{{Short description|Philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}} {{Descartes}} {{Catholic philosophy}} '''Cartesianism''' is the philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes and its subsequent development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza.{{sfn|Caird|1911|p=414}} Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences.<ref>{{cite book |last=Grosholz |first=Emily |title=Cartesian method and the problem of reduction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2EtAVLU1eIAC&pg=PA1 |isbn=0-19-824250-6 |year=1991 |publisher=Oxford University Press |quote=But contemporary debate has tended to...understand [Cartesian method] merely as the 'method of doubt'...I want to define Descartes's method in broader terms...to trace its impact on the domains of mathematics and physics as well as metaphysics.}}</ref> For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge.<ref name="Preface">{{cite web| last=Descartes| first=René| url=http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/principles/preface.htm| title=Letter of the Author to the French Translator of the Principles of Philosophy serving for a preface| author2=Translator John Veitch| access-date=18 August 2013| archive-date=17 January 2018| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180117122219/http://www.classicallibrary.org/descartes/principles/preface.htm| url-status=dead}}</ref>
Aristotle and St. Augustine's work influenced Descartes's cogito argument.<ref>{{Citation|last=Steup|first=Matthias|title=Epistemology|date=2018|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/epistemology/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Winter 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2019-04-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190922020749/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/epistemology/|archive-date=22 September 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>{{Failed verification|date=August 2020}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Menn |first=Stephen |title=Descartes and Augustine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NVZhdDa_xXwC&pg=PA4 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=6 | isbn=0521012848 |year=2002 |quote=On the face of it, Descartes' philosophy bears many resemblances to the thought of Augustine. Indeed, we know of several people who within Descartes' lifetime were sufficiently struck by these resemblances to call them to Descartes' attention...''First, in order that we may begin with the things which are most manifest, I ask you whether you yourself exist. Are you afraid that you will be deceived in this questioning, seeing that you certainly cannot be deceived if you do not exist?''}}</ref> Additionally, there is similarity between Descartes's work and that of Scottish philosopher George Campbell's 1776 publication, titled ''Philosophy of Rhetoric''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010mvcp|title=BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Cogito Ergo Sum|website=BBC|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-04-17}}</ref> In his ''Meditations on First Philosophy'' he writes, "[b]ut what then am I? A thing which thinks. What is a thing which thinks? It is a thing which doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels."<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Meditations on First Philosophy|last=Descartes|first=Rene|publisher=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy|year=1996|url=https://yale.learningu.org/download/041e9642-df02-4eed-a895-70e472df2ca4/H2665_Descartes%27%20Meditations.pdf|pages=10}}</ref>
Cartesians view the mind as being wholly separate from the corporeal body. Sensation and the perception of reality are thought to be the source of untruth and illusions, with the only reliable truths to be had in the existence of a metaphysical mind. Such a mind can perhaps interact with a physical body, but it does not exist in the body, nor even in the same physical plane as the body. The question of how mind and body interact would be a persistent difficulty for Descartes and his followers, with different Cartesians providing different answers.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title = Cartesianism {{!}} philosophy|url = https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cartesianism|website = Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date = 2016-01-27}}</ref> To this point Descartes wrote, "we should conclude from all this, that those things which we conceive clearly and distinctly as being diverse substances, as we regard mind and body to be, are really substances essentially distinct one from the other; and this is the conclusion of the Sixth Meditation."<ref name=":1" /> Therefore, we can see that, while mind and body are indeed separate, because they can be separated from each other, but, Descartes postulates, the mind is a whole, inseparable from itself, while the body can become separated from itself to some extent, as in when one loses an arm or a leg.
