and Descartes' replies--conveys the highlights and important issues of their notoriously extended exchange. Roger Ariew's illuminating Introduction discusses the Meditations and the intellectual environment surrounding its reception.
