The Good Cartesian by Nadler, Steven;

Louis de La Forge and the Rise of a Philosophical Paradigm

GET 10% OFF
The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.

Publisher's listprice GBP 59.00
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

28 187 Ft (26 845 Ft + 5% VAT)
Discount 10% (cc. 2 819 Ft off)
Discounted price 25 369 Ft (24 161 Ft + 5% VAT)

28 187 Ft

Availability

Estimated delivery time: In stock at the publisher, but not at Prospero's office. Delivery time approx. 3-5 weeks.
Not in stock at Prospero.

Product details:

Publisher OUP USA
Date of Publication 29 August 2024

ISBN 9780197671719
Binding Hardback
No. of pages344 pages
Size 150x226x30 mm
Weight 635 g
Language English
Illustrations 23 b/w illustrations

Short description:

Steven Nadler presents a biographical and philosophical study of Louis de La Forge (1632-1666), an important but underappreciated (and understudied) follower of René Descartes (1596-1650) who made a major contribution to making Cartesianism the dominant philosophical paradigm of the seventeenth century. La Forge was a devoted and faithful, but not uncritical, disciple who defended, updated, and even corrected Descartes' metaphysics, physics, and physiology, both to move Cartesian system to greater internal coherence and to make it more consistent with the latest scientific developments.

Long description:

Steven Nadler presents a biographical and philosophical study of Louis de La Forge (1632-1666), a medical doctor who was an extremely important, but for a long time relatively neglected, follower of Descartes in the seventeenth century. His sophisticated contributions to the metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and physiology of Cartesianism in the decades after Descartes' death in 1650 were instrumental in making that philosophy the dominant philosophical paradigm of the period; it would be supplanted by Newtonianism only in the eighteenth century.

La Forge began his Cartesian career by providing wood-cut illustrations and an extensive commentary for the 1664 edition of Descartes' Traité de l'homme, the first original-language publication of part of the larger, groundbreaking treatise Le Monde that was left unpublished in Descartes' lifetime. In his commentary, La Forge is a devoted and faithful but not uncritical disciple who defends, supplements, updates and even corrects Descartes' account of the human body, which treats it as a “machine” that operates on the principles of the mechanical philosophy. In 1666, La Forge published his own Traité de l'esprit de l'homme, a treatise on the human mind. Explaining the mind and its union with the body was something that Descartes had long planned to do but never really carried out in a systematic manner. La Forge's most innovative and influential philosophical contribution in the Traité--one which goes beyond anything Descartes envisioned--is his limited version of the doctrine of occasionalism, which accords God an active and ongoing causal role in the world and reduces natural substances to being “occasions” for God's efficacious activity. La Forge thereby set the stage for later, even more unorthodox developments in Cartesianism.

Nadler carefully situates la Forge's thought in the context of the Cartesianism of his time, contrasting it with the views of figures such as Desgabets, Cordemoy, and Malebranche. The result is not merely an analysis of la Forge's work but also a valuable overview of the diverse landscape of early Cartesianism.

List of Figures
Introduction
1. Louis de La Forge
2. Cartesianism, 1650-1663
3. Illustrating the World
4. A Disciple's Commentary
5. The Cartesian Mind
6. The Union of Mind and Body
7. Occasionalisms
8. The World of Bodies
9. Mind and Motion
10. Ideas and Volitions
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index