CARTESIAN DUALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN UNITY.

Title: CARTESIAN DUALISM AND THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN UNITY.
Identifier: AAI8014958
identifier: 8014958
Creator: COHEN, ELI.
Contributor: David Rosenthal
Date: 1980
Language: English
Publisher: City University of New York.
Subject: Philosophy
Abstract: The problem of Cartesian dualism is viewed as falling under a more general problem: the problem of human unity. This problem is both ancient and modern: whether a human being is a substantial (essential) unity of soul and body or merely a contingent one. I compare Aristotle's and Descartes's response to this problem. My thesis is that an important factor in generating Cartesian dualism is the rejection implicit in Descartes's metaphysical codification of the new mathematical science of nature, namely, the rejection of Aristotle's radical teleological concept of nature. It is argued that the modern intractable problem of the relation of mind to body turns historically and metaphysically on the Cartesian substitution of the mathematically refined concept of body--three-dimensional extension--for the once-influential Aristotelian teleological concept of corporeal substance.
Type: dissertation
Source: PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
degree: Ph.D.
Program: Philosophy