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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)
The French entry only lists Saint Augustine as his influences, although I'm aware that Plato also did - perhaps add this to the influences?
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.
Kindly see Damasio on Descartes Error.
Kindly see Ryle on Descartes' Error.
Kindly see Stewart on Descartes' Error.
Yesselman 21:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
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
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]
Someone suggested retitling this to René Descartes on wikipedia:votes for deletion.
All through my study's of Descarte the term "cogito ergo sum" repeatadly came up, does this mean anything? Robert Jacobs 29/5/07
From a random web page:
Correct or not? -- orthogonal 17:50, 10 Sep 2004 (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.
Someone please add a chapter on "morale par provision" aka provisional moral code
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)
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.
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)
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.
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.
From Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science:
Can anyone confirm that this is true, and, if so, add to the article. -- ALoan (Talk)
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.
How is he in Category:Mercenaries? The article only says he intended to carry a military career. Did he go in actual combat?
- 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.
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
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)
Very surprised that there's not a single mention of Descartes' very important contributions to medicine, with his publication of "On Man," considered to be the most important textbook ever published on physiology. It includes wonderful popup illustrations of the heart. Published in 1662. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hilokid ( talk • contribs) 22:21, 7 June 2008 (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)
"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.
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)
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.
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)
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)
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)
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.
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:
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)
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)
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)
Hi, I'm working on writing the History of the molecule article. Does anyone know:
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)
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.
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)