R. Darren Gobert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786386
- eISBN:
- 9780804788267
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786386.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This book explores theater history's unexamined importance to Cartesian philosophy alongside Descartes's unexamined impact on theatre history. Put another way, it provides a new reading of mind-body ...
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This book explores theater history's unexamined importance to Cartesian philosophy alongside Descartes's unexamined impact on theatre history. Put another way, it provides a new reading of mind-body union informed not only by Descartes's Passions of the Soul and his correspondence with Elisabeth of Bohemia but also by stage theory and practice, while simultaneously itemizing the contributions of Cartesianism to this theory and practice. For example, Descartes's coordinate system reshaped theater architecture's use of space—as demonstrated by four iconic theaters in Paris and London, whose historical productions of Racine's Phèdre are analyzed. Descartes's theory of the passions revolutionized understandings of the emotional exchange between spectacle and spectator in general and dramatic catharsis in particular—as demonstrated in Descartes-inflected plays and dramatic theory by Pierre Corneille and John Dryden. And Descartes's philosophy engendered new models of the actor's subjectivity and physiology—as we see not only in acting theory of the period but also in metatheatrical entertainments such as Molière's L'Impromptu de Versailles and the English rehearsal burlesques that it inspired, such as George Villiers's The Rehearsal. In addition to plays both canonical and obscure and the writings of Descartes and Elisabeth of Bohemia, the book's key texts include religious jeremiads, aesthetic treatises, letters, frontispieces, architectural plans, paintings, ballet libretti and all manner of theatrical ephemera found during research in England, France, and Sweden.Less
This book explores theater history's unexamined importance to Cartesian philosophy alongside Descartes's unexamined impact on theatre history. Put another way, it provides a new reading of mind-body union informed not only by Descartes's Passions of the Soul and his correspondence with Elisabeth of Bohemia but also by stage theory and practice, while simultaneously itemizing the contributions of Cartesianism to this theory and practice. For example, Descartes's coordinate system reshaped theater architecture's use of space—as demonstrated by four iconic theaters in Paris and London, whose historical productions of Racine's Phèdre are analyzed. Descartes's theory of the passions revolutionized understandings of the emotional exchange between spectacle and spectator in general and dramatic catharsis in particular—as demonstrated in Descartes-inflected plays and dramatic theory by Pierre Corneille and John Dryden. And Descartes's philosophy engendered new models of the actor's subjectivity and physiology—as we see not only in acting theory of the period but also in metatheatrical entertainments such as Molière's L'Impromptu de Versailles and the English rehearsal burlesques that it inspired, such as George Villiers's The Rehearsal. In addition to plays both canonical and obscure and the writings of Descartes and Elisabeth of Bohemia, the book's key texts include religious jeremiads, aesthetic treatises, letters, frontispieces, architectural plans, paintings, ballet libretti and all manner of theatrical ephemera found during research in England, France, and Sweden.
R. Darren Gobert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786386
- eISBN:
- 9780804788267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786386.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter addresses the poetics of performance that emerges from Descartes's epistolary dialogue with Elisabeth of Bohemia. Elisabeth had pressed Descartes on the inadequacies of dualism, pushing ...
More
This chapter addresses the poetics of performance that emerges from Descartes's epistolary dialogue with Elisabeth of Bohemia. Elisabeth had pressed Descartes on the inadequacies of dualism, pushing him to the refined positions he takes in Passions of the Soul. Meanwhile, its theoretical ideas find expression in The Birth of Peace, the ballet whose libretto Descartes is said to have written and whose 1649 performance at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden the chapter analyzes. Like Descartes's correspondence with Elisabeth, the ballet restores the body to a place of prominence by demonstrating how it serves as the repository of experience and memory. And if experience (especially emotional experience) reshapes the body, as Descartes showed as early as his mechanistic Treatise on Man, theater like ballet could encourage salutary physical effects by providing joyful experience and building joyful memories.Less
This chapter addresses the poetics of performance that emerges from Descartes's epistolary dialogue with Elisabeth of Bohemia. Elisabeth had pressed Descartes on the inadequacies of dualism, pushing him to the refined positions he takes in Passions of the Soul. Meanwhile, its theoretical ideas find expression in The Birth of Peace, the ballet whose libretto Descartes is said to have written and whose 1649 performance at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden the chapter analyzes. Like Descartes's correspondence with Elisabeth, the ballet restores the body to a place of prominence by demonstrating how it serves as the repository of experience and memory. And if experience (especially emotional experience) reshapes the body, as Descartes showed as early as his mechanistic Treatise on Man, theater like ballet could encourage salutary physical effects by providing joyful experience and building joyful memories.
