Descartes and the Ingenium

Descartes and the 'Ingenium' tracks the significance of embodied thought (ingenium) in the philosophical trajectory of the founding father of dualism.

The first part defines the notion ingenium in relation to core concepts of Descartes's philosophy like memory and enumeration. We describe Descartes's uses of this notion in methodical thinking, mathematics, and medicine. In the second part, we locate the Cartesian ingenium within preceding scholastic and humanist pedagogical and natural-philosophical traditions, and highlight its hitherto ignored social and political significance for Descartes himself as a member of the Republic of Letters.

By embedding Descartes' notion of ingenium in contemporaneous medical, pedagogical, but also social and literary discourses, this volume outlines the fundamentally anthropological and ethical underpinnings of Descartes's revolutionary epistemology.

Contributors are: Igor Agostini, Roger Ariew, Harold J. Cook, Rapha le Garrod, Denis Kambouchner, Alexander Marr, Richard Oosterhoff, David Rabouin, Dennis L. Sepper, Theo Verbeek.