Emanuela Scribano

C'est en puisant dans les ressources de la pensee medievale que la philosophie moderne a elabore ses propres theories de la connaissance, a la fois inedites et empruntees. La connaissance des anges et celle des bienheureux constituent deux modeles qui ont preside au destin de la philosophie au XVIIe siecle. Le choix de l'un ou de l'autre de ces modeles, le choix de l'un contre l'autre, engage le fait de determiner dans quelle mesure un esprit fini doit par ticiper au divin pour acceder a la verite, notamment a la connaissance vraie de l'infini. Ni ange ni bienheureux, a quelle connaissance l'homme aura-t-il acces? Dans cet ouvrage, Emanuela Scribano interroge la philosophie moderne a partir de choix fondamentaux qui delimitent le lieu propre du savoir humain.

The physician Louis de La Forge built his entire work upon the promotion, defensce, and completion of Descartes’ thought. In the course of this endeavor, he sought to refute the notion that knowledge of the mechanisms of the living body is the necessary condition for producing such mechanisms. Around the same time, Arnold Geulincx formulated the principle Quod nescis quomodo fiat id non facis, according to which an effect can only be produced only by someone who knows how it is produced. Geulincx developed this principle within a Cartesian framework, and it soon became a cornerstone of arguments supporting oOccasionalism from a Cartesian perspective. La Forge instead upheld the opposite thesis, yet still on the basis of ideas drawn from Cartesian philosophy. In doing so, La Forge intended to defend Descartes’ physiology against a form of vitalism which was fueling the opposition to Cartesian science in Parisian philosophical and scientific circles, and which found a prominent champion in the physician Cureau de La Chambre.

As definições do bem e do mal que abrem a Parte iv da Ética parecem posicionar decididamente Espinosa entre os filósofos que consideraram poder defini-los por meio de proposições suscetíveis de verdade e falsidade, reconduzindo, portanto, à razão a origem destas noções. Por outro lado, a proposição 8 da mesma parte afirma de modo inequívoco que o conhecimento dos valores morais é inteiramente redutível a um estado emocional. Dado este aparente paradoxo, trata-se, então, de analisar se e como podem ser conciliadas as definições de bem e de mal e a proposição 8 da Parte IV. O artigo mostra que a filosofia de Espinosa busca produzir uma mutação dos conhecimentos e, portanto, dos desejos; em última instância, uma mutação da natureza do agente, da qual irá derivar, necessariamente, uma mutação na especificação dos bens e nas ações, porque, mudando a natureza da mente, serão diferentes as coisas que provocam alegria e que serão, desse modo, desejadas. Não por acaso, o supremo bem, o conhecimento de Deus, comporta um componente afetivo: a alegria. Trata-se de mostrar que o componente afetivo é intrínseco ao juízo de valor e, ao mesmo tempo, exprime a natureza do sujeito e motiva a sua ação. Por isso, o homem que usa a razão não poderá senão desejar o que lhe é verdadeiramente útil.

Descartes présente la doctrine de la ‘fausseté matérielle’des idées dans sa Troisième Méditation (TM). Dans ses quatrièmes objections Arnauld critiquera cette doctrine, qui va disparaître dans les ouvrages de Descartes. Les interprétations récentes se sont concentrées sur le problème de la cohérence de la théorie et de la compatibilité entre la formulation de la TM et celle des réponses aux objections. Cet article reprend ce sujet à la lumière de la discussion scolastique de la vérité et de la fausseté. La doctrine de Descartes, telle qu’elle est présentée dans la TM, manifeste, sous plusieurs aspects, son incompatibilité avec la formulation des réponses à Arnauld. Ce qui amène à conclure dans le sens d’une incompatibilité des deux formulations de la ‘fausseté matérielle’. Et pourtant, il paraît insoutenable qu’il faille rechercher la raison du changement de Descartes dans la force des objections elles-mêmes, étant donné que le cadre conceptuel de la doctrine scolastique de la représentation, dont les objections d’Arnauld s’inspirent, fournissait à Descartes les moyens de défendre sa propre doctrine sans la modifier. D’où l’hypothèse qu’il faut rechercher les raisons de ce changement ailleurs, et notamment dans la volonté de Descartes d’éviter les dangereuses conséquences pour la fondation de la science impliquées dans la formulation de la doctrine de la fausseté matérielle telle qu’elle paraissait dans le texte de la TM.

In the essay Spinoza Dies, the Author imagines Spinoza's reflections in the hours preceding his death and uses them to present the philosopher's theories on life, death, suicide and eternity of the mind. These theories require a concept of identity able to answer questions on the essence of life and death, the identity of the dying and of the surviving individual. While some interpreters deny that the eternal mind can be a personal one, the Author argues in complete contrast that the mind truly achieves a personal identity only in the dimension of eternity.

Post-Cartesian Occasionalism argues that the power of causing an effect depends on knowledge of the means by which the effect is produced. The argument is used to deny finite beings the power to act. Arnold Geulincx expresses this thesis in the principle Quod nescis quomodo fiat id non facis. Here, my purpose is to show that: 1. The philosophical problem that is at the origin of the principle Quod nescis quomodo fiat id non facis originates in Galen’s De foetuum formatione, a work translated into Latin only in 1535. 2. Important works of early modern philosophy, such as Campanella’s Del senso delle cose e della magia, discuss Galen’s text. 3. Due to their rejection of teleology, Descartes’ physics and metaphysics are completely foreign to the Quod nescis principle. Comparing the Cartesian theory of animal-machines with the theory of animal behavior of Pierre Chanet, a philosopher who adopts the principle, confirms this claim.

Mersenne presented Descartes with a series of objections to the Meditations. A careful analysis of these objections can throw light on the theological context in which those criticisms were grounded. Mersenne’s objections reproduce theses already advanced in the Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim. In this work, in which he intended to refute Vanini, Mersenne used some proofs of the existence of God derived from the Jesuit Lessius, and already used by Vanini himself. These same proofs, together with others developed by Mersenne, were then taken up by the free thinker Pierre Petit. A reconstruction of the origin of the arguments used by Mersenne can provide important elements to evaluate the interweaving of apologetic and heterodox literature in the first half of the 17seventeenth century and to discuss Leo Strauss’s proposal to “read between the lines.”