Talk:René Descartes

Pronunciation

Isn't 'Descartes' pronounced 'day-kart'? As such, the possessive notation of 'Descartes' is wrong in this article. It seems to me that it should be "Descartes's", not "Descartes'" (think: "day-kart's"). Otherwise it indicates that 'Descartes' describes ownership of something plural (i.e. a number of Descartes, of which the singular is 'Descarte'), when it is actually singular. I am aware that sometimes we ommit the 's' because it appears to sound strange in speech, but the pronunciation of 'Descartes' is not subject to this. If I am correct, I find this to be very disturbing. Please prove me incorrect. Cheers. -- Chrisdone 05:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

According to the Wikipedia page about Saxon genitive, I am correct. However, it seems this is an acceptable lapse in rules these days. Nevermind. -- Chrisdone 08:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Influences and Influenced

The French entry only lists Saint Augustine as his influences, although I'm aware that Plato also did - perhaps add this to the influences?

Needs more extensive summary

I have only taken a glance at this article and I can already see that it is inadequate. Descartes is considered one of the founders of modern philosophy. He is recognized as of equal (or more) importance than Kant. This warrents an extensive in depth overview of his most fundamental ideas.

Most importantly, there should be an in depth section regarding Cartesian dualism (i.e. the clear demarcation of mind and body as separate from each other). This has had a profound influence on modern and contemporary philosophy. Indeed, much contemporary philosophy is staged with respect to fundamental cartesian dualism. There should, then, be an extensive section overviewing this, written perhaps by a student of philosophy who has studied Descartes thoroughly.

I just added a section on dualism. Feel free to edit and elaborate... --Jcbutler 06:12, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Damasio on Descartes' Error

Kindly see Damasio on Descartes Error.

Ryle on Descartes' Error

Kindly see Ryle on Descartes' Error.

Stewart on Descartes' Error

Kindly see Stewart on Descartes' Error.

Yesselman 21:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

God

In the section on Significance, the paragraph stating how Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God ends with "Why must any God be benevolent? Why can't any God want to deceive him/us?" Is this a quote or somesuch from Descartes? If so, could someone more knowledgeable than I please include where it came from? If not, I think it is fairly POV, and should be at the very least deitalicized and rewritten as something like "Some people since, however, feel that Descartes fails to fully explain why God must be benevolent" or something of the like. If no one can bring up a reason not to, I will do so in a week or so. Whooper 06:44, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Descarte believed God must have been benevolent because he reasoned that he is finite and something that created him must have just as much existance than himself i.e. something infintite and prefect, the example he uses is that a stone exists, and what created the stone must have just as much existance as the stone such as a larger stone broken down or a large amount of dust compressed, what he was trying to get at is the fact that a big stone could not come from a pebble like he could not of been created by something with less existance than himself. Robert Jacobs 29/5/07

After this descarte when on to consider heat and cold, he concluded that the cold is an abcence of heat nota seperate existance on its own, God is perfect and therefore must be benovlant because evil is an absence of good like cold is an absence of heat. In summary God is benevolent because he is perfect which means evil is sepearte from him. Which leads descarte to believe he cant be a deceiver. Robert Jacobs 29/5/07

to answer your question, Descartes is writing this to religious figures of the time, meaning he cant very well say that God doesnt exist or is anything but benevolent. and also by God he means the idea of God that they all have... which is a perfect being that can never be evil, and since lying to descartes about his senses would be considered evil, it cant be done. God is a perfectly not-evil being. so thats why he doesnt explain why god has benevolent, its just understood. rabiddog2420 9:21, 13 Oct 2006 (UTC)

RabiDog i can see what you are saying but i must disagree with you saying that he was only writing to Religious figures and the fact he cant really say that God does exist, the whole point in all his ontalogical and other arguments is to prove Gods existance to everyone that choose to read his meditations. But i do agree that descarte did say that God is no deceiver because evil acts (such as deception) is sepearte from Gods perfection.Robert Jacobs 29/5/07

