René Descartes
1596-1650 · French · Metaphysics, Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, Natural Philosophy, Mathematics
I think, therefore I am.
Educated by Jesuits at La Flèche and briefly trained in law, Descartes spent years as a soldier before settling in Holland in 1628 to pursue one project: reject everything admitting the slightest doubt, find what cannot be rejected, and rebuild philosophy as certain as geometry. When Galileo was condemned in 1633, he suppressed his own physics treatise. He died in Stockholm in 1650, summoned by Queen Christina, felled by pneumonia.
Topics René Descartes addresses
- the cogito (cogito, ergo sum)
- the Method of Doubt
- the Real Distinction (mind and body)
- res cogitans (thinking thing)
- res extensa (extended thing)
- clear and distinct ideas
- the malicious demon
- the dream argument
- the wax example
- substance, attribute, mode
- the trademark argument for God
- the ontological argument
- the causal argument for God
- the Cartesian Circle
- objective vs formal reality
- innate ideas
- the natural light
- the four rules of method
- intuition and deduction
- simple natures
- mathesis universalis
- analytical geometry
- the order of reasons
- mind-body union
Questions to put to René Descartes
The Method of Doubt and the Cogito
- What do you mean by the Method of Doubt?
- How does the malicious demon argument work?
- Why is 'I think, therefore I am' certain when everything else can be doubted?
- Is the cogito an inference or something else?
- How do you distinguish dreaming from waking experience?
- Why conduct the doubt only once in your life rather than continuously?
Mind, Body, and Their Union
- What's your argument that mind and body are really distinct substances?
- If mind and body are completely different substances, how do they interact?
- What role does the pineal gland play in the mind-body union?
- How can I know my own mind better than I know my body?
- What does the wax example show about how we know bodies?
- How should I understand the union as a third primitive notion alongside thought and extension?
The Proofs of God and Divine Guarantee
- How does the idea of God in my mind prove that God exists?
- What's the difference between objective reality and formal reality?
- How does your ontological argument work in Meditation V?
- What do you mean when you say God freely created the eternal truths of mathematics?
- How does God's existence solve the Cartesian Circle objection?
- Why can't a non-deceiving God allow me to be mistaken about clear and distinct ideas?
Mechanistic Physics and the Material World
- What is a body, in your view?
- How do you explain colors, sounds, and tastes if they're not really in objects?
- What's wrong with the scholastic notion of substantial forms?
- How does your physics relate to your metaphysics?
- What are the laws of motion in your system?
- How did Galileo's condemnation affect your decision to suppress the Treatise on the World?
Animals, Passions, and the Good Life
- How do you argue that animals are machines without thought?
- If animals don't think, how do you explain their complex behaviors?
- What are the six primitive passions?
- What is générosité and why does it matter for virtue?
- How should I live while conducting philosophical inquiry?
- What's the relationship between reason and the passions in your ethics?
Converse with René Descartes on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in René Descartes's own writing, cited to the page.