7 research outputs found
The material soul: Strategies for naturalising the soul in an early modern epicurean context
We usually portray the early modern period as one characterised by the âbirth of subjectivityâ with Luther and Descartes as two alternate representatives of this radical break with the past, each ushering in the new era in which âIâ am the locus of judgements about the world. A sub-narrative called âthe mind-body problemâ recounts how Cartesian dualism, responding to the new promise of a mechanistic science of nature, âsplit offâ the world of the soul/mind/self from the world of extended, physical substanceâa split which has preoccupied the philosophy of mind up until the present day. We would like to call attention to a different constellation of textsâneither a robust âtraditionâ nor an isolated âepisodeâ, somewhere in betweenâwhich have in common their indebtedness to, and promotion of an embodied, Epicurean approach to the soul. These texts follow the evocative hint given in Lucretiusâ De rerum natura that âthe soul is to the body as scent is to incenseâ (in an anonymous early modern French version). They neither assert the autonomy of the soul, nor the dualism of body and soul, nor again a sheer physicalism in which âintentionalâ properties are reduced to the basic properties of matter. Rather, to borrow the title of one of these treatises (LâĂme MatĂ©rielle), they seek to articulate the concept of a material soul. We reconstruct the intellectual development of a corporeal, mortal and ultimately material soul, in between medicine, natural philosophy and metaphysics, including discussions of Malebranche and Willis, but focusing primarily on texts including the 1675 Discours anatomiques by the Epicurean physician Guillaume Lamy; the anonymous manuscript from circa 1725 entitled LâĂme MatĂ©rielle, which is essentially a compendium of texts from the later seventeenth century (Malebranche, Bayle) along with excerpts from Lucretius; and materialist writings such Julien Offray de La Mettrieâs LâHomme-Machine (1748), in order to articulate this concept of a âmaterial soulâ with its implications for notions of embodiment, materialism and selfhood
Agroforesterie et services écosystémiques en zone tropicale
Respectueux de lâenvironnement et garantissant une sĂ©curitĂ© alimentaire soutenue par la diversification des productions et des revenus quâils procurent, les systĂšmes agroforestiers apparaissent comme un modĂšle prometteur dâagriculture durable dans les pays du Sud les plus vulnĂ©rables aux changements globaux. Cependant, ces systĂšmes agroforestiers ne peuvent ĂȘtre optimisĂ©s quâĂ condition de mieux comprendre et de mieux maĂźtriser les facteurs de leurs productions. Lâouvrage prĂ©sente un ensemble de connaissances rĂ©centes sur les mĂ©canismes biophysiques et socio-Ă©conomiques qui sous-tendent le fonctionnement et la dynamique des systĂšmes agroforestiers. Il concerne, dâune part les systĂšmes agroforestiers Ă base de cultures pĂ©rennes, telles que cacaoyers et cafĂ©iers, de rĂ©gions tropicales humides en AmĂ©rique du Sud, en Afrique de lâEst et du Centre, dâautre part les parcs arborĂ©s et arbustifs Ă base de cultures vivriĂšres, principalement de cĂ©rĂ©ales, de la rĂ©gion semi-aride subsaharienne dâAfrique de lâOuest. Il synthĂ©tise les derniĂšres avancĂ©es acquises grĂące Ă plusieurs projets associant le Cirad, lâIRD et leurs partenaires du Sud qui ont Ă©tĂ© conduits entre 2012 et 2016 dans ces rĂ©gions. Lâensemble de ces projets sâarticulent autour des dynamiques des systĂšmes agroforestiers et des compromis entre les services de production et les autres services socio-Ă©cosystĂ©miques que ces systĂšmes fournissent
La bioĂ©thique et les ĂȘtres humains
L'importanza di un approccio che parta dall'uomo per una bioetica dotata di sens
La bioĂ©thique et les ĂȘtres humains
L'importanza di un approccio che parta dall'uomo per una bioetica dotata di sens
Descartes, René
Scholars generally consider René Descartes to
be the father of early modern philosophy insofar
he rejected scholasticism, Aristotelianism,
but also Renaissance philosophies and
grounded a new system of knowledge whose
roots lie solely in the mind and not in previous
assumptions. This defines a modern self that
achieves the knowledge of nature and shapes
the modern universe. In the Discours de la
MĂ©thode (1637) and the Meditationes de
prima philosophia (1641), after rejecting earlier
education, doctrines, and scientiĂŠ, Descartes
isolates the powers of the mind (i.e.,
clear and distinct ideas) as the beginning of
any certainty. Yet, having considered Descartesâ
system as dismissing all doctrines and
beliefs, in this entry I will first examine some
relations between the French philosopher and
those contexts and then discuss the novelties of
his system. After a short biography, in the
second section, I will briefly explore the interrelations
between Descartes and Renaissance
scholars, whom he reproached for their precipitate
conclusions. Third, I will unearth his criticism
of Aristotelian-scholastic philosophy
(which he reproached for its preconceptions),
while highlighting his attention to a few Aristotelian
texts. Fourth, I will investigate a few
innovative aspects of his methodology; this
consists of novel combination of intellectual
cognition and experimentation. As a result,
Descartesâ entire natural philosophy consists
of a theoretical framework that defines the
principles of knowledge and the architecture
of science, while the body of all disciplines and
the knowledge of particular issues are methodologically
and experientially constructed.
Despite several limitations, Descartesâ system
is remarkably innovative
Seeking Intellectual Evidence in the Sciences: The Role of Botany in Descartesâ Therapeutics
While improving medicine through physics had the capacity to liberate seventeenth-century thinking from traditional beliefs about souls and spirits, mechanics generated complications. Descartesâ mechanical physics is a perfect example, for his efforts to bridge the gap between theoretical and practical medicine, steering intellectual evidence into this second field, were ultimately unsteady. His view of biomechanics had reduced living bodies to automated machines, thereby making definitions of life and health and the active treatment of diseases difficult. However, Descartesâ rarely-studied notes on botany reveal a new scenario, wherein he understood bodily therapeutics to be connected to physiology, making botany a lever to introduce the intellectual evidence of theoretical medicine into its practical counterpart. These documents enable a greater comprehension of the functional unity within bodies, instance refined definitions of bodily individualities, and reveal Descartesâ use of disease to define health and to produce therapeutics, thus demonstrating a strong relationship between the life sciences and his philosophy