It is so refreshing to hear a talk (or read a paper) which offers such a positive understanding of Descartes’ philosophy. Of course, as you might be aware, for Descartes the mind is really distinct from body, that is, it is metaphysical distinct in its nature, but not separate from the body. Real distinction implies separability, a logical possibility (unfortunately missed by most of his critics), not actual separation. Furthermore, the unity of mind and the body is not the result of their interaction; rather, their interaction presupposes their substantial union, and without it we wouldn’t be able to feel pain or any other passions or emotions (even if there were causal interaction). Regarding the first question from the audience, Descartes made it clear that he was not concerned with theology in this philosophical enquiries; he also made it clear a number of times that he did not have any arguments to demonstrate the immortality of the mind. See, for example, the Synopsis to the Meditations. See also, his reply to Mersenne, that it is possible that when the body perishes the mind comes to an end too. (Second Set of Replies AT VII 153) I very much enjoyed your presentation. Best wishes, Andrea Christofidou

what a talk! thank you

Thank you for the upload!

I had a dream last night where a jeweller was working with a diamond. I am not sure what she was making. But she seemed to be talking to me as she was sizing it to be fitted to a casing.

Name a single scientific theory that has been overturned by a supernatural explanation; ill save you some time, you cant.

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Satan is science ! Christ is King.

Excellent.

Rastko is such a cutie, I'm so invested in this project because of him. God bless him

Great... now I have my name connected with this confusion. ((The traditions of men)) You guys make understanding God and His plan so difficult, when it's so easy to understand that even a child can grasp it, our Creator foretold us all things.

👍🏻☀️👑

An interesting lecture, Steve. Your use of the term “Augustinian” reminds me of the way Alvin Plantiga used it during his discussion with Ernan McMullin during the 1990s. Just as you say that Augustinian science includes the perspective that it should “redeem” religious ideas, Plantiga argued for an Augustinian science in which “serious intellectual activity in general is ordinarily in the service of a broadly religious vision of the world” (Plantiga 1996, 370). This does seem to be a component of the scientific revolution in that it motivated Kepler and Galileo. Plantiga initially used the phrase “theistic science” instead of “Augustinian” and he wanted it to be the ideology of modern science as well. Matthew Stanley has some interesting discussion of how this attitude fared during the second half of the 19th century in his 2015 Huxley’s Church and Maxwell’s Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science. There the two chief contestants were James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Huxley, although I don’t think Stanley got Maxwell’s position quite right. See my review in Physics in Perspective, March 2018, 20(1):159-161 or @ ResearchGate.net. Jim Hofmann

"God does deceive man. That is a fact. He shows man a sky - a blue, solid crystalline dome - which does not exist....may it not be that the sky is nevertheless a crystalline dome, the earth is flat?...a time perhaps will come (Plato many times spoke of it, but no one listened to him) when the "better" will triumph over our truths and our self-evidences." - Lev Shestov, Athens and Jerusalem (1937), Part IV On the Second Dimension of Thought: Struggle and Reflection, Aphorism 32. The Human Truth and the Lie to God