<p> Through examining various stage representations of women, this dissertation investigates both the limitations and possibilities that seventeenth-century conceptualizations of the soul-body relationship posed for female subject-positions. The gender-coded soul-body dichotomy lies at the root of many negative and disempowering depictions of women. And yet, this in many ways oppressive construct, I argue, could also function as an effective tool for radically redefining gender expectations. Women and the Soul-Body Dichotomy demonstrates how a critical awareness of a text's engagement with theories of the spirit-matter divide can suggest new readings of its representations of women - readings available to seventeenth-century audiences that we should not overlook. More specifically, I explore dramatic disruptions of the soul-body hierarchy, and the usual values attached to each "side," that significantly challenge the patriarchal subordination of women. While the recent emphasis on the body in early modern studies has proven immensely productive, this focus tends to eclipse seventeenth-century concepts of the soul and the soul-body dynamic. I insist here that not only developing ideas about the body, but ideas about soul and body together are what crucially shaped gender ideology and cultural perceptions of women.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> This dissertation examines the centrality of the soul-body relationship to the construction of identity in English Renaissance religious poetry. The expanding field of 'body criticism' has greatly increased our understanding of the early modern body, but critics have rarely considered how Christianity influenced the ways the early moderns thought about their bodies and their embodied souls at a time when the science of anatomy flourished in Europe. Consequently, our current perception of the early modern subject is skewed. This dissertation addresses this critical gap by exploring the persistence of Christian narratives in discussions of both the body and the soul throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first two chapters address two interrelated question: how did early modern anatomists understand the soul, and how did early modern religious writers understand the body? This dissertation begins by examining the religious perspectives that are evident in English anatomical writing and then moves on to explore the presence of anatomical perspectives in English religious writing on the soul in order to discuss the intimate relationship between corporeality and spirituality. The final two chapters focus on the devotional poetry of An Collins and the devotional emblems of Francis Quarles in order to demonstrate the integration of a Christianized sense of corporeality into meditations on religious subjectivity. Both writers draw on the issues discussed in the first two chapters but represent corporeality differently. On the one hand, Collins transforms physical suffering into a sign of her salvation. On the other hand, Quarles expresses anxiety over the world's ability to infect the soul through the body. In both cases, the relationship between body and soul is a central concern, and their representation of that relationship is indebted to a Christianized sense of embodiment. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Descartes é considerado tradicionalmente como um racionalista estrito, sendo reconhecido pela clareza e distinção, pela certeza e pelo saber metódico, entretanto, existem conhecimentos que extrapolam tais critérios e mesmo assim ainda ocupam um lugar importante no seu pensamento: a criação das verdades eternas, a união substancial e o homem concreto. Nessa tese, pretendemos mostrar como tais objetos, que extrapolam um saber claro e distinto ou uma compreensão completa, podem ser reabilitados no sistema, como cada um deles mantém uma margem de inteligibilidade e uma margem de ininteligibilidade, como eles são bordas do saber, com uma face voltada para a clareza e distinção e outra voltada para a obscuridade. Deus e a criação das verdades podem ser entendidos mas sem ser compreendidos; já a união substancial é uma noção primitiva mas é da alçada da sensibilidade e não do entendimento. Para ressaltar a originalidade e complexidade do pensamento cartesiano frente aos limites do racionalismo, recorremos ao pensamento de Leibniz, mostrando como as saídas leibnizianas são muito mais tradicionais e condizentes com um projeto de racionalismo estrito. / Descartes is traditionally considered as a strict rationalist, being recognized by clearness and distinction, by certainty and by methodical knowledge, however, there are knowledges that go beyond those criteria and yet take up an important role in the thought of Descartes: the creation of eternal truths, the substantial union and the concrete man. On this thesis, we aim to show how these objects, which go beyond a clear and distinct knowledge or a whole understanding, may be rehabilitated in the system; we aim to show also how each one of those objects maintains an edge of intelligibility and an edge of inintelligibility, how they are borders of knowledge with one side turned to clearness and distinction and the other one turned to obscurity. God and the creation of truths may be understood but without being comprehended; the substantial union is a primitive notion, which, nevertheless, belongs to the sensibility, not to the understanding. To highlight the originality and complexity of Descartes thought front to the limits of rationalism, we recurred to Leibnizs thought, showing how the leibnizians solutions are much more traditional and suitable with a strict rationalism project.

Descartes é considerado tradicionalmente como um racionalista estrito, sendo reconhecido pela clareza e distinção, pela certeza e pelo saber metódico, entretanto, existem conhecimentos que extrapolam tais critérios e mesmo assim ainda ocupam um lugar importante no seu pensamento: a criação das verdades eternas, a união substancial e o homem concreto. Nessa tese, pretendemos mostrar como tais objetos, que extrapolam um saber claro e distinto ou uma compreensão completa, podem ser reabilitados no sistema, como cada um deles mantém uma margem de inteligibilidade e uma margem de ininteligibilidade, como eles são bordas do saber, com uma face voltada para a clareza e distinção e outra voltada para a obscuridade. Deus e a criação das verdades podem ser entendidos mas sem ser compreendidos; já a união substancial é uma noção primitiva mas é da alçada da sensibilidade e não do entendimento. Para ressaltar a originalidade e complexidade do pensamento cartesiano frente aos limites do racionalismo, recorremos ao pensamento de Leibniz, mostrando como as saídas leibnizianas são muito mais tradicionais e condizentes com um projeto de racionalismo estrito. / Descartes is traditionally considered as a strict rationalist, being recognized by clearness and distinction, by certainty and by methodical knowledge, however, there are knowledges that go beyond those criteria and yet take up an important role in the thought of Descartes: the creation of eternal truths, the substantial union and the concrete man. On this thesis, we aim to show how these objects, which go beyond a clear and distinct knowledge or a whole understanding, may be rehabilitated in the system; we aim to show also how each one of those objects maintains an edge of intelligibility and an edge of inintelligibility, how they are borders of knowledge with one side turned to clearness and distinction and the other one turned to obscurity. God and the creation of truths may be understood but without being comprehended; the substantial union is a primitive notion, which, nevertheless, belongs to the sensibility, not to the understanding. To highlight the originality and complexity of Descartes thought front to the limits of rationalism, we recurred to Leibnizs thought, showing how the leibnizians solutions are much more traditional and suitable with a strict rationalism project.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:17:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertacao Vinicius Vieira Brito.pdf: 472153 bytes, checksum: a2a08b1c939d6d252302d0c7b467d0b6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-06-13 / Dada a importância atual de se tomar o corpo como objeto de reflexão, analisaremos, nesta dissertação, o surgimento do conceito de corpo na obra do filósofo francês Michel Foucault. Mas ao contrário dos estudos sobre ele, que discutem o corpo sobretudo em Vigiar e Punir e na História da Sexualidade, delimitaremos como objeto o corpo na obra O Nascimento da Clínica, livro que faz uma história do surgimento do corpo-organismo com a emergência da medicina moderna, mais precisamente com a anatomia e fisiologia de Bichat. As dissecações feitas por este médico, no final do século XVIII, possibilitaram às ciências da vida o afastamento do legado de Descartes, que concebe o corpo como uma máquina. Ao traçar esta descontinuidade que culminou com o advento do corpo com órgãos, Foucault provoca uma cisão na história da relação da filosofia com o corpo, que era sempre pensado em referência ao corpo-alma de filosofia cartesiana.