摘要
These short essays reflect an exploration of a question that has intrigued me for quite some time,namely why—in modern and contemporary thinking and research—the reference to the founders of modern rationality,especially Descartes,Spinoza,and Leibniz,is still so uncertain,timid,vague,even in scholarly contexts,and why the issue of ontological monism versus dualism keeps coming up in everyday debate involving matter,mind,consciousness,and meaning.Are we at all some sorts of rationalists today,in our quest for knowledge in general and for a general view of how reality works?I do not see any viable alternative to rationalistic views,and therefore find it urgent to better understand what such rationalism(s)may mean and have meant.
