FASH 162 Lecture Notes - Lecture 26: Natural Theology, James Mill, Rationalis
30 Jul 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Chapter 2: the scientific revolution of the 17th c and aftermath: Dualism: descartes identified the soul as being divine and independent of everything else. Dualism is the view of the mind-body relation according to which the mind is immaterial and completely independent of the body. Descartes was convinced that the soul had innate knowledge, which could be recovered on the basis of reasoning (rationalism). Mechanistic view of the universe: a worldview according to which everything in the material universe can be understood as a complicated machine. Descartes (similar to plato) believed that god had created a self-perpetuating machine, so that he did not have to continuously look after his creation. It replaced the aristotelian (similar to galileo) model, his views centered on the purposes of things within the universe (the final cause) and on the fact that living things were driven by the souls.
