Keywords
Baroque
anamorphosis
philosophy of the body
abstraction
How to Cite
Abstract
The text is a critique of the prevalent approach to Cartesianism and its stance towards sensuousness and matter, which is accused of being instrumental and reductive. The author’s aim is to surpass the binary opposition of sensuousness and abstraction, which constitutes the basis for this approach. To that end, Cartesian Meditations are analyzed in the context of the general crisis of experience which affected the Baroque era. Cartesian doubt transforms this sense of crisis into a method, systematically inflating subjective uncertainty. Referring to the baroque technique of anamorphosis, the text demonstrates that the critical uncertainty does not disappear with the introduction of cogito, but is transformed into the basis for the newly constructed rationality. This transformation is based on the relation between formal arbitrariness of Cartesian dualism and the metaphysical arbitrariness of absolute caprice, personified by the figure of the malicious demon. It is as this anamorphic transfiguration that the sensuousness of Cartesian rationality is constituted – and the text systematically traces Cartesian argument in this respect.References
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