- Reading Descartes
- Edited by Andrea Strazzoni, Marco Sgarbi
Consciousness without Existence: Descartes, Severino and the Interpretation of Experience
- Andrea Sangiacomo
- © 2023 Author(s) |
- CC BY 4.0
- DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8.10
Consciousness is connected with the fact that a subject is aware and open to the manifestation of whatever appears. Existence, by contrast, is used to express the fact that something is given in experience, is present, or is real. Usually, the two notions are taken to be somehow related. This chapter suggests that existence is at best introduced as a metaphysical (or meta-experiential) concept that inevitably escapes the domain of conscious experience. In order to illustrate this claim, two case studies are considered. The first case is provided by Descartes’s famous treatment of consciousness and existence in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The second case is meant to contrast the Cartesian approach by taking the opposite route, as delineated by Emanuele Severino (1929–2020) in his ‘fundamental ontology’.
- Keywords:
- René Descartes,
- Emanuele Severino,
- consciousness,
- existence,
University of Groningen, Netherlands - ORCID: 0000-0001-7529-9826
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Chapter Information
Chapter Title
Consciousness without Existence: Descartes, Severino and the Interpretation of Experience
Authors
Andrea Sangiacomo
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8.10
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Bibliographic Information
Book Title
Reading Descartes
Book Subtitle
Consciousness, Body, and Reasoning
Editors
Andrea Strazzoni, Marco Sgarbi
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
206
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0168-1
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0169-8
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0170-4
Series Title
Knowledge and its Histories