Christopher Braider

The Matter of Mind

Reason and Experience in the Age of Descartes

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

What influence did Ren¿escartes' concept of mind-body dualism have on early modern conceptions of the self? In The Matter of Mind, Christopher Braider challenges the presumed centrality of Descartes' groundbreaking theory to seventeenth-century French culture. He details the broad opposition to rational self-government among Descartes' contemporaries, and attributes conventional links between Descartes and the myth of the ‘modern subject’ to post-structuralist assessments. The Matter of Mind presents studies drawn from a range of disciplines and examines the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the drama of Pierre Corneille, and the theology of Blaise Pascal. Braider argues that if early modern thought converged on a single model, then it was the experimental picture based on everyday experience proposed by Descartes' sceptical adversary, Michel de Montaigne. Forceful and provocative, The Matter of Mind will encourage lively debate on the norms and discourses of seventeenth-century philosophy.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: University of Toronto Press
• Seitenzahl: 296
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. Januar 2012
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 231mm x 157mm x 28mm
• Gewicht: 671g
• ISBN-13: 9781442643482
• ISBN-10: 144264348X
• Artikelnr.: 33806912

Autorenporträt

By Christopher Braider

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction. Experience and the Matter of Mind: Dualism, Classicism, and
the Myth of the Modern Subject in Seventeenth-Century France
1. Front Matter: Placing Descarte’s Meditations
2. A State of Mind: Embodying the Sovereign in Poussin's Judgment of
Solomon
3. The Witch from Colchis: Coreneille’s Médée, Chimène's Le Cid, and the
Invention of Classical Genius
4. Seeing is Believing: Image and Imaginaire in Molière's Sganarelle
5. The Ghost in the Machine: Reason, Faith, and Experience in Pascalian
Apologetics
6. Des mots sans fin: Meaning and the End(s) of History in Boileau's
Satire XII, “Sur l’Equivoque”