The argument that descartes was only pretending to believe in God is preposterous. His claims about God are foundational to almost everything else he has to say. The source for this idea is the university trend of going back and trying to make every smart person in history into a closet atheist. __CRATYLUS22

I've been told that a more accurant translation is "I doubt, therefore, I am." Can anyone support or refute this? Kingturtle 02:38 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Im not sure if "i doupt, therefore i am." is a more accurate translation but i can see why people would think that was the case because Descarte doubted everything and anything that he could find flaws in he discarded as falsehoods, such as peception and even maths at one point (for a very short time but he still doubted maths). The one thing he couldent doubt was that he was a thinking thing because in order to doubt it he had to be thinking which is why the sentence is so effective. In order to prove your own exisance to be false you have to think in order to do so. In summary "i doubt therefore i am" is the same as "i think therefore i am" but i would like to say that Descarte never actully said neither of them so in conclusion it is not an accurate translation because he never actully mentioned the more famous term " i think therefore i am" so there cant really be a more accurate translation of it. He always called himself a thinking thing. Robert Jacobs 29/5/07]

cogito could be translated I think, I deliberate, I reflect, I ponder, I consider, I imagine, or any of a number of synonyms, but I think the person translating it as I doubt would be more likely to be trying to make a personal point rather than to be trying to render the phrase with exquisite accuracy... I doubt would correspond directly with dubito. -- Someone else 02:57 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Augustine wrote that the one thing he could not doubt was that he doubted, and this was the inspiration for Decartes' formulation. Your source or your memory must have confused Augustine's argument with Descartes'. --CRATYLUS22

Someone suggested retitling this to René Descartes on wikipedia:votes for deletion.

Descartes actually wrote it in French (matching the French title of his Discourse de la methode). Je pense donc je suis. I think is pretty good for je pense. Translating from Latin is quite another matter - you have to work out first of all how it went into Latin to begin with.

All through my study's of Descarte the term "cogito ergo sum" repeatadly came up, does this mean anything? Robert Jacobs 29/5/07

I just deleted the rather jejune joke with which the article ended. If anyone wants to restore it, though, we can discuss that. Here it is:

--Christofurio 00:06, May 4, 2004 (UTC)

Descartes and Humor

Descartes' saying, cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), has been so commonly repeated that an oft-repeated joke based on it has arisen:

Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender asks if he'd like a beer, and he finishes it. The bartender asks if he would like another. He says, "I think not" and disappears.

That's a good joke, but you were right in deciding that it doesn't have a place in the article.--Revised 21:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Soul

From a random web page:

Descartes' argument was that only beings with a soul can possess consciousness or feel pain. Furthermore, he argued that the ultimate test for if someone possesses a soul is whether or not they have the capacity for rational thought. He also argued that the ultimate test for the capacity for rational thought is whether or not an individual had the potential to understand a written language. The widely accepted belief at the time was that black people did not have the mental capacity to learn to read or write. (Although some African blacks had been writing in Arabic centuries earlier, this fact was unknown to the Europeans at the time.) Therefore, Descartes and many of his contemporaries concluded that black people did not possess a soul, were not the descendants of Adam and Eve, and did not have the capacity to feel pain, suffering, love, or a desire to live.

Correct or not? -- orthogonal 17:50, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There’s no evidence that I know of for Descartes’ having believed any such thing. Goclenius 19:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that there is any evidence that Descartes thought this. The Meditations are meant to be done first person as everyone knows, so determining whether others are thinking is not what is intended by the cogito. "You think, therefore you exist" is not resistant to doubt like "I think, therefore I am" is. Anyway, there is evidence in the Meditations that Descartes actually does not believe in souls. In Meditation II he discusses what he formerly thought himself to be and considers a body, and a soul with various attributes. He argues that if we consider the soul to be some "rarified I-know-not-what, like a wind, or a fire," i.e. some mysterious entity, then it is clearly open to doubt, just as the body is. Now if we mean by a soul, just a mind, something that thinks, broadly construed, then that does exist and is not open to doubt. Thinking under this definition of a soul, is not an indication of a soul, but it is a soul. Further, Descartes argues that the mind can exist without the body. So the mind can live on beyond the physical death, as Descartes notes in Meditation VI. As for the bit about non-europeans, I am not sure if Descartes expresses this anywhere. Either way, it is not central to his thinking.

