THE INFLUENCE OF R. DESCARTES ON THE SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE MATERIALISTIC COMPONENT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN AGE AND SCIENCE: B. SPINOZA
Vasiliy Pavlovich Goran
Institute of Philosophy and Law, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia
Keywords: Descartes, Spinoza, philosophy, science, materialism, idealism, religion, God, substance, body, length, out-of-body existence, infinity, movement, necessity, regularity, mind, thinking, self-consciousness, will, freedom, predestination, man, brain, soul, death, immortality
Abstract
The subject of attention in this article is the continuity between the essential components of Spinoza’s philosophy and what Descartes introduced to modern European philosophy. In this continuity, both what Spinoza joined in Descartes’ position and what he overcame and rejected in it are taken into consideration. Special attention is paid to the fact that in this overcoming Descartes’ inconsistency in realizing the materialistic component of his position is primarily taken into account. Particular attention is paid to the approaches of both thinkers to the following topics. First of all, it is the topic of God, which includes the reality of the existence of God and his substantial status, his relationship with the corporeal world, and the presence of self-consciousness in him. Two more such topics are the recognition of self-movement in the material universe and the regularity of what is happening in it. In the topic of man, attention is focused on the relationship between human body and soul, the mortality or immortality of soul, freedom of its will or lack thereof. It is concluded that both thinkers made their own historical contribution to modern European philosophy. If Spinoza aims to develop a materialistic position based on science to the greatest possible extent for his time, then Descartes’ texts outline all the main directions of modern European philosophy, which will be carefully studied by its subsequent creators, and the materialistic position is only one of them.,
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