EARLY MODERNITY:<br />RATIONALISM AND MEANINGS OF THE HUMAN

Authors

  • Gim GRECU PhD Candidate, “Al.I. Cuza” University of Iasi

Keywords:

Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, principle, rationalism, human being

Abstract

The present paper enquires into some of the differences that occur from the principle com-mitments made by Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza in the develop-ment of their rational philosophies. More specifically, I will focus on what content is given by each for what a human being is in its most general explanation, and subsequently reveal the different course of their theories. Although they accept a science and a philosophy up-held by scientific methods and causal rationality as the criteria for all knowledge, the results are considerably different. The final approach will consider the ethical side of their phi-losophies, in regard to human freedom.

References

Cottingham, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1992

Deleuze, Gilles, Spinoza et le problème de l’expression, Les Editions de Minuit, 1968

Descartes, Rene, Principles of Philosophy, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991

Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1986

Descartes, Rene, A discourse on the method of correctly conducting one’s reason and seeking truth in the sciences, Oxford University Press, 2006

Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, Basil Blackwell Oxford, 1960

Hobbes, Thomas, Human Nature and De Corpore Politico, Oxford University Press, 1994

Spinoza, Baruch Benedict, Ethics, in A Spinoza Reader. The Ethics and Other Works, Princeton University Press, 1994

Sorell, Tom (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press, 1996

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