I think he may have thought that about animals, but I've never come across anything suggesting he thought that about other humans.137.82.40.16 23:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

morale par provision

Someone please add a chapter on "morale par provision" aka provisional moral code

Maybe you could help us do just that. :) func (talk) 21:26, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The scientific method

Some material has been added to the History section if the scientific method article concerning Descartes. If someone here has a chance to look over it I would be gateful. Chris 08:02, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Murder?

I don't speak Spanish, but here's one source of the arsenic poisoning bit: http://www.muyinteresante.es/canales/muy_esp/grandes_misterios/muertes_sospe1.htm

I can translate this:

Murder Suspects

Could Descartes be murdered out? And the Duchess of Dawn? What intrigues hide after the murder of Rudolf of Hapsburg, Napolean or Kennedy? History is full of mysterious cases that still await solution.

I think it is implying that Renė was murdered.

physics

Why doesn't the article mention that Descartes proposed a theory of physics, later discredited? Michael Hardy 15:05, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Or anything about his work in optics (which is still used)? Why not mention his accomplishments in physics as well??

K of Slinky 20:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Have added an example of his contributions to optics, something we can all relate to! Remembered it from my physics textbook. Cdyson37 13:32, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

what does spainish have to do with anything its all french to me......

I have recently expanded on Descartes' physics in the article for The World (Descartes). However, I think a link to the article on The World should be added under the lists of Descartes' works.

Cleanup

The article is rather messy. The "Descartes' Life" section coul especially use organizing. The paragraphs seem to be composed of sentences that are dates and occurences. Perhaps the section should be split into smaller sections, like 'family life', 'education' etc. etc.

I wish I could help, but I have little time to dedicate to Wikipedia currently.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. Especially the section on his writings in his biography, which is painful to read. Perhaps you could slim down that section and add all of those writings into the Writings By Descartes section at the end ot he article That said, I think that the signifigance section is a nice part of the article and has some useful information. --Revised 21:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Also, the way the images are inserted in the Biography section cause huge, unappealing gaps in the text. This should be fixed, but I have no idea how to do it. The Fwanksta (talk) 20:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Fly

From Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science:

• René Descartes actually got the idea for his Cartesian coordinate system while lying down and looking up to a fly crawling across his ceiling, and realized that he could define the position of the fly by just two numbers: the distances of the fly from each of the two nearby walls.-- Pharos 04:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Can anyone confirm that this is true, and, if so, add to the article. -- ALoan (Talk)

• I've certainly heard it before, but it might be a sort of urban myth among mathematicians. If I get the time, I'll look René up in Men Of Mathematics and see if there's any source on that Cdyson37 | (Talk) 11:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

It certainly is a common story, so if it cannot be verified, id suggest keeping it and labelling it as apocryphal rather than deleting. Banno 21:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Translation of the Rene Descartes Murder Page

If you want the page translated simply copy the URL and paste it into yahoo search. It should bring up one result, next to the link should be a translate button, click it and it will translate the text to English..

A. Sandy

If it has a capital R in Rule it is their translation of Descartes.

Mercenary?

How is he in Category:Mercenaries? The article only says he intended to carry a military career. Did he go in actual combat?

I'm reading a book now called "A New History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (Descartes to Searle)" and at the start of chapter 37, on Leibniz (pg. 383), it says this about Descartes:

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646, two years before the end of the Thirty Years' War in whose opening campaigns Descartes had taken part.

So it looks like he was a mercenary! :)

FranksValli 19:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

- respond - Descartes did not see combat, as it is written to the introduction of Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy Donald A. Cress Translator

"In 1618 Descartes joined the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau as an unpaid volunteer, but apparently he never saw combat."

Cress goes on to say that Descartes seemingly wanted to see the world and travel, but I find that speculative without any citation.

