The Matter of Mind : Reason and Experience in the Age of Descartes

Forceful and provocative, __The Matter of Mind__ will encourage lively debate on the norms and discourses of seventeenth-century philosophy.

What influence did René Descartes' concept of mind-body dualism have on early modern conceptions of the self? In The Matter of Mind, Christopher Braider challenges the presumed centrality of Descartes' groundbreaking theory to seventeenth-century French culture. He details the broad opposition to rational self-government among Descartes' contemporaries, and attributes conventional links between Descartes and the myth of the ‘modern subject’ to post-structuralist assessments.

The Matter of Mind presents studies drawn from a range of disciplines and examines the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the drama of Pierre Corneille, and the theology of Blaise Pascal. Braider argues that if early modern thought converged on a single model, then it was the experimental picture based on everyday experience proposed by Descartes' sceptical adversary, Michel de Montaigne. Forceful and provocative, The Matter of Mind will encourage lively debate on the norms and discourses of seventeenth-century philosophy.

"What influence did René Descartes' concept of mind-body dualism have on early modern conceptions of the self? In The Matter of Mind, Christopher Braider challenges the presumed centrality of Descartes' groundbreaking theory to seventeenth-century French culture. He details the broad opposition to rational self-government among Descartes' contemporaries, and attributes conventional links between Descartes and the myth of the 'modern subject' to post-structuralist assessments. The Matter of Mind presents studies drawn from a range of disciplines and examines the paintings of Nicolas Poussin, the drama of Pierre Corneille, and the theology of Blaise Pascal. Braider argues that if early modern thought converged on a single model, then it was the experimental picture based on everyday experience proposed by Descartes' sceptical adversary, Michel de Montaigne. Forceful and provocative, The Matter of Mind will encourage lively debate on the norms and discourses of seventeenth-century philosophy."--Publishers description. Contents 7 List of Illustrations 9 Acknowledgments 11 Introduction. Experience and the Matter of Mind: Dualism, Classicism, and the Myth of the Modern Subject in Seventeenth-Century France 13 1. Front Matter: Placing Descartes’s Meditations 46 2. A State of Mind: Embodying the Sovereign in Poussin’s The Judgment of Solomon 78 3. The Witch from Colchis: Corneille’s Médéé, Chiméne’s Le Cid, and the Invention of Classical Genius 134 4. Seeing Is Believing: Image and Imaginaire in Molière’s Sganarelle 162 5. The Ghost in the Machine: Reason, Faith, and Experience in Pascalian Apologetics 185 6. Des mots sans fin: Meaning and the End(s) of History in Boileau’s Satire XII, ‘Sur l’Equivoque’ 213 Notes 255 Bibliography 317 Index 335