Mind, Body, and Morality: New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza PDF
Preview Mind, Body, and Morality: New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza
Mind, Body, and Morality The turn of the millennium has been marked by new developments in the study of early modern philosophy. In particular, the philosophy of René Descartes has been reinterpreted in a number of important and exciting ways, specifically concerning his work on the mind-body union, the connection between objective and formal reality, and his status as a moral philosopher. These fresh interpretations have coincided with a renewed interest in overlooked parts of the Cartesian corpus and a sustained focus on the similarities between Descartes’ thought and the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Mind, Body, and Morality consists of fifteen chapters written by scholars who have contributed significantly to the new turn in Descartes and Spinoza scholarship. The volume is divided into three parts. The first group of chapters examines different metaphysical and epistemological problems raised by the Cartesian mind-body union. Part II investigates Descartes’ and Spinoza’s understanding of the relations among ideas, knowledge, and reality. Special emphasis is placed on Spinoza’s conception of the relation between activity and passivity. Finally, the last part explores different aspects of Descartes’ moral philosophy, connecting his views to important predecessors such as Augustine and Pierre Abelard, and comparing them to Spinoza. Martina Reuter is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Frans Svensson is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, and Theory of Science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy Pierre Bayle’s Cartesian Metaphysics Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy Todd Ryan Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy Edited by G.A.J. Rogers, Tom Sorell and Jill Kraye Vanishing Matter and the Laws of Nature Descartes and Beyond Edited by Dana Jalobeanu and Peter R. Anstey Locke and Leibniz on Substance Edited by Paul Lodge and Tom Stoneham Locke’s Science of Knowledge Matthew Priselac The Idea of Principles in Early Modern Thought Interdisciplinary Perspectives Edited by Peter R. Anstey Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes and in his Reception Edited by Delphine Antoine-Mahut and Sophie Roux Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy Edited by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey Mind, Body, and Morality New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza Edited by Martina Reuter and Frans Svensson For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge. com/Routledge-Studies-in-Seventeenth-Century-Philosophy/book-series/ SE0420 Mindy, Body, and Morality New Perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza Edited by Martina Reuter and Frans Svensson First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Reuter, Martina, editor. Title: Mind, body, and morality : new perspectives on Descartes and Spinoza / edited by Martina Reuter and Frans Svensson. Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Taylor & Francis, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in seventeenth-century philosophy ; 19 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019005347 | ISBN 9780815384946 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Descartes, Renâe, 1596–1650. | Spinoza, Benedictus de, 1632–1677. | Mind and body. Classification: LCC B1875 .M53 2019 | DDC 194—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019005347 ISBN: 978-0-8153-8494-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-20283-1 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Contributors vii Acknowledgments x 1 Introduction 1 MARTINA REUTER AND FRANS SVENSSON PART I Cartesian Persons 15 2 The Metaphysics of Cartesian Persons 17 DEBORAH BROWN 3 The Gender of the Cartesian Mind, Body, and Mind-Body Union 37 MARTINA REUTER 4 “I certainly seem to see”: Embodiment in the Second Meditation 59 MIKKO YRJÖNSUURI PART II Ideas, Knowledge, and Reality 75 5 Ideas and Reality in Descartes 77 PETER MYRDAL AND ARTO REPO 6 Spinoza’s Three Kinds of Cognition: Imagination, Understanding, and Definition and Essence 96 JOHN CARRIERO vi Contents 7 Mind-Body Interaction and Unity in Spinoza 119 OLLI KOISTINEN 8 Spinoza and the Inferential Nature of Thought 132 KAROLINA HÜBNER 9 Self-Consciousness and Consciousness of Self: Spinoza on Desire and Pride 143 LISA SHAPIRO 10 Spinoza on Activity and Passivity: The Problematic Definition Revisited 157 VALTTERI VILJANEN PART III Will, Virtue, and Love 175 11 Teleology and Descartes’ Problem of Error 177 TOMAS EKENBERG 12 Descartes’ Generosité 191 CALVIN G. NORMORE 13 A Cartesian Distinction in Virtue: Moral and Perfect 208 FRANS SVENSSON 14 Spinoza and the Cartesian Definition of Love 226 DENIS KAMBOUCHNER 15 Self and Will in Descartes’s Account of Love 239 LILLI ALANEN Index 259 Contributors Lilli Alanen is Professor Emerita of History of Philosophy at Uppsala Uni- versity. She specializes in early modern conceptions of mind, human agency, cognition, and passions, and has published numerous articles on Descartes, Spinoza, and Hume. She is the author of Descartes’s Concept of Mind (Harvard UP, 2003), and co-editor with Charlotte Witt of Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy (Springer, 2004). Her current work is on Spinoza on reason and perfection, and on a monograph on Descartes’s Moral Mind. She is an elected member of a number of learned societies, including Institut International de Philosophie and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Deborah