Logo image
SEMEL IN VITA: DESCARTES' STOIC VIEW ON THE PLACE OF PHILOSOPHY IN HUMAN LIFE
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

SEMEL IN VITA: DESCARTES' STOIC VIEW ON THE PLACE OF PHILOSOPHY IN HUMAN LIFE

David Cunning
Faith and philosophy, Vol.24(2), pp.165-184
04/01/2007
DOI: 10.5840/faithphil200724226
url
https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil200724226View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

In his June 1643 letter to Princess Elizabeth, Descartes makes a claim that is a bit surprising given the hyper-intellectualism of the Meditations and other texts. He says that philosophy is something that we should do only rarely. Here I show how Descartes' recommendation falls out of other components of his system-in particular his stoicism and his views on embodiment. A consequence of my reading is that to an important degree the reasoning of the Fourth Meditation is the imprecise reasoning of a not-yet-Cartesian meditator.
Philosophy Arts & Humanities Religion

Details

Metrics

Logo image