•  480
    Among the phenomena of near-death experiences (NDEs) are what are known as aftereffects whereby, over time, experiencers undergo substantial, long-term life changes, becoming less fearful of death, more moral and spiritual, and more convinced that life has meaning and that an afterlife exists. Some supernaturalists attribute these changes to the experience being real. John Martin Fischer and Benjamin Mitchell-Yellin, on the other hand, have asserted a naturalist thesis involving a metaphorical i…Read more
  •  119
  •  158
    Reasons for the Method in Descartes’ Discours
    Journal of Early Modern Studies 10 (1): 9-27. 2021.
    In the practical philosophy of the Discours de la Méthode, before the theoretical metaphysics of Part Four and the Meditationes, Descartes gives us an inductive argument that his method, the procedure and cognitive psychology, is veracious at its inception. His evidence, akin to his Scholastic predecessors, is God, a maximally perfect being, established an ontological foundation for knowledge such that reason and nature are isomorphic. Further, the method, he tells us, is a functional definition…Read more
  •  276
    Zygon®, Volume 56, Issue 4, Page 1130-1131, December 2021.
  •  130
    I argue that Descartes uses his method as evidence in the Discours and Les Météores. I begin by establishing there is a single method in Descartes’ works, using his meteorology as a case study. First, I hold that the method of the Regulae is best explained by two examples: one scientific, his proof of the anaclastic curve (1626), and one metaphysical, his question of the essence and scope of human knowledge (1628). Based on this account, I suggest that the form of his early metaphysics (not its …Read more
  •  148
    The Form of Descartes’ Method of Doubt
    Southwest Philosophy Review 33 (2): 233-249. 2017.
    I argue that Descartes’ approach in the First Meditation is the same as the one found in Rule VIII, with some modifications, and this helps toward establishing a connection between the Regulae and Meditationes that has gone unnoticed by scholars.
  •  530
    Descartes’ Discours as a Plan for a Universal Science
    Studia UBB. Philosophia [Special Issue on Descartes' Scientific and Philosophical Disputes with His Contemporaries] 58 (2): 37-60. 2013.
    My thesis is that Descartes wrote the Discours as a plan for a universal science, as he originally entitled it. I provide an interpretation of his letters that suggests that after Descartes began drafting his Dioptrics, he started developing a system that incorporated his early treatises from the 1630s: Les Méteores, Le Monde, L’Homme, and his 1629 Traité de métaphysique. I argue against the mosaic and autobiographic interpretations that claim these were independent treatises or stages in Descar…Read more
  •  275
    Reflections on Descartes’ Vocation as an Early Theory of Happiness
    Journal of Early Modern Studies 4 (2): 69-91. 2015.
    In this paper, I argue that Descartes developed an early theory of happiness, which he rhetorically claimed to have stemmed from his choice of vocation in 1619. I provide a sketch of his theory in the Discours, noting, however, some problems with the historicity of the text. I then turn to his Olympica and associated writings that date from this period, where he literally asked, “What way in life shall I follow?” I take Descartes’ dreams as allegorical and provide an interpretation of his curiou…Read more
  •  183
    Rule VIII of Descartes’ Regulae ad directionem ingenii
    Journal of Early Modern Studies 3 (2): 9-31. 2014.
    On the developmental reading, Descartes first praised his method in the first instance of Rule VIII of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, but then demoted it to provisional in the “blacksmith” analogy, and then found his discrete method could not resolve his “finest example,” his inquiry into the essence and scope of human knowledge, an event that, on this reading, resulted in him dropping his method. In this paper, I explain how Rule VIII can be read as a coherent title and commentary that is …Read more
  •  686
    Descartes and the Meteorology of the World
    Society and Politics [Special Issue on God and the Order of Nature in Early Modern Thought: Topics in Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Science] 6 ( 2): 88-100. 2012.
    Descartes claimed that he thought he could deduce the assumptions of his Meteorology by the contents of the Discourse. He actually began the Meteorology with assumptions. The content of the Discourse, moreover, does not indicate how he deduced the assumptions of the Meteorology. We seem to be left in a precarious position. We can examine the text as it was published, independent of Descartes’ claims, which suggests that he incorporated a presumptive or hypothetical method. On the other hand, we …Read more