Causation and Cognition in Early Modern Philosophy
About this ebook
In line with this general approach, this book features original essays written by leading experts in early modern philosophy. It is organized around five guiding questions:
- What are the entities involved in causal processes leading to cognition?
- What type(s) or kind(s) of causality are at stake? Are early modern thinkers confined to efficient causation or do other types of causation play a role?
- What is God's role in causal processes leading to cognition?
- How do cognitive causal processes relate to other, non-cognitive causal processes?
- Is the causal process in the case of human cognition in any way special? How does it relate to processes involved in the case of non-human cognition?
The essays explore how fifteen early modern thinkers answered these questions: Francisco Suárez, René Descartes, Louis de la Forge, Géraud de Cordemoy, Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas Hobbes, Baruch de Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ralph Cudworth, Margaret Cavendish, John Locke, John Sergeant, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Thomas Reid. The volume is unique in that it explores both well-known and understudied historical figures, and in that it emphasizes the intimate relationship between causation and cognition to open up new perspectives on early modern philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
About the author
Dominik Perler is Professor of Philosophy at Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, and Member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Arts and Science. His books include Partitioning the Soul: Debates from Plato Leibniz (ed., 2014), The Faculties: A History (ed., 2015), Feelings Transformed: Philosophical Theories of the Emotions, 1270-1670 (2018).
Sebastian Bender is Lecturer at the philosophy department at Humboldt-Universität, Berlin. His research focuses primarily on early modern philosophy, in particular on the metaphysics and philosophy of mind of this era. In 2016, he published his first book, Leibniz’ Metaphysik der Modalität.
