TY - CHAP
T1 - The body and the brain
AU - Sutton, John
PY - 2000
Y1 - 2000
N2 - Does self-knowledge help? A rationalist, presumably, thinks that it does: both that self-knowledge is possible and that, if gained through appropriate channels, it is desirable. Descartes notoriously claimed that, with appropriate methods of enquiry, each of his readers could become an expert on herself or himself. As well as the direct, first-person knowledge of self to which we are led in the Meditationes, we can also seek knowledge of our own bodies, and of the union of our minds and our bodies: the latter forms of self-knowledge are inevitably imperfect, but are no less important in guiding our conduct in the search after truth.
AB - Does self-knowledge help? A rationalist, presumably, thinks that it does: both that self-knowledge is possible and that, if gained through appropriate channels, it is desirable. Descartes notoriously claimed that, with appropriate methods of enquiry, each of his readers could become an expert on herself or himself. As well as the direct, first-person knowledge of self to which we are led in the Meditationes, we can also seek knowledge of our own bodies, and of the union of our minds and our bodies: the latter forms of self-knowledge are inevitably imperfect, but are no less important in guiding our conduct in the search after truth.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85071090616&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4324/9780203463017-43
DO - 10.4324/9780203463017-43
M3 - Chapter
SN - 0203771257
SN - 9780415510707
SN - 0415219930
T3 - Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy
SP - 697
EP - 722
BT - Descartes' natural philosophy
A2 - Gaukroger, Stephen
A2 - Schuster, John
A2 - Sutton, John
PB - Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
CY - London ; New York
ER -