Interesting! Ok, do whatever you need to do I guess. Maybe mercenary is too strong of a word to use? Should we say noncombatant? FranksValli 23:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

In any case, is this appropriate for the first sentence of the article? It may deserve a passing mention in the biographical sections, but are people going to take Wikipedia seriously as long as its description of Rene Descartes is "French philosopher, mathematician, and part-time mercenary." ~Lurker

Good point, it is very awkward in that sentence. FranksValli 03:46, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

regardless of whether or not he saw battle, a) partaking in a war does not make you a mercenary, and b) even if he were a mercenary, that fact is not particularly significant to the article. If someone were browsing through the mercenary category, I seriously doubt they would care to stumble across an article on a philosopher with one sentence relating his experiences in wartime. Because it is still a contenitous topic I will hold off on removing it, but I think it's kind of a ridiculous point to argue. Shaggorama 01:26, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I take that back. It doesn't look particularly contentious anymore. Removing it presently.

Descartes' military service was primarily devoted to helping calculate trajectories for artillery.

Cleanup and reorganization

I rewrote much of the Biography section and cleaned-up the article on the whole. I took the liberty of removing the cleanup tag. I plan on adding more content to his philosophical and mathematical additions later. uriah923^(talk) 01:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah, maybe we overlapped - I corrected some spelling in that section. I assumed the mis-spelling within english quotations was NOT in the original John

The side information overlaps some of the article text for me. I don't know how to go about fixing this, but it's a problem. The Jade Knight 00:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

User 205.188.116.202 added "quoted more fairly distributed then common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has." which is not a full sentence but a fragment. I cannot access the article at René Descartes. I do not know if these things are related. I am not sure how to fix it. --Gogino 04:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Could someone attempt to clean up the start. By that I mean that there is a huge space there. Salvadoradi (talk) 20:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche.

"At the age of eight, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche." In a book I am reading called Descartes' Secret Notebook it says he enrolled in spring of 1607, and it repeatedly talks about him being elevenish at this time. and the article for the school says we went there from starting in 1607. so i changed it but you can change it back if it is wrong.

Nature and numbers

In the article there is a quote of Descartes, "Nature can be defined through numbers." Does anyone know of the source for this? I can find similar things in the Meditations on First Philosophy, but not the direct line. Willardo 05:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Erroneous Quotation

I just tried to confirm the quotation attributed to Descartes in this article "Nature can be defined through numbers." After searching full text of Descartes' writings, as well as the internet at large, the only results returned for that were links to this wikipedia article and other web sites that quote it.

While Descartes might have reflected the sentiment present in this quotation, I can find no evidence that he actually said it. Since I am merely a student of political theory, I ask that someone with more experience investigate this matter and make corrections if need be.

Trivia item removed.

I have removed a trivia item according to which Descartes "envied" Spinoza's lens-making. Spinoza was just 18 when Descartes died. I doubt that Descartes ever heard of him. Moreover Spinoza worked in the family business, which dealt in commodities like dried fruit, until 1656; there is no evidence of his work on lenses before 1661. Goclenius 18:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The date of Descartes' entry at La Flèche

According to Gaukroger (Descartes, p38), Descartes entered La Flèche in 1606. He was ten years old at the time. Gaukroger notes that there is disagreement about the period of Descartes' schooling at La Flèche, with either 1605 or 1606 possible for the time of entry. Following Henri Gouhier (Les premières pensées de Descartes, 1958, p158–9), he settles on 1606 as the most likely. Goclenius 18:20, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Request clarification on characterization of (Aczel, 2005)

JA: Ric Maazel removed the bib entry for (Aczel, 2005): Aczel, Amir (2005). Descartes’ Secret Notebook. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 0-7679-2033-3. with the following comment in the edit line:

(Alphabetize secondary literature. Remove Aczel: inaccurate, misleading. Replace with Costabel.)

