On Descartes' Passive Thought: The Myth of Cartesian Dualism (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226192581)

On Descartes' Passive Thought is the culmination of a life-long reflection on the philosophy of Descartes by one of the most important living French philosophers. In it, Jean-Luc Marion examines anew some of the questions left unresolved in his previous books about Descartes, with a particular focus on Descartes's theory of morals and the passions.

Descartes has long been associated with mind-body dualism, but Marion argues here that this is a historical misattribution, popularized by Malebranche and popular ever since both within the academy and with the general public. Actually, Marion shows, Descartes held a holistic conception of body and mind. He called it the meum corpus, a passive mode of thinking, which implies far more than just pure mind--rather, it signifies a mind directly connected to the body: the human being that I am. Understood in this new light, the Descartes Marion uncovers through close readings of works such as Passions of the Soul resists prominent criticisms leveled at him by twentieth-century figures like Husserl and Heidegger, and even anticipates the non-dualistic, phenomenological concepts of human being discussed today. This is a momentous book that no serious historian of philosophy will be able to ignore.

Author: Jean-Luc Marion
ISBN-10: 022619258X
ISBN-13: 9780226192581
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 04/10/2018
Pages: 304
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 0.90d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2018