Descartes's Changing Mind

Descartes's works are often treated as a unified, unchanging whole. But in Descartes's Changing Mind, Peter Machamer and J. E. McGuire argue that the philosopher's views, particularly in natural philosophy, actually change radically between his early and later works--and that any interpretation of Descartes must take account of these changes. The first comprehensive study of the most significant of these shifts, this book also provides a new picture of the development of Cartesian science, epistemology, and metaphysics. No changes in Descartes's thought are more significant than those that occur between the major works The World (1633) and Principles of Philosophy (1644). Often seen as two versions of the same natural philosophy, these works are in fact profoundly different, containing distinct conceptions of causality and epistemology.Machamer and McGuire trace the implications of these changes and others that follow from them, including Descartes's rejection of the method of abstraction as a means of acquiring knowledge, his insistence on the infinitude of God's power, and his claim that human knowledge is limited to that which enables us to grasp the workings of the world and develop scientific theories.

Table of Contents:
Preface ix CHAPTER ONE: From Method to Epistemology and from Metaphysics to the Epistemic Stance 1 Descartes's Early Work: The Rules 5 The World 14 The Discourse on Method 24 CHAPTER TWO: God and Efficient Causation 36 A Historical Preamble 37 God's Efficient Causation and the Introduction of Causa Secundum Esse 45 God, Time, and Continual Creation: The Emergence of Re-creationism 59 Causal Axioms and Common Notions 73 CHAPTER THREE: Seeing the Implications of His Causal Views: The Response to His Critics 82 God as Causa Sui: The High Tide of Descartes's Causalism 83 Eminent Containment, Transcendence, Divine Powers, and God's Causal Harmony 91 Epistemic Teleology 102 CHAPTER FOUR: Body-Body Causation and the Cartesian World of Matter 111 The Current Debate on Body-Body Causation 111 The Early Descartes 116 Cartesian Conservationism 119 Three Questions of Metaphysics: Principles Parts I and II 127 Mature Motion 134 The Place of Our Position in the Current Debate 157 CHAPTER FIVE: Mind, Intuition, Innateness, and Ideas 164 Intuition and Enumeration 165 Ideas and Descartes's New Theory of Mind 169 Innate Ideas 176 Innateness and Sensory Ideas 183 Innate Ideas: Present but Swamped 186 Innateness and Intellectual Memory 188 Common Notions, Eternal Truths, and Immutable Natures 193 CHAPTER SIX: Mind-Body Causality and the Mind-Body Union: The Case of Sensation 198 Sensation 199 The Physical Side of Perception 202 The Mental Side of Perception 209 How the Soul Moves the Body, or Mind-to-Body Causation 221 The Nature of the Distinction between Mind and Body 224 The Mind-Body (Soul-Body) Union 232 Epistemic Teleology and Dualism 239 References 243 Index 251

About the Author :
Peter Machamer is professor of history and philosophy of science and associate director of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. J. E. McGuire is professor of history and philosophy of science at the University of Pittsburgh, and a resident fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science.

Review :
"Machamer and McGuire painstakingly trace the development of Descartes' views on the means and extent of human knowledge as it relates to science and metaphysics. Beginning with a conception of knowledge as based on abstraction from sensory experience and as capable of delivering truths about the simple natures of things in his early work, Descartes, they argue, radically changes his mind about the powers and scope of the mind, arriving finally at a conception that relies heavily upon innate ideas and a limitation of humans' cognitive reach to a world that is suitably framed to their natures as mind-body unities."--Choice "Machamer and McGuire are thus to be congratulated for taking on the difficult task of providing a reading of Descartes's entire corpus, spanning over two decades and five completed works, that treats it as a dynamic progression, rather than a static system. In so doing, they pay careful attention to the historical chronology, the Scholastic background, Descartes's replies to his philosophical interlocutors, and the scholarship on issues central to Descartes's mature positions. The result is a rich and controversial story that always engages the reader even if it does not always convince."--Helen Hattab, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "I believe that [Peter Machamer & J. E. McGuire] are to be commended for enabling us to take seriously the view that Descartes's opinions may have shifted in significant ways and for illustrating a different way to tell the story of the arc of Descartes's career."--Michael Della Rocca, Metascience