R. Darren Gobert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786386
- eISBN:
- 9780804788267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786386.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
The chapter suggests that the historical antipathy between philosophy and theater as disciplines has obscured the theater's unexamined importance to Cartesian philosophy and Descartes's unexamined ...
More
The chapter suggests that the historical antipathy between philosophy and theater as disciplines has obscured the theater's unexamined importance to Cartesian philosophy and Descartes's unexamined impact on theater history: on playwriting and dramatic theory, on acting theory, on theater architecture. Philosophers since at least Plato have suspected the alleged falseness of theater, preferring an immaterial realm; meanwhile, theater historians have tended to subordinate philosophical questions to material research concerns. Thus, the two disciplines have mimicked the split between mind and body putatively authored by Descartes. By helping us to better understand Descartes's doctrine of mind-body union, the chapter helps too to reconcile the methodological schism between the two disciplines. Specifically, it promotes an epistemology of performance, reliant on the repertory of lived action as a supplement to the historical archive of material artifacts.Less
The chapter suggests that the historical antipathy between philosophy and theater as disciplines has obscured the theater's unexamined importance to Cartesian philosophy and Descartes's unexamined impact on theater history: on playwriting and dramatic theory, on acting theory, on theater architecture. Philosophers since at least Plato have suspected the alleged falseness of theater, preferring an immaterial realm; meanwhile, theater historians have tended to subordinate philosophical questions to material research concerns. Thus, the two disciplines have mimicked the split between mind and body putatively authored by Descartes. By helping us to better understand Descartes's doctrine of mind-body union, the chapter helps too to reconcile the methodological schism between the two disciplines. Specifically, it promotes an epistemology of performance, reliant on the repertory of lived action as a supplement to the historical archive of material artifacts.
Minna Koivuniemi and Edwin Curley
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198748717
- eISBN:
- 9780191814112
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198748717.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
What does the mind–body union consist in for Descartes? At a minimum, causal interaction between mind and body. But also in a certain experience of the body with which we’re united, which inclines us ...
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What does the mind–body union consist in for Descartes? At a minimum, causal interaction between mind and body. But also in a certain experience of the body with which we’re united, which inclines us to locate bodily sensations as occurring in it, not in the mind. Hence, we mistakenly identify ourselves with that body. The phenomenology of mind–body interaction, also manifested in the mind’s control of the body, explains Descartes’ doctrine that the whole of the mind is united with the whole body. The chapter takes the principal alternative interpretation to be the view developed by Paul Hoffman that Descartes accepted the scholastic theory that the soul is the substantial form of the body. It argues that Hoffman’s view misunderstands the texts, and fails to appreciate how untenable Pomoponnazi’s treatise On the Immortality of the Soul had made an Aristotelian interpretation of the mind–body relation.Less
What does the mind–body union consist in for Descartes? At a minimum, causal interaction between mind and body. But also in a certain experience of the body with which we’re united, which inclines us to locate bodily sensations as occurring in it, not in the mind. Hence, we mistakenly identify ourselves with that body. The phenomenology of mind–body interaction, also manifested in the mind’s control of the body, explains Descartes’ doctrine that the whole of the mind is united with the whole body. The chapter takes the principal alternative interpretation to be the view developed by Paul Hoffman that Descartes accepted the scholastic theory that the soul is the substantial form of the body. It argues that Hoffman’s view misunderstands the texts, and fails to appreciate how untenable Pomoponnazi’s treatise On the Immortality of the Soul had made an Aristotelian interpretation of the mind–body relation.
Margaret D. Wilson
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195075519
- eISBN:
- 9780199853052
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195075519.003.0012
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter explains Descartes confusion on sensations, size, shape, position, and motion. Descartes in detail explains that we perceive particular figures or actual bodies affecting our senses much ...
