Précis: Experience Embodied

Abstract

ABSTRACT This précis provides a summary of the major arguments of Experience Embodied together with an overview of the three parts and individual chapters. By examining the concept of experience in the theorizing of Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Herder, and Kant, this book sets out to complicate one of the most firmly established narratives of early modern philosophy. In its traditional form, this narrative focuses on the distinction between rationalism and empiricism and possesses a strong epistemological focus. Through this, it fails to acknowledge that the concept of experience was discussed in a much broader philosophical context, which included moral, social, political, and historical considerations. Experience Embodied demonstrates that the six philosophers examined constructively engaged with the fact that experience affects body and mind, and shapes what we can think and do. More generally, the book shows that during the early modern period a positive conception of the mind’s embodiment and principal malleability through the influences of artifice and nature was not only available, but also frequently used to counterbalance standard claims about the negative impact of passions, instincts, and undesirable social influences.