The director of CU-Boulder鈥檚 journalism program has won a prestigious national award for challenging the 鈥減resumed centrality鈥� of Ren茅 Descartes鈥� groundbreaking theory of mind in 17th听century French culture.
So why is the head of an evolving journalism program producing iconoclastic scholarship on a seminal figure of the age of rationalism and the Scientific Revolution?
Christopher Braider is both professor of French and comparative literature and also director of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. He suggests that both disciplines are ripe for a 鈥減aradigm shift.鈥�
Braider has won the 21st听听annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Literary Studies, the Modern Language Association announced this month.
Braider was recognized for his book 鈥淭he Matter of Mind: Reason and Experience in the Age of Descartes,鈥� published by the University of Toronto Press.
The prize is awarded annually for an outstanding scholarly work in its field written by a member of the association.
The award committee鈥檚 citation states that Braider鈥檚 book offers readers a 鈥減aradigm-shifting, vigorous rereading of canonical 17th听century works of French literature, drama, philosophy, theology and painting.鈥�
鈥淐hristopher Braider鈥檚 study displays an admirable grasp of the complexity of canonical texts and their ability to continuously offer up interpretative possibilities that withstand attempts at definitive appropriations by even the strongest theoretical frameworks,鈥� the committee continued.
Braider describes his work as a close examination of an issue with which scholars grapple. 鈥溌槎挂� of 17th听century European literature, philosophy and art have long understood that Descartes鈥� dualist doctrine of self, and the theory of knowledge and mind that underwrites it, raised as many problems as it solved.鈥�
Descartes is famous for stating 鈥�cogito ergo sum鈥濃��鈥淚 think; therefore I am鈥�鈥斕�a proposition said to be fundamental to Western philosophy.听His 鈥淐artesianism鈥� viewed mind and body as separate and emphasized reason as the basis of the natural sciences.
By sharply distinguishing body and mind and making that distinction the foundation for thinking about the nature of reality, 鈥淒escartes fostered the mental autonomy and detachment needed to subject the otherwise overwhelming sprawl of empirical experience to rational analysis.鈥�
But that absolute distinction can鈥檛 be maintained, Braider contends. Mental phenomena are 鈥渋nextricably engaged in the body that houses them and in the world to which the body itself belongs.鈥� Further, though Descartes鈥� present-day historical and deconstructionist critics assume that Descartes鈥� rationalism permeated听17th听century art, literature and thought, most of Descartes鈥檚 contemporaries were as aware of its weaknesses as later commentators are.
鈥淭his leads me to be the first to argue in a systematic way that our whole picture of听17th听century culture is wrong,鈥� Braider said. 鈥淭hough there were indeed 鈥楥artesians鈥� in the period, they were far less representative than we suppose.鈥�
Viewing the culture in that light 鈥渋nvites us to return to, say, the comedies of Moli猫re, the paintings of Poussin or the theological speculations of Pascal in an entirely new light, discovering rich alternatives we habitually overlook.鈥�
鈥淭o the extent that the听17th听century was far more productively anti-metaphysical than we realize, we cast the spell we congratulate ourselves for breaking,鈥� Braider continued. 鈥淭he time has come to move on in a more responsible (and less judgmental) way鈥攁nd the Scaglione Prize committee seems to agree!鈥�
