On Descartes' Passive Thought: The Myth of Cartesian Dualism

Translator’s Introduction

Preface
Bibliographic Note

Introduction

§1. The Delay of Interpretations

1 The Existence of Material Things or the “Scandal of Philosophy”

§2. The Sixth Meditation as Aporia
§3. Kant’s Critique
§4. Three Weaknesses in the Demonstration of the Existence of Material Things
§5. The Historical Confirmation of the “Scandal” by Descartes’ Successors
§6. A Critique of Kant’s Critique

2 Bodies and My Flesh

§7. A New Distinction
§8. Arcte, “very closely”
§9. Meum corpus: The Husserlian Moment
§10. In/commoda: The Heideggerian Moment
§11. A Revision of the Existence of Material Things

3 The Indubitable and the Unnoticed

§12. Indecisiveness (1632) and Confusion (1637)
§13. The Finally Indubitable Flesh (1641)
§14. A Doubtful Doubting (1641)
§15. Recapitulation and Confirmations of the Flesh
§16. The Modalities of the Cogito and the Privilege of Passivity

4 The Third Primitive Notion

§17. From Simple Natures to Primitive Notions
§18. The Third Is the First
§19. The Ontic Paradoxes
§20. The Epistemological Paradox
§21. Meum corpus and the Exception

5 Union and Unity

§22. The Question of Exception in the Replies
§23. Regius and the ens per accidens
§24. The ens per se, Suárez, and Descartes
§25. The Sole Substantial Form
§26. The Substantial Union without Third Substance

6 Passion and Passivity

§27. From Action and Passion to Cause
§28. To Think Passively, or Thought as Passion
§29. All That the Soul Senses
§30. Generosity, or the Will as Passion
§31. Virtue and Passion

Conclusion

§32. Descartes’ Advance

Index of Names

Jean-Luc Marion, member of the Academie francaise, is emeritus professor of philosophy at the Universite Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). He is the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greeley Professor of Catholic Studies, professor of the philosophy of religions and theology, and professor in the Committee on Social Thought and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. He also holds the Dominique Dubarle chair at the Institut Catholique of Paris. He is the author of many books, including The Erotic Phenomenon and God without Being, both also published by the University of Chicago Press.