Brown is a reader in philosophy at the University of Queensland and Director of the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Proj- ect. She has written extensively in the field of Early Modern Philos- ophy, particularly, on the philosophy of Descartes. Her 2006 book, Descartes and the Passionate Mind, was published by Cambridge Uni- versity Press, and her forthcoming book, Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life, co-authored with Calvin G. Normore, is being pub- lished by Oxford University Press. John Carriero is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of Between Two Worlds: A Reading of Descartes’s “Meditations” (Princeton UP, 2009) and co-editor with Janet Broughton of A Companion to Descartes (Blackwell, 2008). He has published exten- sively in seventeenth-century rationalism, especially on Spinoza. Tomas Ekenberg is a docent of theoretical philosophy at Uppsala Uni- versity. He specializes in early medieval ethics, metaphysics, action theory, and moral psychology and their origins in late ancient phi- losophy. He has published several articles on Anselm of Canterbury’s and Augustine’s thought and co-edited the anthology Subjectivity and Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy (Springer, 2016). viii Contributors Karolina Hübner is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, and author of several articles on Spinoza’s philosophy. Denis Kambouchner is Professor of History of Early Modern Philoso- phy at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. His major publica- tions are devoted to Descartes, including L’Homme des passions. Commentaires sur Descartes (Albin-Michel, 1995; 2 vols.); Les Méditations Métaphysiques de Descartes (PUF, 2005; vol. 1); Des- cartes et la philosophie morale (Hermann, 2008); Descartes n’a pas dit (Les Belle-Lettres, 2015). He is the chief editor of the new series of Descartes’ Complete Works (Tel-Gallimard, in progress; 7 vols.). He has also published a number of studies on the modern problems of culture and education, including L’école, question philosophique (Fayard, 2013). Olli Koistinen is a professor at the Department of Philosophy, Univer- sity of Turku. He works mainly on early modern philosophy and has published papers on Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Kant. He has edited The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s Ethics (Cambridge UP, 2010) and (with John Biro) Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes (Oxford UP, 2002). He also works on contemporary metaphysics, especially ac- tion theory, a subject on which he has published a monograph. Peter Myrdal is a post-doctoral researcher at Uppsala University and a visiting scholar at the University of Turku. He works on metaphysics, theories of cognition, and ethics in early modern philosophy—in par- ticular in Leibniz—on which he has published several papers. Calvin G. Normore is Brian P. Copenhaver Professor of Philosophy at UCLA, William Macdonald Professor of Moral Philosophy (Emeri- tus) at McGill University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. He studied at McGill and the University of Toronto (Ph.D. 1976) and was a Killam Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta and a Senior Fellow of the Society of Fellows at Columbia University. He has taught at Princeton University, the University of Toronto, and the Ohio State University and held visiting appointments at York University (Toronto), the University of California, Irvine, and Yale University. Normore is past president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, and a member of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences. He works primarily in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and is co-author (with Deborah Brown) of Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Contributors ix Arto Repo is an independent scholar, affiliated with the University of Turku. He works on metaphysics and theories of cognition in early modern philosophy—in particular in Leibniz and Kant—on which he has published several papers. Martina Reuter is a docent of philosophy and a senior lecturer in gender studies at the University of Jyväskylä. She has published articles and book chapters on Mary Wollstonecraft’s moral philosophy, on Des- cartes and François Poulain de la Barre, on feminist interpretations of the history of philosophy, and on phenomenology. Lisa Shapiro is a professor of philosophy at Simon Fraser University. Her research concerns the way early modern philosophers, such as Des- cartes, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and Spinoza understand the role of the passions or emotions in cognition, as well as in early modern arguments for and accounts of education designed to develop thinking things. She is committed to rehabilitating the work of early modern women philosophers. Frans Svensson is a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Lin- guistics, and Theory of Science, at the University of Gothenburg. He specializes in moral philosophy and the history of ethics. Valtteri Viljanen is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Uni- versity of Turku. He is author of Spinoza’s Geometry of Power (Cam- bridge UP, 2011) and numerous articles on Spinoza. Mikko Yrjönsuuri is a professor of philosophy at the University of Jyväs- kylä. His interests are mainly in medieval and early modern philosophy. He has worked on a variety of themes, including logic and semantics, the mind and selfhood, and ethics and social theory. He chaired the commission translating Descartes’ works into Finnish (4 vols.).
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