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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2010

Stephen Menn
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
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Summary

The question of Descartes and Augustine is an old one, but it has never been answered satisfactorily, and it seems not to have been studied seriously for more than half a century. My work picks up from studies of Gilson and Gouhier dating mostly from the 1920s; and while I disagree with many of their conclusions, I do so with deep respect for their pioneering work, and I will be happy if this book has the effect of directing scholars' attention back to a line of inquiry that was too soon abandoned.

It may help to explain two things that this book is not. First, although I have already seen my title misstated in print as “Descartes and Augustinianism,” the book is not a study of Descartes and seventeenth-century Augustinians, or an attempt to relate Descartes to the Augustinian tradition. I am not sure there was an Augustinian tradition: this phrase suggests a series of thinkers reading Augustine through their predecessors, and distinguished by some common doctrine from thinkers outside the school. There was, in that sense, an Aristotelian tradition. But the history of Augustinianism is the history of the many revivals of Augustine by different thinkers, who have each discovered some new aspect of Augustine's thought, and seen in it a way to answer the philosophical or theological challenges of their own times.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

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  • Preface
  • Stephen Menn, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Descartes and Augustine
  • Online publication: 04 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511608995.001
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  • Preface
  • Stephen Menn, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Descartes and Augustine
  • Online publication: 04 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511608995.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Stephen Menn, McGill University, Montréal
  • Book: Descartes and Augustine
  • Online publication: 04 August 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511608995.001
Available formats
×