466. Well Hidden: Descartes’ Life and Works
How René Descartes’ understanding of his own intellectual project evolved across his lifetime.
Themes:
• D.M. Clarke (trans.), Meditations and Other Metaphysical Writings (London: 1998).
• D.M. Clarke (trans.), Discourse on Method and Related Writings (London: 1999).
• J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny (trans.), Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 3 vols (Cambridge: 1984–91).
• S. Gaukroger (trans.), The World and Other Writings (Cambridge: 1998).
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• R. Ariew, Descartes among the Scholastics (Leiden: 2011).
• J. Broughton and J. Carriero (eds), A Companion to Descartes (Oxford: 2008).
• D. Clarke, Descartes: A Biography (Cambridge: 2006)
• J. Cottingham, Descartes (Oxford: 1986).
• J. Cottingham (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Descartes (Cambridge: 1992).
• J. Cottingham, Cartesian Reflections: Essays on Descartes’s Philosophy (Oxford: 2008).
• G. Dicker, Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction (New York: 2013).
• S. Gaukroger, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography (Oxford: 1995).
• S. Gaukroger and C. Wilson (eds), Descartes and Cartesianism: Essays in Honour of Desmond Clarke (Oxford: 2017).
• P. Hoffman, Essays on Descartes (Oxford: 2009).
• M. Hooker (ed.), Descartes: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Baltimore: 1978).
• S. Menn, Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: 1998).
• S. Nadler (ed.), The Oxford Handbook for Descartes and Cartesianism (Oxford: 2019).
• G. Rodis-Lewis, Descartes: His Life and Thought, trans. J.M. Todd (Ithaca: 1999).
• E. Scribano, Descartes in Context: Essays (Oxford: 2023).
• J. Secada, T. Tanner, and C. Wee (eds), The Cartesian Mind (London: 2025).
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Descartes’ Life and Works
Comments
I see you haven't quite…
I see you haven't quite gotten to Mohist logic in the parallel History of Philosophy in China podcast. That is to say, you've put Descartes before the horse.
In reply to I see you haven't quite… by Neville Park
Mohist logic
Boom tish! Actually that topic is coming up very soon, it’s one of the episodes I’m working on now.
@13:50 "the whole of…
@13:50 "the whole of philosophy is like a tree whose roots is metaphysics, whıse trunk is physics and whose principal branches are medicine, mechanics, and moral philosophy"
By "mechanics" he probably means what we call "mechanical engineering" today.
Descartes/Cartesianism planned interview episodes
Since we're going to be spending little over a year covering Descartes and Cartesianism, how many interview episodes do you have planned for this mini series?
In reply to Descartes/Cartesianism planned interview episodes by dukeofethereal
Interviews
So far I have three lined up: on the Meditations, on Elizabeth and Descartes, and on Medicine and Cartesianism (which is done). Probably that'll be it.
Approach to Descartes
Thank you for usefully emphasizing Descartes as an integral thinker and not only as a philosopher. The extended discussion of the circulation of the blood in the Discourse on Method occupies much more space than his demonstrations of the existence of God and the reality of the soul -- maybe he was trying to concede some conventional metaphysics so he could get on to the things he was more interested in -- i.e. natural science?
I find his metaphysics somewhat disappointing -- in the Meditations and the Discourse he does set up the problem memorably with a critique of the inadequacies of existing fields of knowledge and an admirable commitment to start from scratch and only accept those things of which he has a clear idea. BUT soon after it seems that he tries to pull a fast one on us and sneak in a version of Anselm's proof of the existence of God (that of which no higher thing can be thought) and then the famous "I think, therefore I am," which may be defensible but seems to deserve much more effort. I am suspicious.
Is there an interpretive tradition of Descartes that argues that he did not really believe his own arguments for God or the soul, but instead had to put them out there because to not do so would be dangerous?
In reply to Approach to Descartes by Christopher Walker
Descartes
To start with the last question, I think broadly the answer is yes, there are some readings according to which he pretends his views are more orthodox than they are. To some extent that is even probably true, like if you look at the dedicatory preface to the Sorbonne he is clearly spinning the project in a way they might appreciate. But I think we can definitely rule out the notion that he was agnostic about God or the soul or that he thought his own arguments for them to be weak: if you look at the replies he wrote to objections he is full of swagger about them and keeps saying how pleased he is that all these smart people have been unable to touch his arguments because they are so powerful. Plus both God and the immaterial soul play a central role in his ethics. So you can forget that idea, to be honest. Where you are right, though, is that his physics is the really central project - the metaphysics of the Meditations is (as he said explicitly) there to lay down foundations for the physics.
In reply to Approach to Descartes by Christopher Walker
Descartes' God
Oh he did believe in God, and thought his argument was watertight. In the Meditations there is a prayer after the proof. There is no evidence that Descartes wasn't being sincere. Also I think the proof of God is really important to his metaphysics, and it is wasn't just an add on for him. Finally, he argued that science requires metaphysics.
Stanford link
You accidentally pasted the link to the SEP page right in the middle of a citation, the first one among the secondary sources. There is currently no link at the bottom of the page to the SEP, just regular text
In reply to Stanford link by Andrew
SEP link
Oh thanks, I’ll fix that!
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