Treatise on Ethics (1684)

ISBN-13: 9789401050944 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 234 str.

Nicolas Malebranche

Opis

explanation might be understood in relationship to our mental, moral, and spiritual life, leapt to his attention and was to occupy it from that day until his death. II. MALEBRANCHE'S THEORY OF BEING His fIrst work, The Search After Truth, appeared from 1674-76, some fourteen to sixteen years after his dramatic encounter with Descartes' work; to this day it is the only work unfailingly associated with his name, though it was the first of nine studies and several volumes of responses in which he went on to explore and develop his thought. Malebranche criticizes the prevailing theories of sense perception, imagination, memory and cognition, and fIrst proposes his own theory of how we acquire and evaluate ideas - from mathematical to physical, and moral to self-reflective. Underlying this theory is his rejection of Scholastic Aristotelian metaphysics, in which particular beings are said to have powers or forms that act on our minds to inform us. Malebranche - here in company with other critics . of that metaphysics from Montaigne to Bacon and Hobbes - argues that the prevailing view of beings endowed with powers by which they act unilaterally, as "causes" in the full sense of that word, makes no sense and cannot be confirmed by experience. For Malebranche, on the other hand, power can be predicated univocally only of God. Created beings have only that limited power given by God under the conditions of creation.

Spis treści

Contents Translator's Note. Introduction. Part One: On virtue. One. Universal Reason is the Wisdom of God Himself. Two. There is no Virtue Other than the Love of Order. Three. The Love of Order is not Different from Charity. Four. Two Fundamental Truths of this Treatise. Five. On the Strength of the Mind. Six. On the Freedom of the Mind. Seven. On Obedience to Order. Eight. On the Means Furnished by Religion for Acquiring the Love of Order. Nine. Why the Church in its Prayers addresses Itself to the Father by the Way of the Son. Ten. On the Occasional Causes of those Feelings and Movements of the Soul which resist the Efficacy of Grace, whether Grace of Light or of Feeling. Eleven. On what sort of Death we must Die in Order to See God, to be United to Reason and Delivered from Concupiscence. Twelve. On the Imagination. Thirteen. On the Passions. Part Two: On Duties. One. The Just often do Wicked Deeds. Two. Our Duties to God should be Related to His Attributed; His Power, His Wisdom and His Love. Three. On the Duties we owe to God's Wisdom. Four. Duties owed to Divine Love. Five. The Three Divine Persons each Impress their Own Mark on our Minds, and our Duties Honor all Three Equally. Six. Duties in Society, Generally. Seven. Duties of Esteem are owed to Everyone. Eight. Duties of Benevolence and Respect. Nine. Duties of Benevolence and Respect. Ten. Domestic Duties of Husband and Wife. Eleven. Origin of the Diversity of Conditions. Twelve. On Duties among Equals. Thirteen. Continuation of the Same Subject. Fourteen. On Duties Each of Us owes to Himself. Index.