JA: I found the book to be an entertaining popular account, mostly known information, but with a few details not reported elsewhere. Can someone provide an authoritative review that would justify excluding the book altogether without even the benefit of corrective comment? Thank you, Jon Awbrey 22:18, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

RM: Where to begin? First of all, the contents of the Secret Handbook are entirely misrepresented. What Descartes actually proved was a theorem about the sum of the so-called angle defects of the solid angles of a polyhedron. It turns out that this implies a theorem of Euler's of a century later, that V-E+F=2 for all polyhedra, where V=number of vertices, E=number of edges, F=number of faces. The two theorems, as well as their proofs, are entirely different. Aczel actually describes Euler's theorem and proof, which is combinatirial and topological, instead of Descartes', which is entirely geometrical. He even says that Descartes counted edges, which he never did, and does so in a really slimy way that _implies_ that the stuff is in the secret notebook, when it was never there.

RM: In the post WWI years, it was fashionable for French mathematicians to call Euler's theorem Descartes' theorem. Either Aczel can't tell the difference between the theorems, because he's only done secondary research, or he has bought into this chauvenistic and now discredited viewpoint. He even invents "facts" about Euler, spfcifically that he visited Hanover in 1730, where he might have seen Leibniz' copy of the Notebook. There's absolutely no basis for this claim. Tellingly, he gives no citation for it.

RM: The most foolish thing is his claim that Descartes' compass-and-straightedge construction of the square root "was one of his greatest achievements in mathematics ... which would have stunned the ancient Greeks since they could construct only much simpler things." The construction is in fact in Euclid's Elements and would have been well known to any of Descartes' contemporaries. But apparently not to Aczel. This construction is explained in Wikipedia's Square root entry.

RM: The list goes on and on: Plato's cosmology, the dates of Eudoxus and Eratosthenes, achievements of Renaissance Italian mathematicians. Clearly, no historian of mathematics reivewed the manuscript, as would have been done if any reputable academic publisher had released this book. It's a slipshod piece of scholarship and has no place in this article. As you yourself noted, the book is mostly derivative. However, the misrepresentations and errors are entirely original. --Ric Maazel 15:22, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Descartes’ entry into La Flèche

Somebody changed the date to 1604 (by implication). Here’s the story from three recent biographies:

(i) Gaukroger (1995:424n1) and Watson have Easter 1606; if Easter was in April, then Descartes was ten.

(ii) Rodis-Lewis has Easter 1607 (Rodis-Lewis 1995:25). She notes (like Gaukroger) that Baillet’s date 1604 is certainly wrong, but doesn't argue for 1607 as against 1606. (I think the reason is that Charlet, the director of the school during Descartes' time there, didn't arrive until October 1606. Charlet is supposed to have ensured that Descartes received special treatment in view of his sickliness.)

In short, there is no reason to prefer 1604 to the other dates, and some reason to reject it.

Criteria for inclusion in the "influenced" section of the Infobox

Laurence BonJour was added to the "influenced" section of the Infobox. It seems to me that if that section is to be kept within bounds (and if it isn't, it won't be of much use), some criteria for inclusion need to be agreed upon.

Here's a suggestion:

1. To be included, a philosopher must be a major philosopher.
2. Descartes' work must be a principal and immediate influence on the philosopher in question. (Descartes influenced Malebranche, who was a major influence on Hume, but I don't think Descartes is a principal or immediate influence on Hume.) "Influence", in the required sense, is not a transitive relation.

BonJour is, by comparison with the other figures on the list, not a major philosopher. Moreover, although any post-Cartesian philosopher who discusses foundationalism will undoubtedly have read Descartes, it's not clear that Descartes is either a principal or an immediate influence on BonJour. In defence of pure reason has only two not very significant mentions; Epistemic justification mentions Descartes only in passing, and Sosa has more to say about Descartes than BonJour. You can, of course, be influenced by someone even if you don't mention their name very often. But I think BonJour's principal and immediate influences are more recent than the 17th century. Goclenius 01:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The Cartesian Subject?

What is meant by the term "Cartesian Subject?" - R_Lee_E (talk, contribs) 23:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

More generally, why is the Cartesian coordinate system not called the Descartesian coordinate system? It took me a long time in school to realize the coordinate system wasn't invented by someone names Cartes. 須藤 23:59, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Trivia...

