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This volume explores the relationship between physics and metaphysics in Descartes’ philosophy. According to the standard account, Descartes modified the objects of metaphysics and physics and inverted the order in which these two disciplines were traditionally studied. This book challenges the standard account in which Descartes prioritizes metaphysics over physics. It does so by taking into consideration the historical reception of Descartes and the ways in which Descartes himself reacted to these receptions in his own lifetime. The book stresses the diversity of these receptions by taking into account not only Cartesianisms but also anti-Cartesianisms, and by showing how they retroactively highlighted different aspects of Descartes’ works and theoretical choices. The historical aspect of the volume is unique in that it not only analyzes different constructions of Descartes that emerged in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, but also reflects on how his work was first read by philosophers across Europe. Taken together, the essays in this volume offer a fresh and up-to-date contribution to this important debate in early modern philosophy.
The image of a voice in the wilderness evokes an outcast who has been condemned and banished by society. That image fits the scholar-priest Joseph de Prémare who spent the last thirty-eight years of his life (1698-1736) mainly in remote areas of China. He was condemned to silence by not only his religious superiors, but also by intellectuals in Europe. He was silenced because his Figurist theories were regarded as dangerous and implausible. And yet the irony of this silencing is that Father Prémare was one of the most knowledgeable Sinologists of all time. As a missionary in towns in the southern province of Jiangxi, he was freed from many pastoral duties by an assisting catechist and able to devote himself to intensive study of Chinese texts. He was practically a scholar-hermit who left the urban, politicized atmosphere of Beijing after only two years to return to Jiangxi province. There he cultivated Chinese literati who helped him assemble a remarkable collection of classical texts. He was prolific in producing a wide body of works in philology, history, philosophy, religion and drama. Faced by critics who were claiming that Chinese culture was alien to Christianity, Prémare joined the effort led by his fellow Jesuit Joachim Bouvet to save the Christian mission in China from destruction. The Figurists were radical in arguing that the ancient Chinese texts, like the Old Testament, anticipated the coming of Christ long before his birth. They claimed that Chinese commentators erred in viewing these ancient texts as records of history when in fact they were works of metaphorical and figurative meaning. Influenced by a Chinese scholar, Prémare made a philological analysis of Chinese characters to explain his theory. When Figurism was condemned by his religious superiors, Prémare attempted to circumvent their prohibition by sending his manuscripts to the proto-Sinologist Etienne Fourmont in Paris, asking that they be published anonymously. Fourmont criticized Prémare’s theories and failed to publish them. By the time of his death, Prémare had sent most of his manuscripts to Paris where they remained buried for many years.