Descartes's Dualism - Hardcover

[Rozemond's] discussion of the scholastic context of Descartes' arguments is exceedingly clear and informative, and should be read by anyone who really wishes to understand the context and meaning of Descartes' argument.--John Barresi "Journal of Consciousness Studies "

Descartes, an acknowledged founder of modern philosophy, is identified with the mind-body dualism - the view that the mind is an incorporeal entity. However, this view was not entirely original with Descartes, and in fact to a significant extent it was widely accepted by the Aristotelian scholastics who preceeded him, although they entertained a different conception of the nature of mind, body and the relationship between them. In her first book, Marleen Rozemond explicates Descartes's aim to provide a metaphysics that would accomodate mechanistic science and supplant scholasticism. Her approach includes discussion of central differences from, and similarities with the scholastics and how these discriminations affected Descartes's defence of body. Confronting the question of how, in this view, mind and body are united, she examines his defence of this union on the basis of sensation. In the course of her argument, she focuses on a few of the scholastics to whom Descartes referred in his own writings: Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suarez, Eustachius of St. Paul, and the Jesuits of Coimbra.