Insight and Inference: Descartes's Founding Principle and Modern Philosophy (Toronto Studies in Philosophy) - Softcover

Miles, Murray

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442615028 ISBN 13: 9781442615021

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 1999

Synopsis

In this major re-examination of Descartes's founding principle, cogito, ergo sum, Murray Miles presents a portrait of Descartes as the Father of Modern Philosophy that is very different from the standard one.

Viewing Descartes in both a historical and a systematic perspective, Miles presents a wealth of original analyses, arguments, and re-interpretations of key texts. The result is a fresh and illuminating account of Descartes's metaphysical project and theory of the mind. Descartes's achievement is a radical reversal of the order of knowing, a subjectivism that places knowledge of the mind ahead of knowledge of material things, yet is free of the metaphysical idealism that some of his successors went on to embrace.

A meticulous, scholarly, and exhaustive analysis, this book provides a minutely detailed reading of each word of Descartes's founding principle, exploring in great depth the underlying epistemology and ontology. The book will fully repay a careful reading by any serious student of Descartes's philosophy.

About this title

About the Author

Murray Miles is a professor of philosophy at Brock University.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1442615028
• ISBN 13: 9781442615021
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 584