Alan Nelson

We argue that Descartes’s theistic proofs in the ’Meditations’ are much simpler and straightforward than they are traditionally taken to be. In particular, we show how the causal argument of the "Third Meditation" depends on the intuitively innocent principle that nothing comes from nothing, and not on the more controversial principle that the objective reality of an idea must have a cause with at least as much formal reality. We also demonstrate that the so-called ontological "argument" of the "Fifth Meditation" is best understood not as a formal proof but as an axiom, revealed as self-evident by analytic meditation

Descartes’s correspondence with Elisabeth is among the most important we have for understanding the philosophical thought of a canonical figure. Elisabeth’s perspicacious queries drew forth Descartes’s very famous elaboration of mind/body union. The correspondence also contains the bulk of Descartes’s important statements on morality—a topic touched on only briefly in his books. It seems likely that this part of the correspondence helped set Descartes on the course that resulted in his last book, The Passions of the Soul. Moreover, Elisabeth’s letters to Descartes are her only extant philosophical writings. In Lisa Shapiro’s volume we have, for the first time, translations of the thirty-three letters of Descartes and the twenty-six of Elisabeth complete and unabridged. This is, therefore, a very welcome addition to existing English editions of Descartes’s works and an important resource for studying early modern philosophy written by women

This paper examines the relationship between modern theories of microeconomics and macroeconomics and, more generally, it evaluates the prospects of theoretically reducing macroeconomics to microeconomics. Many economists have shown strong interest in providing "microfoundations" for macroeconomics and much of their work is germane to the issue of theoretical reduction. Especially relevant is the work that has been done on what is called The Problem of Aggregation. On some accounts, The Problem of Aggregation just is the problem of reducing macroeconomics to microeconomics. I show how to separate these problems and then try to determine to what extent particular kinds of solutions to The Problem of Aggregation succeed in reducing macroeconomics to microeconomics as well. I argue that reduction is not possible by this means given the current state of microeconomics. I also describe how reduction may be possible by means of (dis)aggregation if microeconomics is supplemented in a certain way with the results of experimental research on individual economic agents

The correspondence between Leibniz and Arnauld was judged by Leibniz himself to be very useful for understanding his philosophy. Historians have concurred in this judgment. Leibniz did not find any philosophy of independent interest in the letters Arnauld sent him. Historians have, for the most part, also concurred in this finding. I shall argue that on one set of issues at least — modal metaphysics and free will — Arnauld accomplished more than facilitating Leibnizian elucidations. He held his own in this dispute. Indeed, were it not for the general sophistication and superior handling of such issues as identity, unity, and the nature of body enjoyed by the Leibnizian system, the Cartesian position on modal metaphysics and free will espoused by Arnauld might have won the day in the eyes of later philosophers. A proper appreciation of the Cartesian framework should also make it of considerable interest to philosophers presently at work on the metaphysics of modality. I shall argue that Descartes and some Cartesians like Arnauld espoused a strongly actualist doctrine. This means they thought that all philosophically interesting uses of possibles were analyzable into facts about actually existing things.

This book is a wide-ranging examination of rationalist thought in philosophy from ancient times to the present day. Written by a superbly qualified cast of philosophers Critically analyses the concept of rationalism Focuses principally on the golden age of rationalism in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Also covers ancient rationalism, nineteenth-century rationalism, and rationalist themes in recent thought Organised chronologically Various philosophical methods and viewpoints are represented

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Meaning in Spinoza’s MethodAlan Nelson and Noa SheinAaron V. Garrett. Meaning in Spinoza’s Method. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. xii + 240. Cloth, $60.00.This is a book about some fundamental aspects of Spinoza's mature metaphysics. The principal focus is on Part I of the Ethics concerning infinite substance, and on Part V concerning the intuitive knowledge that is the goal of philosophy. Within this focus, Garrett concentrates on Spinoza's method. Garrett explains how he has been influenced by interpretations that stress the structural parallel between the synthetic, geometrical presentation of the Ethics and the relations among the ideas of the well-ordered mind. The Ethics proceeds by deriving propositions concerning substance's modes from definitions of substance and related notions while the mind, insofar as it is free from emotions, intuitively knows things as following from God. Garrett's distinctive thesis, however, is that Spinozistic enlightenment depends on the process of emending the intellect as described in one of Spinoza's earliest works, the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect. While this work strongly foreshadows many of Spinoza's mature doctrines, its exposition much more closely resembles the analytic, non-geometric approach of Descartes's Meditations. Spinoza's therapy for the emendation of our "inadequate" ideas closely parallels Descartes's analytic therapy for making what he calls confused ideas "clear and distinct."Garrett is on firm ground in arguing that the process of enlightenment cannot be an unbroken chain of intuitive deductions. For one thing, the definitions and axioms printed in a copy of the Ethics are first sensed by the reader and are not likely to produce immediately the requisite adequate ideas (172). An example of one of Garrett's interesting conclusions is that the definition of God as consisting of an infinity of attributes, the sixth of Part I of the Ethics (1D6), is preliminary and replaced in the process of therapeutic emendation by a definition of God as self caused. It is only after our ideas have become adequate at the end of the process that we are able to fully appreciate 1D6 (171).One might think that Garrett does not go far enough here because his point can be naturally extended. Definitions might assist us in the process of bringing our adequate ideas to light, but our cognitive goal is making these ideas themselves adequate. What then are the ideas we can make most adequate and exactly what distinguishes them from highly refined ideas that are nevertheless more inadequate than these? On one interpretation it is divine essence, that is, the attributes of thought and extension that are individually most adequately conceived after successful therapy. It is tempting to suppose that a single idea of God as both thinking and extended would be more adequate still, but Spinoza holds that our conceptions of these attributes are "really distinct" in a sense analogous to Descartes's(1P10). Spinoza's 1D6 definition of God as a substance consisting of both these attributes (and perhaps other inconceivable ones) thus seems to indicate a subsumption of the attributes we can conceive under the image of some printed or spoken words. Such an idea would be more inadequate than our adequate conceptions of the individual attributes. One is here strongly reminded of Descartes's characterization in Article 63 of the first Part of his Principles of Philosophy, "... we more readily understand extended substance or thinking substance than substance alone."In his seventh and concluding chapter, Garrett tackles the grand problems of intuitive knowledge or knowledge of "the third kind" and the sense in which Spinoza thought a part of the human mind is eternal. The discussion is necessarily complex, but one great advantage of Garrett's treatment is that he realizes intuitive knowledge cannot consist in the explicit deduction of particular things from God. The detailed determination of particular "everyday objects" requires sensory knowledge which is, of course, never perfectly determinate and therefore inherently inadequate. But we can acquire the "second kind" of adequate knowledge by understanding what our minds have in common with other determinate, finite things. This finally enables us to ascend to an appreciation of these...