This is one of those paragraphs that states clearly a growing poorly defined awareness I have had I as have read philosophical and theological sources that there is a seismic shift in the nature of the mind and reason, which most theologians pass over in speaking of the nature or authority of reason. This change is massive, and ought to alter the conversation about the authority of reason in theology.
“During the period from Descartes to Rousseau, the mind changed. Its domain was redefined; its activities were redescribed; and its various powers were redistributed. Once a part of cosmic Nous, its various functions delimited by its embodied condition, the individual mind now becomes a field of forces with desires impinging on one another, their forces resolved according to their strengths and directions.”
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, “From Passions to Emotions and Sentiments,” Philosophy 57 (1982), 159.