Renaming trivia to "X in popular culture" doesn't make it any more trivial. Please see WP:TRIVIA. I'm deleting the whole section (again). Mikker ^(...) 23:09, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:TRIVIA has never been policy. -- Gwern (contribs) 15:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Fantastic. But WP:NOT is policy. And WP:NOT a bunch of silly crap like jokes... Mikker ^(...) 22:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

History of the molecule

Hi, I'm working on writing the History of the molecule article. Does anyone know:

1. Where and where did Descartes first use the word molecule?
2. When and where Descartes formulated his "hook-and-eye" atom bonding diagrams?

Also, did he draw out these images or just write about them. He seems to be the origin of the concept of the idea of a molecule. Please leave comment if you can help? Thanks: --Sadi Carnot 03:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Not that it's germane to this page but if you are still looking the concept of the molecule, in the sense of being a set of atoms linked together, goes back at least as far as Leucippus. That's about 450 BC. CRATYLUS22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.42.137.167 (talk) 22:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

EMO Comment?

Under the heading "Biography," it states that Descartes was "Emo and cut himself while listening to FOB." I'm new, and I don't know how to get rid of it. It doesn't show up the "edit" page for some reason. Thanks.

Because it'd already been gotten rid of. Thanks for telling us though. -- Gwern (contribs) 03:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sem--protect

Out of the last fifty edits, all but a half-dozen are either vandalism or reverts of vandalism, the vast majority from IPs. Semi-protect for a while. Banno 19:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC) Rabiddog2420 04:19, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Animals as soulless machines

This article is seriously incomplete. Descartes (along with others at the time) believed that animals did not have souls and therefore were beast machines. He thought that not having a soul meant no higher mental experiences. So when a dog had its paws nailed to a board and it yelped, it was not actually in pain, just exhibiting the external mechanical response that we perceive to be signs of pain. See Nicolaas Rupke, "Vivisection in Historical Perspective", London, Routledge, 1990. I'm not a vegetarian dog-loving, cruelty hating hippy who is complaining that Descartes needs to be portrayed as an ass. I'm just saying that it was an important part of Descartes' work. -elliot

Yeah. I don't hate cruelty either. - R_Lee_E (talk, contribs) 03:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I love cruelty. ninjabulous 22:16, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi,

I agree with elliot about the importance of the beast-machine theory in Descartes' thinking - considering also the long dispute which followed! If the other editors agree, I will insert a paragraph and improve the bibliography. Benio76 02:14, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I was just looking for this information myself. I've read the article some time ago and I'm sure it was there, along with the picture of the duck as an automata... Something's fishy here, I'll have a look in the history and try to find out what's happened.

And goodness my friend above, I sure do hope you hate cruelty!Richard001 07:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

After a look through the history I think my memory has played tricks on me. It was some time ago that I read this and but the article hasn't changed all that much. It must have been elsewhere that I read about his views on animals/the soul, or perhaps I just thought the section had been a little longer. The subject is covered in the article, though rather briefly. The article as a whole could probably be a little longer. It covers the subject well, but Descartes was such an important figure in both philosophy and mathematics/science that an in depth article on him would be perfectly justified.Richard001 07:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Cultural depictions of René Descartes

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 17:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Renatus Cartesius or Renato Cartesio (latinized form)

In Adolf Fredriks kyrka in Stockholm, where he was first buried (he was actually buried in "St Olofs Chapel", which was there before the church) there is a monument (se link for picture) which says Renato Cartesio - not Renatus Cartesius. The full text on the monument is:

Gustavas Pr. Haer. R. S.

Renato Cartesio

Nat. in Gallia MDXCVI

Mort. in Svecia MDCL

Monumentum erexit

______________

MDCCLXX.

Which latinized form is correct? Did they misspell on the stone monument? Kricke 20:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I would hazard a guess that Renato Cartesio is Italian and not Latin. --ChrisSteinbach 05:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps [1]. However, the rest of the text is in Latin, not Italian - at least not modern Italian. I'm no specialist though. Why would they write his name in Italian, in a Swedish church? Kricke 19:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! The text is in latin indeed, and "Renato Cartesio" is a declension of "Renatus Cartesius": it is probably a dative (to René Descartes) and if I am right the text means that Gustavas built the monument to René Descartes, i.e. to his memory, etc. (Gustavas was probably Gustav III of Sweden, who became king two years later and was at the time prince: so "pr. hær. would possibly mean "hereditary prince").

