Daniel Garber on Descartes

Reply to Philodescartes Why, yes. That was what the humanist movement was all about: assert people's reason and capacity to observe and understand nature without resorting to dogma.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_humanism

Reply to Philodescartes
Garber said --

Descartes’ thought must be understood in the context of the attempt to reject Aristotelian physics, and replace it with a different kind of physics, one grounded in a mechanistic conception of nature.
For an Aristotelian physicist, ... bodies have to behave one way or another, as embodied in their substantial forms. Some bodies naturally fall, and others naturally rise; some are naturally cold, and others are naturally hot; some are naturally dry, and others are naturally wet.
For the mechanist ... the world is a machine, all the way down.

But the foundations of Aristotelian philosophy, ontology, epistemology, ethics, and theology are another matter.

Garber said -- "Descartes’ thought must be understood in the context of the attempt to reject Aristotelian physics, and replace it with a different kind of physics, one grounded in a mechanistic conception of nature".

Philosopher Edward Feser, in his Aristotle's Revenge, comments on this key feature of modern science : monistic Materialism. He says, "most scientists tend to take for granted the commonsense belief in material objects". Yet, Descartes' dualism also included metaphysical "objects", which he called res cogitans by contrast with res extensa. Over time, materialists began to dismiss the reality of mental objects, such as ideas; believing that even our mentality can be reduced to material objects. They are still looking for empirical evidence to support that assumption.

Feser raises the theory of mental Representationalism, in which the mind models its concepts in terms of Intentionality : what a thing means to me, which is essential to "what it's like to be me". In that regard, Feser discusses the distinction between <1> physical objects, and <2> the mental representations (symbols) of them. "Descartes, of course, put this dualism forward as an ontological thesis, carving the world into the material and the immaterial, res extensa and res cogitans. Materialists reject this aspect of the Cartesian picture, holding that the representations ought to be identified instead with some subset of the denizens of the material world (such as brain processes) construed mechanistically. Since, on the mechanistic construal, matter is devoid of teleology and secondary qualities, this leaves the materialist with the problem of explaining how the intentionality and qualia that characterize these representations could be properties of matter so defined. . . . representationalism generated the modern 'mind-body' problem".

Representationalism as a theory is above my philosophical pay grade. But the solution to the "mind-body" enigma that appeals to me is to substitute the concept of Universal Information for the notion of Universal Consciousness or Universal Atomism. Since cutting-edge science has equated Matter & Energy with Information, it would seem to qualify as the relevant "substrate of the material world". Being found in both Mental and Material forms, Information is the essence of both Mind and Body. So, there is no Cartesian gap between them. Res Extensa is directly connected to Res Cogitans. And this worldview seems to agree with Aristotle's conception of human nature in terms of a living organism, rather than a meat robot. :smile:


Representationalism : An intentional state represents an object, real or unreal
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-representational/

Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science : "the central argument of this book is that Aristotelian metaphysics is not only compatible with modern science, but is implicitly presupposed by modern science"

In-form-ation & Matter : Aristotle famously contends that every physical object is a compound of matter and form.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+forms+and+matter

Everything is Information : https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/the-basis-of-the-universe-may-not-be-energy-or-matter-but-information

Reality is not what you see : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html