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This chapter explains Descartes confusion on sensations, size, shape, position, and motion. Descartes in detail explains that we perceive particular figures or actual bodies affecting our senses much more distinctly than their colours. Descartes construe the perception of position, distance, size, and shape as involving strong intellectual elements and he holds that they differ in this fundamental respect from ordinary perceptions of color, sound, heat and cold, taste, and the like, which are said to consist just in having “sensations” that “arise from the mind-body union.” This position leaves room for uncertainty about what he means when he speaks elsewhere of the near-uselessness of sense perceptions in informing us of particular qualities of bodies, in so far as it opens the possibility of a quite restricted understanding of “sense perception” in these contexts.Less
This chapter explains Descartes confusion on sensations, size, shape, position, and motion. Descartes in detail explains that we perceive particular figures or actual bodies affecting our senses much more distinctly than their colours. Descartes construe the perception of position, distance, size, and shape as involving strong intellectual elements and he holds that they differ in this fundamental respect from ordinary perceptions of color, sound, heat and cold, taste, and the like, which are said to consist just in having “sensations” that “arise from the mind-body union.” This position leaves room for uncertainty about what he means when he speaks elsewhere of the near-uselessness of sense perceptions in informing us of particular qualities of bodies, in so far as it opens the possibility of a quite restricted understanding of “sense perception” in these contexts.
R. Darren Gobert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804786386
- eISBN:
- 9780804788267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804786386.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
This chapter begins with an analysis of the National Theatre's 2010 “live re-broadcast” of Racine's Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren. The spectators' experience in the contemporary Cineplex suggests ...
More
This chapter begins with an analysis of the National Theatre's 2010 “live re-broadcast” of Racine's Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren. The spectators' experience in the contemporary Cineplex suggests something of what is wrong with contemporary stagings of Racine and contemporary understandings of Cartesian mind-body union: the potential for intersubjective contact, so central to both playwright and philosopher, is eliminated. Too often, philosophy and theater mimic the view of Phèdre's 2010 spectators, sitting aloof in the amphitheater and objectifying a foreign image. The chapter argues that we should instead leverage the epistemological benefits of live performance. These benefits are in fact promoted by Descartes himself, in his posthumously published dialogue La recherce de la vérité par la lumière naturelle.Less
This chapter begins with an analysis of the National Theatre's 2010 “live re-broadcast” of Racine's Phèdre, starring Helen Mirren. The spectators' experience in the contemporary Cineplex suggests something of what is wrong with contemporary stagings of Racine and contemporary understandings of Cartesian mind-body union: the potential for intersubjective contact, so central to both playwright and philosopher, is eliminated. Too often, philosophy and theater mimic the view of Phèdre's 2010 spectators, sitting aloof in the amphitheater and objectifying a foreign image. The chapter argues that we should instead leverage the epistemological benefits of live performance. These benefits are in fact promoted by Descartes himself, in his posthumously published dialogue La recherce de la vérité par la lumière naturelle.
Vlad Alexandrescu
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199659593
- eISBN:
- 9780191745218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199659593.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter looks at Elisabeth’s arguments in the framework of Descartes’ program to collect valuable objections from members of the Republic of Letters. The analysis of Elisabeth’s first letters ...
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This chapter looks at Elisabeth’s arguments in the framework of Descartes’ program to collect valuable objections from members of the Republic of Letters. The analysis of Elisabeth’s first letters reveals astonishing resemblances between Elisabeth’s position and the one Gassendi had expressed in his Fifth Objections. In order to explain this fact, the chapter proposes that Samuel Sorbière, present in the Low Countries since 1642, was an agent of Gassendi’s who worked his way into Queen of Bohemia’s court at the Hague and who, during several encounters with Princess Elisabeth, explained to her Gassendi’s views and worked with her on a Gassendist interpretation of Meditation Six. The chapter also shows that later on, Sorbière was to depart from a number of Gassendist positions and that Descartes’ ideas eventually permeated his philosophical writings.Less
This chapter looks at Elisabeth’s arguments in the framework of Descartes’ program to collect valuable objections from members of the Republic of Letters. The analysis of Elisabeth’s first letters reveals astonishing resemblances between Elisabeth’s position and the one Gassendi had expressed in his Fifth Objections. In order to explain this fact, the chapter proposes that Samuel Sorbière, present in the Low Countries since 1642, was an agent of Gassendi’s who worked his way into Queen of Bohemia’s court at the Hague and who, during several encounters with Princess Elisabeth, explained to her Gassendi’s views and worked with her on a Gassendist interpretation of Meditation Six. The chapter also shows that later on, Sorbière was to depart from a number of Gassendist positions and that Descartes’ ideas eventually permeated his philosophical writings.
