Descartes and The <i>Ingenium</i>     : The Embodied Soul in Cartesianism     

'Descartes and the 'Ingenium'' tracks the significance of embodied thought ('ingenium') in the philosophical trajectory of the founding father of dualism. The first part of the book defines the notion of 'ingenium' in relation to core concepts of Descartes's philosophy, such as memory and enumeration. It focuses on Descartes’s uses of this notion in methodical thinking, mathematics, and medicine. The studies in the second part place the Cartesian ingenium within preceding scholastic and humanist pedagogical and natural-philosophical traditions, and highlight its hitherto ignored social and political significance for Descartes himself as a member of the Republic of Letters. By embedding Descartes' notion of 'ingenium' in contemporaneous medical, pedagogical, but also social and literary discourses, this volume outlines the fundamentally anthropological and ethical underpinnings of Descartes's revolutionary epistemology. Acknowledgements vii List of Illustrations and Diagrams viii Abbreviations and Note on the Text x Notes on Contributors xi Introduction. Descartes Re-imagined: Ingenuity before and beyond Dualism / Raphaële Garrod 1 Part 1. Rethinking the 'Ingenium' in the Cartesian Corpus: Method, Mathematics, Medicine 1. Methodical Invention: The Cartesian 'Ingenium' at Work / Denis Kambouchner 19 2. Descartes and Logic: Perfecting the 'Ingenium' / Roger Ariew 31 3. 'Enumeratio' in Descartes’s 'Regulae ad directionem ingenii' and Beyond / Theo Verbeek 47 4. 'Ingenium', 'Phantasia' and Mathematics in Descartes’s 'Regulae ad directionem ingenii' / David Rabouin 64 5. The Post-Regulae Direction of 'Ingenium' in Descartes: Toward a Pragmatic Psychological Anthropology / Dennis L. Sepper 91 6. Augustinian Souls and Epicurean Bodies?: Descartes’s Corporeal Mind in Motion / Harold J. Cook 113 Part 2. The Cartesian 'Ingenium' in Context: Predecessors, Contemporaries, Successors 7. 'Ingenium' between Descartes and the Scholastics / Igor Agostini 139 8. Methods of Ingenuity: The Renaissance Tradition behind Descartes’s 'Regulae' / Richard J. Oosterhoff 163 9. 'La Politesse de L’esprit': Cartesian Pedagogy and the Ethics of Scholarly Exchanges / Raphaële Garrod 184 10. Postface: The Face of 'Ingenium': Simon Vouet’s Portrait of Descartes / Alexander Marr 204 Bibliography 217 Index of Names 237 Descartes and the ‘Ingenium'tracks the significance of embodied thought (ingenium) in the philosophical trajectory of the founding father of dualism. The first part of the book defines the notion of ingenium in relation to core concepts of Descartes's philosophy, such as memory and enumeration. It focuses on Descartes's uses of this notion in methodical thinking, mathematics, and medicine. The studies in the second part place the Cartesian ingenium within preceding scholastic and humanist pedagogical and natural-philosophical traditions, and highlight its hitherto ignored social and political significance for Descartes himself as a member of the Republic of Letters. By embedding Descartes'notion of ingenium in contemporaneous medical, pedagogical, but also social and literary discourses, this volume outlines the fundamentally anthropological and ethical underpinnings of Descartes's revolutionary epistemology. Contributors: Igor Agostini, Roger Ariew, Harold J. Cook, Raphaële Garrod, Denis Kambouchner, Alexander Marr, Richard Oosterhoff, David Rabouin, Dennis L. Sepper, and Theo Verbeek. "Descartes and the 'Ingenium' tracks the significance of embodied thought (ingenium) in the philosophical trajectory of the founding father of dualism. The first part defines the notion of ingenium in relation to core concepts of Descartes's philosophy, such as memory and enumeration. It focuses on Descartes's uses of this notion in methodical thinking, mathematics, and medicine. The studies in the second part place the Cartesian ingenium within preceding scholastic and humanist pedagogical and natural-philosophical traditions, and highlight its hitherto ignored social and political significance for Descartes himself as a member of the Republic of Letters. By embedding Descartes' notion of ingenium in contemporaneous medical, pedagogical, but also social and literary discourses, this volume outlines the fundamentally anthropological and ethical underpinnings of Descartes's revolutionary epistemology"-- Provided by publisher