/lit/ - Literature

The Latins meant by "mind" what we call pensiero, "thought"; and they claimed that mind is "given" or "imparted" to humans "by the gods." What this amounts to is that those who thought out these phrases believed that ideas were created and activated in the mind of men by God; and hence, they spoke of the mind of the spirit (mens animi); also they attributed to God the unlimited (liberum) right and choice of the spirit's motions, so that desire (libido) or the capacity to desire everything is for each man his own God. This God, peculiar to each man, would seem to be the intellectus agens (active intellect) of the Aristotelians, the sensus aetherius (etheral sense) of the Stoics, and the daemon of the Socratics.

But if that most acute man, Malebranche, contends that these propositions are true, I wonder why agrees with Rene Descartes's primary truth, Cogito ergo sum. Since he recognizes that God creates ideas in me, he should rather put things as follows: "Something thinks in me; therefore, it exists. However, I acknowledge no idea of body in my thought; therefore, what thinks in me is an absolutely pure mind, namely, God." On the other hand, perhaps the human mind could be so structured that, after having begun from things that were quite indubitable for it, and having arrived at the knowledge of God as best and greatest, when once it knew him it would recognize for false even what previously it held to be indubitable. And indeed, quite generally, all ideas derived from created things are, in a way, false in the face of the idea of the Supreme Deity because they concern things that, when put in relation to God, do not seem to exist truly. For it is only of God that is a true idea, because He alone truly is. So if Malebranche wanted his doctrine to be consistent, he ought to have taught that the human mind acquires from God knowledge, not only of the body to which it belongs, but of itself as well; so that it does not ever know itself, unless it knows itself in God. Mind exhibits itself in the act of thinking. God thinkd within me and , therefore, I know my own mind in God. This would be the case if Malebranche's teachings were consistent.

Here's a list of philosophers that I'm supposed to know, but don't know at all.

Sextus Empiricus - Plotinus - Averroes- Anselm of Canterbury - William of Ockham - Malebranche - Giambattista Vico - Berkeley - Etienne de Condillac - Schopenhauer - Auguste Comte - Kierkegaard - Emmanuel Levinas

Who should I start with ? looking for non-bullshit stuff. It doesn't have to be extremely easy, just interesting.