Recovering the Soul
eBook - ePub

Recovering the Soul

Aquinas's and Spinoza's Surprising and Helpful Affinity on the Nature of Mind-Body Unity

  1. 260 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Recovering the Soul

Aquinas's and Spinoza's Surprising and Helpful Affinity on the Nature of Mind-Body Unity

About this book

Recovering the Soul explores an area of historical philosophy that few if any others have attempted by critically comparing the metaphysical doctrines of Thomas Aquinas and Baruch Spinoza on the identity of mind and body. The central premise is that the hylomorphism of Aquinas's understanding of soul and body has a surprising affinity with Spinoza's own understanding of how human beings are enabled to exist as a single entity that is both mind and body. In the process of making the case that hylomorphism can apply to Spinoza's philosophy as much as Aquinas's, the book carefully exegetes the work of each philosopher and indicates how each is internally consistent within his own system of thought. The hylomorphic reading of Spinoza helps to address some interpretive challenges that his commentators have noted and struggled to harmonize with other aspects of this monist ontology. Beyond the historical and interpretive interests the book addresses, it also makes the case that hylomorphism as a metaphysical theory of human constitution best harmonizes with contemporary studies in the human genome and provides a more comprehensive starting point for the philosophy of mind than reductionism or substance dualism.

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Yes, you can access Recovering the Soul by G. Stephen Blakemore in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophy & Philosophers. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Introduction
  3. Chapter 1: On Being Rationally Alive
  4. Chapter 2: Hylomorphism
  5. Chapter 3: Aquinas’s Version of Hylomorphism
  6. Chapter 4: Mind-Body Identity in Aquinas
  7. Chapter 5: Persons in Aquinas’s Metaphysics
  8. Chapter 6: Reading Spinoza Afresh
  9. Chapter 7: Thomistic Hylomorphism and Spinoza’s Conatus
  10. Chapter 8: Hylomorphism, Conatic Essence, and Immortality in Spinoza and Aquinas
  11. Bibliography