Sandrine Roux

This volume ventures into the largely unexplored territory of Claude Buffier’s philosophical contributions to early modern thought, unlocking the complexity of his ideas while situating him within the broader context of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy. Instead of arguing that the foundation of all knowledge is grounded in either rational speculation or empirical observation, Buffier proposes a “third way”: his appeal to common sense seeks to show that, when we have exhausted all the justifications for our claims to knowledge, the bedrock where our spades are turned is the irreducible social and emotional dimension of our epistemic practices. The book focuses on three key aspects of Buffier’s writings. Part I explores central tenets of Buffier’s philosophy of common sense. Part II reflects on his metaphysics of the self, identity, and duration. Part III examines Buffier’s thought on social life, with chapters on his conceptions of freedom, social order, and the equality of the sexes. While focusing on arguments and claims central to Buffier’s thought, all chapters seek to place him in his intellectual context by tracing the positions which he responded to and those he built on.

Louis de La Forge is recognized as playing a major role in the development of Cartesian occasionalism. Yet, there is still no consensus on the nature and extent of his occasionalism. The question currently debated is whether La Forge is an occasionalist only with respect to body-body relations, or also with respect to minds and mind-body relations? This chapter shows that La Forge’s occasionalism cannot be limited to bodies, but extends to mind-to-body action, God being the sole cause of bodily motions. However, the chapter does not defend the extreme interpretation that La Forge is, or _should_ be, a complete occasionalist. Rather, it argues that his occasionalism is partial, because it leaves unimpaired the mind’s internal causal powers, by which it can efficaciously cause its own ideas and volitions, but not the corresponding voluntary motions in the body.

This chapter provides an introduction to Buffier’s philosophy of common sense. It situates Buffier in his philosophical context and discusses central principles of his account of first truths and commitment to a sentiment-based theory of knowledge that is grounded in an essentially social epistemic disposition. Studying Buffier’s philosophy, this chapter argues, contributes to widening our understanding of the main philosophical issues in the early modern period and sheds valuable new light on how alternatives to Cartesianism and Locke’s philosophy could develop.

Dans cet article, nous proposons d’examiner certains des usages qui sont faits de Descartes en sciences cognitives. Il s’agit plus précisément de s’attacher à la façon dont se trouve pensé l’héritage du cartésianisme dans la science cognitive orthodoxe, souvent conçue comme « cartésienne ». Comment en vient-on à former cette idée de science cognitive cartésienne? Nous répondons en nous appuyant sur deux analyses, celles de Timothy van Gelder et de Michael Wheeler, avec pour objectif de mettre au jour les aspects de la philosophie de Descartes qui sont ici mobilisés, ainsi que les opérations intellectuelles et pratiques qui permettent à ces auteurs d’extraire le cartésianisme de son milieu originel pour le placer sur le terrain de la science cognitive contemporaine.

Les progrès de la physique et l’essor des sciences cognitives dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle ont remis au centre de la réflexion philosophique la question de la nature du mental et de sa relation avec le physique : et si Descartes s’était trompé en distinguant radicalement l’esprit et le corps? Si nos croyances, nos désirs, nos douleurs, nos craintes, nos espoirs, et plus généralement l’ensemble de notre vie mentale, n’étaient rien de plus que des processus physiques-cérébraux? Cela n’aurait-il pas en outre l’avantage de résoudre le problème des rapports entre corps et esprit, en levant définitivement les difficultés associées au « dualisme » cartésien? L’abandon du dualisme des substances n’a pourtant pas suffi à supprimer le problème corps-esprit, qui continue d’alimenter aujourd’hui les plus vigoureux débats. Bien que le contexte des réflexions actuelles soit différent de celui de l’âge classique, la référence à Descartes est constante et sert une formulation plus précise des défis que la philosophie de l’esprit et les sciences cognitives contemporaines se doivent de surmonter. Comment l’expliquer et quel rôle l’histoire de la philosophie a-t-elle ici à jouer?

Reference to Cartesianism is a permanent feature of the contemporary works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Its function is not so much to provide a historical exegesis of Descartes as to highlight some supposed aspects of the Cartesian theory of mind, more precisely those that are still reported to inform the current philosophical and scientific research and that remain to be improved on. Thus not only is the adjective Cartesian used to refer directly to Descartes, but also to designate modern approaches to the mind which, though breaking with Cartesianism on several points, are nevertheless thought to inherit important Cartesian errors. Moreover, in line with this one may note that the term Cartesian is essentially employed in a critical sense. And indeed, for most contemporary theorists, Cartesianism is regarded as the arch-enemy. In the present contribution we intend to draw a portrait of this enemy from the way the notion of Cartesianism is sometimes used in the philosophy of mind and in cognitive science. Our analysis, which is not meant to be exhaustive, aims at accounting for reference to the Cartesian figure and the issues it raises in the above-mentioned fields.

This article examines some uses of Descartes in cognitive science. More specifically, it deals with the way orthodox cognitive science comes to be seen as the beneficiary of a Cartesian legacy. How can such an idea as that of a Cartesian cognitive science be rendered intelligible? Focusing on Timothy van Gelder’s and Michael Wheeler’s analyses, the article brings to light the aspects of Descartes’s philosophy which are involved, as well as the intellectual and practical operations modifying Cartesianism and diverting it away from its original early modern environment to the field and context of contemporary cognitive science.