"Descartes's so-called dualism is often taken to represent a fundamental revolution in ideas and the starting point of modern philosophy. ...but in substance his work is... better understood as an attempt to conserve the old truths in the face of new threats. His dualism was in essence an armistice... between the established religion and the emerging science of his time. ...isolating the mind from the physical world... ensured that many of the central doctrines of orthodoxy—immortality of the soul, the freedom of will, and, in general, the "special" status of humankind—were rendered immune to any possible contravention by the scientific investigation of the physical world. ... For men such as Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz, solving the mind-body problem was vital to preserving the theological and political order inherited from the Middle Ages... For Spinoza, it was a means of destroying that same order and discovering a new foundation for human worth."
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Natural philosophersCatholics from FrancePhilosophers from FranceMathematicians from FrancePhysicists from France
Original Language: English
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Sources
Matthew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heritic (2006)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
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René Descartes
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