Causality and Mind Essays on Early Modern Philosophy

by Jolley, Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9780199669554
• ISBN10: 0199669554
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-01-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Causality and Mind presents seventeen of Nicholas Jolley's essays on early modern philosophy, which focus on two main themes. One theme is the continuing debate over the nature of causality in the period from Descartes to Hume. Jolley shows that, despite his revolutionary stance, Descartes did no serious re-thinking about causality; it was left to his unorthodox disciple Malebranche to argue that there is no place for natural causality in the new mechanistic picture of the physical world. Several essays explore critical reactions to Malebranche's occasionalism in the writings of Leibniz, Berkeley, and Hume, and show how in their different ways Leibniz and Hume respond to Malebranche by re-instating the traditional view that science is the search for causes. A second theme of the volume is the set of issues posed by Descartes' innovations in the philosophy of mind. It is argued that Malebranche is once again a pivotal figure. In opposition to Descartes Malebranche insists that ideas, the objects of thought, are not psychological but abstract entities; he thus opposes Descartes' 'dustbin theory of the mind'. Malebranche also challenges Descartes' assumption that intentionality is a mark of the mental and his commitment to the superiority of self-knowledge over knowledge of body. Other essays discuss the debate over innate ideas, Locke's polemics against Descartes' theory of mind, and the issue of Leibniz's phenomenalism. A major aim of the volume is to show that philosophers in the period are systematic critics of their contemporaries and predecessors.

Author Biography

Nicholas Jolley is Emeritus Professor of the University of California, Irvine. His books include Leibniz and Locke: A Study of the New Essays on Human Understanding (OUP, 1984); The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (OUP, 1990); and Locke: His Philosophical Thought (OUP, 1999).

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
1. SCIENTIA AND SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN DESCARTES
2. DESCARTES AND THE ACTION OF BODY ON MIND
3. INTELLECT AND ILLUMINATION IN MALEBRANCHE
4. SENSATION, INTENTIONALITY, AND ANIMAL CONSCIOUSNESS: MALEBRANCHE'S THEORY OF THE MIND
5. MALEBRANCHE ON THE SOUL
6. OCCASIONALISM AND EFFICACIOUS LAWS IN MALEBRANCHE
7. LEIBNIZ AND MALEBRANCHE ON INNATE IDEAS
8. LEIBNIZ AND THE EXCELLENCE OF MINDS
9. LEIBNIZ AND OCCASIONALISM
10. CAUSALITY AND CREATION IN LEIBNIZ
11. LEIBNIZ AND THE CAUSAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF SUBSTANCES
12. LEIBNIZ AND PHENOMENALISM
13. LOCKEAN ABSTRACTIONISM VERSUS CARTESIAN NATIVISM
14. DULL SOULS AND BEASTS: TWO ANTI-CARTESIAN POLEMICS IN LOCKE
15. BEREKELEY, MALEBRANCHE, AND VISION IN GOD
16. BERKELEY AND MALEBRANCHE ON CAUSALITY AND CREATION
17. HUME, MALEBRANCHE, AND THE LAST OCCULT QUALITY
BIBLIOGRAPHY