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René Descartes - the human good as a onto-theology
Zika, Richard ; Sobotka, Milan (advisor) ; Hill, James (referee) ; Glombíček, Petr (referee)
At the beginning of Descartes's Regulae ad directionem ingenii we can find a call for secure knowledge which should be the point of departure for all meaningful human activities. The idea of secure knowledge is here gradually taking the form of universa} wisdom or 'good minď (i.e. rationality), of method and mathesis universalis, of a doctrine of arrangement and measurement. An example of manifestation of rationality (and, hence, activity) of Cartesian knowledge i s the rejection of Aristotelian-scholastic idea of the order of categories of entia as a speciously self-evident, immediately given clue to guide the cognitive process. In this context the rejection has also involved the notion of substance as a given absolute and that of accidentals, relative to it ('respecting' it). The old ontology does, however, assert itself in Descartes's method: the 'good minď acquiring knowledge becomes the 'substance' of the world as being acquired knowledge of; all objects of knowledge, and, as such, of arrangement, 'respecť it, are 'accidental' to it. Nevertheless the 'good minď acquiring knowledge (making arrangements) is, in its activity, not only the 'substance' (ousía) of the world as being acquired knowledge of but, in unity with this, also its principle, arkhé, cause. The Cartesian method is therefore not only...
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