In this major re-examination of Descartes's founding principle, cogito, ergo sum, Murray Miles presents a portrait of Descartes as the Father of Modern Philosophy that is very different from the standard one.
Viewing Descartes in both a historical and a systematic perspective, Miles presents a wealth of original analyses, arguments, and re-interpretations of key texts. The result is a fresh and illuminating account of Descartes's metaphysical project and theory of the mind. Descartes's achievement is a radical reversal of the order of knowing, a subjectivism that places knowledge of the mind ahead of knowledge of material things, yet is free of the metaphysical idealism that some of his successors went on to embrace.
A meticulous, scholarly, and exhaustive analysis, this book provides a minutely detailed reading of each word of Descartes's founding principle, exploring in great depth the underlying epistemology and ontology. The book will fully repay a careful reading by any serious student of Descartes's philosophy.
| ISBN: | 9781442615021 |
| Publication date: | 15th December 1999 |
| Author: | Murray Miles |
| Publisher: | University of Toronto Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 277 pages |
| Genres: |
Philosophical traditions and schools of thought Western philosophy: Enlightenment Western philosophy from c 1800 Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge |