Cartesian Studies (Paperback)

Text extracted from opening pages of book: CARTESIAN STUDIES Albert G. A. Balz UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA NEW YORK Columbia University Press M c M L i Copyright 1951 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK Published in Great Britain, Canada and India by Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press London, Toronto and Bombay MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOREWORD THE ESSAYS included in this book were published at intervals throughout more than a score of years. I am indebted to the edi tors of the Philosophical Review, the Journal of Philosophy, the Review of Religion, and of Studies in the History of Ideas for their courtesy in granting permission to republish them. They are republished with few changes, and most of these are trivial. The essays have, I hope, a certain unity of theme. They are concerned in the main with the doctrines of Descartes concern ing the nature of man. Most of them, however, are devoted, not primarily to an exposition of these doctrines as expressed in the writing of Descartes, but to the interpretations and developments of them by his successors, both followers and opponents. They have in view also the diffusion of Cartesianism in the history of thought, both philosophic and scientific. The doctrine concerning the nature of man, as expressed in the Sixth of the Meditations, is customarily described as dual istic. In Descartes' own terms, man turns out to be, not a unity of nature, but a unity of composition. He is a substantial im material soul intimately related to a body, and this body is a changing aggregate of modes referable to matter substance. It may be urged that a dualistic conception of man was no new thing in the history of thought. Descartesmay be regarded as having reformulated or perhaps rediscovered a conception coming down from remote antiquity. The rediscovery, in any event, was expressed in a new context of ideas and in an age of many changes in the meanings of traditional terms; the formulation of the doctrine definitely associated it with the institution of modern science and the metaphysical perspective in which science was to view existence. The influence of this view of man as a unity of composition pervaded all subsequent reflection. Philosophy, broadly speak ing, tended more and more to make the theory of knowledge a precondition of all other efforts of philosophical speculation. Epistemological analysis, however, had recourse to notions con vi Foreword cerning the nature of man and his experience that we today would call psychological. These psychological investigations were largely determined by Descartes' dualistic view of man. In this manner his doctrine, with its consequences and attendant dif ficulties, was transmitted to epistemology and thus to other areas of philosophy. In effect, then, philosophical thought tended to move in a circular fashion, expressing in its terminal specula tions the consequences of Cartesian influences upon psychology and epistemology. Moreover, the movement was stimulated by the development of the physical sciences. In some such way as this, Cartesian doctrine pervaded all efforts of the modern mind. Even opposing philosophies, seeking to overcome the difficulties entailed by the dualism, or repudiating it in order to assert a completely materialistic philosophy, were governed by the posi tion they sought to transcend or to deny. Moreover, fine art and literature were pervadedby similar influences. The studies that follow are efforts to disclose something of this diffusion. This volume could not have appeared without the assistance of the Department of Philosophy of Columbia University, of the Re search Council of the Richmond Area University Center, and of the Research Committee of the University of Virginia. I am deeply grateful to them for making possible the realization of a plan that had been entertained for many years. To Miss Jill Hanckel King are due many thanks for her as sistance. I wish also to record my gratitude to Mr. Jo