The world as active power : studies in the history of European reason

Bibliographic Information

The world as active power : studies in the history of European reason

edited by Juhani Pietarinen and Valtteri Viljanen

(Brill's studies in intellectual history, v. 180)

Brill, 2009

  • : hardback

Available at  / 3 libraries

Search this Book/Journal

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [331]-341) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

What is the ultimate explanatory factor for the existence of the world, for all its changing phenomena and the enduring order found in it? In the history of Western thought, we can find a longstanding philosophical tendency to answer this question in terms of power: the universe is understood as an ordered whole produced by a rational power, that is, by the power of reason. That power is thought to be active in the sense of being capable of existing and acting 'in itself' as an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable cause of the world. The essays in this collection discuss the idea of active power in the world-explanations of Plato, the Stoics, Neoplatonism, early and late medieval scholasticism, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, and Schopenhauer.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Juhani Pietarinen and Valtteri Viljanen 1. Plato's Power Dualism, Juhani Pietarinen 2. The Active Principle in Stoic Philosophy, Havard Lokke 3. Plotinus on Act and Power, Eyjolfur Kjalar Emilsson 4. Power and Activity in Early Medieval Thought, Tomas Ekenberg 5. Power and Possibility in Thomas Aquinas, Andreas Schmid 6. Causal Power in Descartes's Mind-Body Union, Juhani Pietarinen 7. De novo creat: Descartes on Action, Interaction, and Continuous Creation, Timo Kajamies 8. Motion and Reason: Hobbes's Difficulties with the Idea of Active Power, Juhani Pietarinen 9. Spinoza's Actualist Model of Power, Valtteri Viljanen 10. Leibniz on Force, Activity, and Passivity, Arto Repo and Valtteri Viljanen 11. Kant on Force and Activity, Hemmo Laiho and Arto Repo 12. Differences that are None. Hegel's Theory of Force in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Andreas Schmidt 13. Schopenhauer's Twofold Dynamism, Valtteri Viljanen Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Related Books: 1-1 of 1

Details

Page Top