Beyond Dualism: Descartes and His Critics
PHIL 125
Subject & Catalog Number
Sign in to Add to Cart
Share
Course Information
Description
Few metaphysicians would identify as Cartesian dualists today. Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny that we live in a world shaped by Cartesian dualism: we distinguish somatic health from mental health; we dissociate our minds from our bodies on a long run; we try to get the mind back into the body through yoga. After looking at the two sides of Cartesian dualism, Cartesian body and Cartesian mind, we will consider some of the notorious metaphysical problems it gives rise to and six 17th- century attempts to push back against it in the figures of Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Cambridge Platonists Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, and Anton Wilhelm Amo.
School
Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Credits
4
Cross Reg
Available for Harvard Cross Registration
Department
Philosophy
Course Component
Seminar
General Education
N/A
Quantitative Reasoning with Data
N/A
Divisional Distribution
Arts and Humanities
Course Level
For Undergraduate and Graduate Students
