Descartes relocated the Platonic devaluation of nature from virtue into consciousness

Evidence

But these objectives of human/nature dualism are now achieved by a different route, in terms of mind and consciousness, rather than in terms of the earlier conception of human virtue. Descartes’ account dispenses with the subtleties of the divided self, of the higher and lower parts of the soul as elaborated by medieval philosophers, and the division between the rational and irrational parts of the soul becomes (as in early Platonic thought) a division between mind and body. The Aristotelian conception of soul was much wider than that of mind, rationality or thought, the special faculty which dealt with truth. For Descartes, non-rational areas which cannot be reduced to thought are no longer part of the soul but instead pertain to the body (Lloyd 1984:45). — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 423

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mind-as-consciousness is an on-off concept excluding intermediate degrees — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 426; Contemporary beauty norms reproduce a Platonic dualism of body as lack to be mastered — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 306; Platonic self-harmony is achieved through internal colonization of nature by reason — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 348 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Descartes grounded certainty in thought, establishing mind as primary over matter. #corroborates (0.80) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2069
• Descartes’ certainty program reduced nature to quantifiable primary qualities #expands (0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 795