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Descartes aux limites du naturalisme

« La force qu’a l’âme de mouvoir le corps »

Denis Kambouchner    Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia; Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France    

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abstract

In order to appreciate the distance between the Cartesian theory of man and a naturalistic programme, it is necessary to ask what exactly Descartes means by “the soul’s power to move the body”. A precise examination of the Cartesian texts, especially the Treatise on Man and The Passions of the Soul, will lead to the exclusion of any direct action of the soul on the body. All the action of the soul goes through the formation of certain images in the brain, which determine certain flows of animal spirits, and as for the passions, the effectiveness of this action is mainly a matter of habit. The spontaneity of thought does not preclude considering the ‘force of the soul’ as associated with the ‘disposition of the brain’. Conversely, nothing in the Cartesian texts allows us to eliminate this spontaneity where we experience it.

Published
July 27, 2019
Accepted
Feb. 25, 2019
Submitted
Feb. 5, 2019
Language
FR
ISBN (PRINT)
978-88-6969-326-7
ISBN (EBOOK)
978-88-6969-325-0

Keywords: WillSoul and body unityDualismCartesianism

Copyright: © 2019 Denis Kambouchner. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.