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Synopsis
Contending against the prevailing view that Cartesian dualism is fundamental to understanding Descartes' philosophy, Gordon Baker and Katherine Morris present a controversial examination of Descartes' philosophy.
As the first full-length study of Descartes' conception of the person, Baker and Morris depart radically from traditional representations of Descartes' argument about the persona, the cogito, and the alleged "mind/body" dualism. Contesting the nearly institutionalized view that Cartesian duality is central to understanding Descartes, Baker and Morris illuminate how this "reading" has been ascribed mistakenly and erroneously to Descartes. Controversially, they show how this interpretation has led to abuse both within philosophy and beyond it. Refusing to draw a distinction between the mind and the body in traditional ways, Baker and Morris open up interesting ways of conceptualizing both ourselves and philosophy itself.
Booknews
Philosophers at Oxford University challenge the prevailing consensus on Descartes by arguing that his concept of a person differs widely from what is commonly understood as Cartesian Dualism. They argue that he did not believe in the mind as an inner world of private objects and the body as an insentient machine, indeed could not have without violating the logical, scientific, theological, and metaphysical framework of his thinking. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.