And yes, "Renato Cartesio" is also the Italian form of the name: but there is no declension in Italian, so it doesn't change! Ciao! Benio76 20:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Would you believe I took a hike down to Adolf Fredriks kyrka and the Stockholm stadsbibliotek today to see if I could find the Italian Connection. Just goes to show a little knowledge is a dangerous thing! Thanks for clearing things up. --ChrisSteinbach 21:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Aha, thanks for clearing that up. :) Kricke 20:36, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Skull separated from body?

I found an article (in old style Swedish from 1876) that says his skull was separated from his body when it was moved to France in 1666, by someone named Planström. And that it remained in Stockholm in (amongst others) Celsius and Stiernemans posession. When Carl Löwenhielm moved it to Paris in 1821, it sparked a debate between François Arago and Jean Pierre Flourens about its authenticity (it only says Arago and Flourens, but I think it must have been them). It also contains a portrait of him (by François Hals - is that Frans Hals?) that must be in the public domain and can perhaps be used in this article. Kricke 20:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

« François Hals » is Franz Hals indeed. He also painted a less-known portrait of the young Descartes. About the skull : this information is confirmed in a French biography of Descartes, but I can't remember which one. :-( 82.65.92.63 20:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Should "the skull story" be added to the article, or is it trivia? By the way, the text under the portrait, in the old Swedish article above, says "After a portrait by François Hals". The signature under the sketch is actually someone else's. Kricke 20:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Matrix

Question: Many credit Descartes's "I think therefore I am" to be the back bone of the movie the Matrix. However, it would seem that empiricism is more akin to what the Matrix is about, i.e., you can be a brain in a jar somewhere and not even know it because all you an know is what you perceive through your senses. It would seem that Descartes's saying should really be "I experience, therefore I am" since one cannot think without outside point of reference, at least initially. If there was no environmental perceptions, you could not think in the first place, and there would be no "I am." Thoughts? (RossF18 04:01, 7 February 2007 (UTC))

• Descartes eventually relies on God to be confident in his senses (that is, there is no demon). The Matrix is such a demon. --Gwern (contribs) 02:34 13 March 2007 (GMT)
  • Forgive my ignorance, but what demon? Please elaborate. (RossF18 03:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC))
    • Descartes CLAIMS that he relies on God, but a careful reading of Descartes and Bacon suggest that neither believe in God. Rugbyhelp 07:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I have read Descartes (english translation) carefully, and I read him as saying that he does believe in God, and he equates him with the Universe. A bit like Spinoza and Einstein, who also believe in God, but of course not the kind of God that many think of. Certainly not an old man with a beard. DanielDemaret 13:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
    • The demon is the evil genius. Uncle G 03:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Descartes suggests that he might be fooled by illusions induced by a super-demon as a start to doubting all his senses. DanielDemaret 13:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

• • But the evil genius seems to correlate more to empiricist thoughts of Hume, than to the rationalism of Descartes. How do people accept Descartes' seeming contradictory thoughts of "I think therefore I am" and "evil genius?" (RossF18)

day cart

Everone who pronounces descartes in English pronounces it day-cart, but I'm sure this wouldn't be how the French pronounce it. Can anyone enlighten me?Musungu jim 17:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The French don't pronounce the hard 't' but apart from that the pronunciation would seem to be correct. Nev1 17:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I speak (very) basic french, but i'm sure they would pronounce it de'scar, if anyone has ever heard a french speaker pronouncing it that would settle it Musungu jim 21:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I am French. Descartes is pronounced with "di" instead of "day" and would pronounce the "t" but not either of the "s"s. --RaphaelBriand 01:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The origin of the name comes from des Cartes. I think that the *original* pronounciation may therefore have been "de kart". DanielDemaret (talk) 11:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Biography Section

Is not the fact that Decartes was a)in the army, b)on drugs worth mentioning? These are hardly minor points of anyone's life, even a mathematician's. Nev1 16:32, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Army, certainly. Were those drugs, whatever they were illegal at the time? DanielDemaret 12:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Berkeley was a rationalist

Paragraph 3 states "Descartes was a major figure in 17th century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought, consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume."