== Ontology == Descartes held that all existence consists in three distinct substances, each with its own essence:<ref name=":0" /> * matter, possessing extension in three dimensions * mind, possessing self-conscious thought * God, possessing necessary existence
== Epistemology == Descartes brought the question of how reliable knowledge may be obtained (epistemology) to the fore of philosophical enquiry. Many consider this to be Descartes' most lasting influence on the history of philosophy.<ref>{{Cite book|title = The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers|last = Ree|first = Jonathan|publisher = Routledge|year = 1991|isbn = 0415078830|location = London|pages = 78}}</ref>
Cartesianism is a form of rationalism because it holds that scientific knowledge can be derived ''a priori'' from 'innate ideas' through deductive reasoning. Thus Cartesianism is opposed to both Aristotelianism and empiricism, with their emphasis on sensory experience as the source of all knowledge of the world.<ref name=":0" />
For Descartes, the faculty of deductive reason is supplied by God and may therefore be trusted because God would not deceive us.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book|title = The Concise Encyclopedia of Western Philosophy and Philosophers|last = Ree|first = Jonathan|publisher = Routledge|year = 1991|isbn = 0415078830|location = London|pages = 75}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = The Rise of Modern Philosophy|last = Kelly|first = Anthony|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 2006|isbn = 9780198752769|location = Oxford|pages = 123}}</ref>
==Geographical dispersal== In the Netherlands, where Descartes had lived for a long time, Cartesianism was a doctrine popular mainly among university professors and lecturers. In Germany the influence of this doctrine was not relevant and followers of Cartesianism in the German-speaking border regions between these countries (e.g., the iatromathematician Yvo Gaukes from East Frisia) frequently chose to publish their works in the Netherlands. In France, it was very popular, and gained influence also among Jansenists such as Antoine Arnauld, though there also, as in Italy, it became opposed by the Church. In Italy, the doctrine failed to make inroads, probably since Descartes' works were placed on the ''Index Librorum Prohibitorum'' in 1663.<ref name="copleston">{{Cite book |last=Copleston |first=Frederick Charles |author-link=Frederick Copleston |title=A History of Philosophy, Volume 4 |publisher=Continuum International |date=2003 |page=174 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ZtDGtgARkzMC&pg=PA174 |isbn=978-0-8264-6898-7}}</ref>
In England, because of religious and other reasons, Cartesianism was not widely accepted.<ref name="copleston"/> Though Henry More was initially attracted to the doctrine, his own changing attitudes toward Descartes mirrored those of the country: "quick acceptance, serious examination with accumulating ambivalence, final rejection".<ref>{{Cite book |last= Lennon |first=Thomas M. |author2=John M. Nicholas|author3=John Whitney Davis |title=Problems of Cartesianism |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press |date=1982 |page=4 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vzvKOhiOe_YC&pg=PA4 |isbn=978-0-7735-1000-5}}</ref>
==Criticism== According to the Roman Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, Descartes eliminated the distinction between angelic and human minds, as if humans were angels inhabiting machines, a position that Maritain derided as "angelism".<ref name=Lokhorst>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Lokhorst |first=Gert-Jan |title=Descartes and the Pineal Gland, § 2.4: Body and Soul |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=Winter 2021 |editor-first=Edward N. |editor-last=Zalta |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/#BodySoul |access-date=2023-02-12}}</ref> In Thomas Aquinas's thought, angels are capable of an instantaneous knowledge that is not mediated by the human senses.<ref>{{cite web|last=Kim|first=Courtney Guest|date=14 October 2021|url=https://catholicreads.com/2021/10/14/three-reformers-luther-descartes-rousseau-by-jacques-maritain/|title=''Three Reformers: Luther, Descartes, Rousseau'' by Jacques Maritain: a Review|website=catholicreads.com|access-date=2023-02-12}}</ref> (Descartes, for his part, dismissed Aquinas's cogitations on the knowledge of angels as "inept".<ref name=Fowler/>) Maritain's interpretation is only one of many interpretations of Descartes' view about the relationship of body and soul, and some interpretations portray Descartes as instead, for example, a Scholastic-Aristotelian hylomorphist or even a covert materialist.<ref name=Lokhorst/> Étienne Gilson responded to Maritain by saying that if Descartes committed the sin of angelism it was not an "original sin" but had been committed first by Plato, Saint Augustine, Avicenna, and even the Bible.<ref name=Fowler>{{cite book |last=Fowler |first=C. F. |date=1999 |title=Descartes on the Human Soul: Philosophy and the Demands of Christian Doctrine |series=Archives internationales d'histoire des idées |volume=60 |location=Dordrecht; Boston |publisher=Kluwer Academic Publishers |pages=156–160 |isbn=0792354737 |oclc=40043673 |doi=10.1007/978-94-011-4804-7}}</ref> John Crowe Ransom called Maritain's accusation of angelism a "phantasy".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ransom |first=John Crowe |date=January 1946 |title=Descartes's Angels: ''The Dream of Descartes'' by Jacques Maritain |journal=The Sewanee Review |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=153–156 (155) |jstor=27537665}}</ref> According to C. F. Fowler, Descartes explicitly denied an identity between human minds and the angels, but sometimes used language in a way that was vulnerable to the opposite interpretation.<ref name=Fowler/>
