Descartes on Immortality and Animals

Bibliographic Data

ID3971071
AuthorsStephen H Daniel (0000-0002-6811-2573, Texas A&M University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume29
Issue2
Pages184-198
Publication date2024-02-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2023.2283332
OpenAlexW4388903754
LanguageEN
References cited25

For Descartes, our minds are not natural causes because they are not themselves objects; rather, they are the activities that identify objects. In short, they are our challenges to the natural order of things, both in how we adapt to novel situations (as exhibited in what has been called the “rational action test”) and in how we respond in unexpected yet appropriate ways to linguistic cues (in the “language test”). Because these tests reveal ways in which our minds (as “pure,” creative, willful, and immortal substances) introduce novelty into nature, we are not determined (as animals are) by other objects. That is, our rational or linguistic activities are challenges to the order of nature precisely because they are not part of, but rather constitute, nature. Accordingly, “real” (creative) speech is logically prior to finite differentiations and is not limited by laws of nature that constrain animal behavior

Epistemology · Immortality · Theology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical Philosophy and Science · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

Tools

Open DOI