Berkeley was a rationalist, not an empiricist b real 00:38, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Berkeley was an empiricist. He believed the world existed through his perceptions. He uses a reason to find God to ensure the existence of a world outside his perception. Thus God for him was an omnipresent perceiver. I think the confusion might arise from his rejection of Lockeian empiricism. He does believe that the qualities that we atribute to an object are ideas in our own mind, but he does not reject the fact objects exist outside of the mind.

Biography: year of death?

From the paragraph about his daughter: Much to Descartes' distress, she died in 1640 at the age of 5. His father died a month later, aged 78.

And elsewhere in the article it is said he was born in 1596 and died in 1650. And where did this 78 come from? Gligi 15:51, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the 'his father' refers to Descartes' father, not his daughter's father (Descartes); it doesn't parse right otherwise. And Descartes died at 54 or something like that. --Gwern (contribs) 18:21 25 March 2007 (GMT)

Algebra named for Descartes?

To my knowledge the name Algebra is derived from Arabic origins; Someone needs to correct this.

06/03/07--23:37

Yes, the word algebra has arabic roots, of course. The article refers to "cartesian coordinates ... used in algebra". Perhaps you could suggest some way to make the distinction it clearer? DanielDemaret (talk) 11:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The section on his philosophy doesn't distinguish his works

This section starts out talking of Discourse on Method and mentions Principles of Philosophy and then, unannounced, shifts to a blow-by-blow of Meditations. If I had not read a good deal of his work, I would have thought the entire section was about Discourse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shaolinpat (talk • contribs) 03:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

AC Grayling - Descarte was a spy

AC Grayling's biography on Descartes suggest that Descarte worked as a spy for the Jesuit order; keeping tabs on the Rosicrucians and their 'occult' knowledge. I think that this should be mentioned. msp4realmf (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Was Grayling merely speculating? DanielDemaret (talk) 10:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Theory of Fallacies?

Could somebody confirm the "Theory of Fallacies" information? Sounds a bit like a gullibility spoof... I've never heard of it and can't find supporting evidence -- but I'm far from an expert on these matters. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.102.131 (talk) 02:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Descartes' / Descartes's

At present the article uses both forms of the possessive - it talks about "young Descartes's life", but says "In Descartes' system, knowledge takes the form of ideas ...". I believe the more common possessive form is Descartes' - see [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. Would anyone object if I changed Descartes's to Descartes' throughout the article ? Gandalf61 (talk) 17:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

2 days later, no objections, so I have changed Descartes's to Descartes' throughout the article, except in the links to two on-line references, where the linked page uses Descartes's. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

René Descartes and the barman

Descarte walks into a bar. The barman asks "would you like a drink?" Descarte replys "I think not!" and swiftly disapears —Preceding unsigned comment added by Urgeblind (talk • contribs) 09:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" is easily mocked. To understand it is not so easy. That is because it requires deep thinking, an ability that most people lack, to be understood.Lestrade (talk) 22:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Biography again

The description for this image [7] suggests that he graduated from the Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand in 1616, yet the article says that he got his Baccalauréat and License from the University of Poitiers in 1616. Surely one of these dates is wrong (as is the age at which he started school, according to the French wikipedia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy bio, which say that he started at the age of ten or eleven and graduated from it in 1614). What are our sources for his bio? LeighvsOptimvsMaximvs ^(talk) 19:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Latin Name

In the first paragraph, the beginning sentence reads:
René Descartes (French IPA: [ʁəne de'kaʁt] Latin:Renatus Cartesius) (March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius (latinized form)
I think it would be appropriate to remove one of these? I'd prefer to keep the second entry myself. 86.160.190.194 (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)