In the seminar we will undertake a reading of the Meditations (including significant portions of the Objections and Replies) supplemented by other of Descartes' writings, including the Discourse and selections from the Principles, Passions, and Letters. We will address the principal topics that have engaged English-language philosophers who have written about Descartes' philosophy: the role of doubt, his use of the cogito, his conceptions of, and his reasoning about, mind, matter, and God, his arguments for mind-body distinctness and union, and the relation between his Meditations and his project to found a new science of nature. We will also consider how Descartes' work is now used in contemporary philosophical discussion, and uses to which his philosophical achievement might be put, upon further reflection.
Our aim will be to approach these topics afresh, taking into account previous readings, but also examining each topic by paying attention to its place in the Meditations (or other text), and to its role in Descartes' primary philosophical project, of providing foundations for a new theory of the natural world and the human animal. We will follow a general interpretive strategy that gives some weight to the fact that Descartes organized his principal work of metaphysics in the form of what he called "meditations."
As a background to Descartes' mature philosophy we will begin next week with a consideration of the Rules. You should ask what the project of the work is, and what positions in metaphysics and epistemology you could extract from it. Does the work allow certainty from the senses? What is its explicit or implicit mind-body ontology? What sorts of "problems" is it intended to provide a method for solving? What is the intended scope of its method? What strategy of justification does it employ, if any?
Required books.
Descartes, Philosophical Writings, vols. 1-3,
tr. Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch (and Kenny).
Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy--Meditationes de
Prima Philosophia: A Bilingual Edition, tr. Heffernan.
Cottingham (ed.), Descartes (Oxford Readings).
Ariew and Grene (eds.), Descartes & His Contemporaries: Objections & Replies.
Ariew, Cottingham, and Sorell (eds.),
Descartes' "Meditations": Background Source Materials.
Recommended
Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography.
Schedule of topics and readings Week 1 Introductory Week 2 The young Descartes and the Rules Reading: Rules I-XIV; Gaukroger, Descartes, chaps. 1-5, esp. 4-5. Week 3 The First Meditation and the role of doubt in Descartes' philosophy. Reading: Meditations: Dedicatory Letter, Preface, Synopsis, Med. I; Principles: Pref., Ded. Letter, Part I, a. 1-6; Cottingham, rdg. 1 (Wms); Ariew et al., Silhon selections. Recommended: Gaukroger, chaps. 6-7. Week 4 The Second Meditation and the function of the cogito. Reading: Meditations: Med. II, OR III, V on Med. II; Principles: Part I, a. 7-12; Cottingham, rdg. 2 (Markie); Ariew et al., Eustace selections. Recommended: Gaukroger, chap. 8. Week 5 The Second Meditation exploration of the "I" and the wax. Reading: Med. II; OR III, V, focusing on "I" and wax. Hatfield, "Senses and Fleshless Eye," in Rorty (ed.), Essays on Descartes' Meds. Curley, "Hobbes versus Descartes," ch. 7 in Ariew and Grene (eds.), Descartes and His Contemporaries. Week 6 Med III and the circle. Reading: Meds., III-V, focusing on the first 1/3 of III. OR II, first six objectsions and replies; OR IV, pp. 150, 171. From Background: Suarez selections. From Cottingham, Descartes: ch. 3, Gewirth. Weeks 7-11 Knowledge through clear and distinct perception, the circle, the status of the human intellect, mind-body distinction and union, economy of the senses. Weeks 12-13 Science, experience, and the human animal in Descartes' metaphysics and natural philosophy; Descartes' heritage, his use and usefulness.