The Child As A Cartesian Thinker

by Eugene V. Subbotsky

This book presents and analyses children's reasonings about fundamental metaphysical problems. The first part describes dialogues with children which were constructed on the basis of Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and which look at children's ideas about the relationships between true and false knowledge, mental images and physical objects, mind and body, personal existence and the external world, dreams and reality, and existence of the Supreme Being, among others. The second part of the book draws on concepts that children of various ages have about psychological and metapsychological aspects of human reality such as: cognitive and moral development; personal freedom and responsibility; the relationships between conscious and unconscious; living and non-living; and about the fundamental drives of an individual for development and expansion of his or her needs and passions, for eternal life, and for the dreamlike world of fulfilled wishes. The book presents a systematic em