Descartes on Innate Ideas

Deborah A. Boyle

ISBN 10: 1441102876 / ISBN 13: 9781441102874

Published by Continnuum-3PL, 2011

About this Item

nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - The concept of innateness is central to Descartes' epistemology; the Meditations display a new, non-Aristotelian method of acquiring knowledge by attending properly to our innate ideas. Yet understanding Descartes's conception of innate ideas is not an easy task and some commentators have concluded that Descartes held several distinct and unrelated conceptions of innateness. In Descartes on Innate Ideas, however, Deborah Boyle argues that Descartes's remarks on innate ideas in fact form a unified account. Addressing the further question of how Descartes thinks innate ideas are known, the author shows that for Descartes, thinkers have implicit knowledge of their innate ideas. Thus she shows that the actual perception of these innate ideas is, for Descartes, a matter of making them explicit, turning the intellect away from sense-perceptions and towards pure thought. The author also provides a new interpretation of the Cartesian 'natural light', an important mental faculty in Descartes' epistemology.

Seller Inventory # 9781441102874

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Descartes on Innate Ideas
• Publisher: Continnuum-3PL
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1441102876
• ISBN 13: 9781441102874
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 234W x 156H x 10D millimeters 234 millimeters width by 156 millimeters height by 10 millimeters depth
• Weight: 292 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The concept of innateness is central to Descartes’ epistemology; the Meditations display a new, non-Aristotelian method of acquiring knowledge by attending properly to our innate ideas.  Yet understanding Descartes’s conception of innate ideas is not an easy task and some commentators have concluded that Descartes held several distinct and unrelated conceptions of innateness. In Descartes on Innate Ideas, however, Deborah Boyle argues that Descartes’s remarks on innate ideas in fact form a unified account. Addressing the further question of how Descartes thinks innate ideas are known, the author shows that for Descartes, thinkers have implicit knowledge of their innate ideas.  Thus she shows that the actual perception of these innate ideas is, for Descartes, a matter of making them explicit, turning the intellect away from sense-perceptions and towards pure thought.  The author also provides a new interpretation of the Cartesian ‘natural light’, an important mental faculty in Descartes’ epistemology.

About the Author

<div>Deborah Boyle is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, USA.</div>