The Australian philosopher Colin Murray Turbayne raised doubts concerning the degree to which Descartes adhered to his own scientific method in the course of expounding upon his Cartesian system. Turbayne notes that Descartes deviated from his professed scientific methodology in at least three different instances. In the first instance, Descartes arbitrarily ascribed the ''certainty'' which characterizes the use of deductive reasoning to develop theorems and principles, as a property which is also inherent within the natural world itself in the form of ''active principles,'' which serve as catalysts for causal chains of events. As a result of this error, Descartes incorrectly ascribed a property associated with the ''process'' of explaining natural events to the ''natural events'' themselves. In the second instance, Descartes violated a central tenant of his own methodology by arbitrarily bifurcating the natural world into "causal laws" and "effects" without first providing direct observational evidence of the presence of such causal agents within the natural world. According to Turbayne, Descartes third error is associated with his apriori assumption that ''every'' application of his scientific method must utilize mathematical ''calculation'' in order to ''deduce'' valid conclusions. This incorrectly assumes that the process of deductive reasoning is by its very nature inherently reliant upon the use of mathematical computation for the development of conclusions. In Turbayne's view, this constitutes an arbitrarily restrictive definition of the scientific method which creates needless confusion.<ref name = "Turbayne">{{cite book | last=Turbayne | first=Colin Murray | title=The Myth of Metaphor | publisher=Yale University | publication-place=New Haven| date=1962 | isbn=62-8265|p=46-50| url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4372371&seq=63}}</ref><ref name="Shook">{{cite book | last=Shook | first=John | title=Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers | publisher=Thoemnes Continuum | publication-place=England | date=2005 | isbn=1 84371 037 4 |p=2451 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DsKvAwAAQBAJ&dq=Colin+Murray+Turbayne&pg=PA2451}}</ref>
==Notable Cartesians== thumb|''Principia philosophiae'', 1685 {{cols|colwidth=26em}} * Antoine Arnauld<ref name="copleston"/> * Balthasar Bekker<ref name="copleston"/> * Tommaso Campailla<ref>Cristofolini, Paul; "[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/tommaso-campailla_%28Dizionario_Biografico%29/&prev=search Campailla, Thomas]" in ''Biographical Dictionary of Italians'' - Volume 17 (1974), [http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/istituto-della-enciclopedia-italiana/ Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana]. Retrieved 30 September 2015</ref> * Johannes Clauberg<ref name="copleston"/> * Michelangelo Fardella<ref name="copleston"/> * Antoine Le Grand<ref name="copleston"/> * Adriaan Heereboord<ref name="copleston"/> * Nicolas Malebranche * François Poullain de la Barre * Edmond Pourchot * Pierre-Sylvain Régis<ref name="copleston"/> * Henricus Regius<ref name="copleston"/> * Jacques Rohault<ref name="copleston"/> * Christopher Wittich<ref name="copleston"/> {{colend}}
==See also== * Cartesian coordinate system * Mind–body dualism * ''Meditations on First Philosophy'' * Mentalism (psychology) * Simulism * Rationalism
==References== {{reflist}}
==Bibliography== * Francisque Bouillier, ''Histoire de la philosophie cartésienne'' (2 volumes) Paris: Durand 1854 (reprint: BiblioBazaar 2010). * {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Cartesianism|volume=5|pages=414–426|last=Caird|first=Edward|author-link=Edward Caird}} This contains a long review of the principles of Cartesian philosophy. * Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis, ''Descartes et le cartésianisme hollandais. Études et documents'' Paris: PUF 1951. * {{cite book |editor1-last=Garrod |editor1-first=Raphaële |editor2-last=Marr |editor2-first=Alexander |year=2020 |title=Descartes and the "Ingenium": The Embodied Soul in Cartesianism |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill Publishers |series=Brill's Studies in Intellectual History |volume=323 |isbn=978-90-04-43761-6 |issn=0920-8607}} * Tad M. Schmaltz (ed.), ''Receptions of Descartes. Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe'' New York: Routledge 2005. * Richard A. Watson, ''The Downfall of Cartesianism 1673–1712. A Study of Epistemological Issues in Late 17th Century Cartesianism'' The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1966.
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Category:Cartesianism Category:René Descartes Category:Dualism (philosophy of mind) Category:Foundationalism Category:Metatheory of science Category:Rationalism