Contending against the prevailing view that Cartesian dualism is fundamental to understanding Descartes' philosophy, Baker and Morris present a controversial and academic, yet accessible examination of his doctrine.

Contending against the prevailing view that Cartesian dualism is fundamental to understanding Descartes's philosophy, Gordon Baker and Katherine Morris present a controversial examination of Descartes's philosophy.

As the first full-length study of Descartes's conception of the person, Baker and Morris depart radically from traditional representations of Descartes's argument about the persona, the cogito, and the alleged "mind/body" dualism. Contesting the nearly institutionalized view that Cartesian duality is central to understanding Descartes, Baker and Morris illuminate how this "reading" has put ascribed mistakingly, erroneously onto Descartes. They show controversially, how this interpretation has led to both abuse both within philosophy and beyond it. Refusing to draw a distinction between the mind and the body in traditional ways, Baker and Morris open up interesting ways of conceptualizing both ourselves and philosophy itself.