Person
René Descartes
Philosophy & Ethics
Psychology & MindWho is René Descartes in the Agency editorial?
René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician of the 17th century, author of the Discourse on the Method and of the principle "I think, therefore I am". Research.1, an edition published only in Portuguese, takes that principle as its starting point and proposes permeability, the capacity to be affected, as a layer that comes before it.
In short
René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician, author of the Discourse on the Method. In the Agency editorial he appears only in Research.1, the edition about permeability, which exists only in Portuguese. The introduction says that the principle "I think, therefore I am", formulated by Descartes in the Discourse on the Method of 1637, belongs to a project that made reason, methodical doubt, analysis and the decomposition of problems the instruments of reliable knowledge, and that Cartesian thought became one of the historical matrices of modern science. The edition then says where its own study begins: thinking may be enough to demonstrate existence, as Descartes proposes, but may not be enough to describe what it means to exist as a conscious being. An image in the introduction shows a portrait of Descartes.
Key facts
- Who was René Descartes?
- A French philosopher and mathematician who lived from 1596 to 1650, author of the Discourse on the Method (1637), where the principle "I think, therefore I am" appears.
- Where does the Agency editorial name Descartes?
- Only in Research.1, published only in Portuguese: in a summary at the start, in the introduction, in an image credit and in two later paragraphs of the author's text.
- What does Research.1 say about him?
- That his method of doubt, analysis and decomposition helped to found modern science and produced extraordinary advances, and that the study of permeability starts at the limit of that method. The edition says it does not deny Descartes.
Who was René Descartes?
René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who lived from 1596 to 1650. He wrote the Discourse on the Method, published in 1637, and the Meditations on First Philosophy, and is known for the principle "I think, therefore I am". The dates of his life and his nationality come from outside the edition and are marked for verification.
How does Descartes appear in Research.1?
Before the study itself, Research.1 prints a summary given in answer to a question addressed to a chat assistant. The summary says that the text starts from the principle of Descartes, which founded modern science on the act of thinking and on the method of isolating and decomposing phenomena, and argues that this gesture has a limit: it treats the observer as something separate from what is observed. It adds that the text ends by reformulating the Cartesian maxim as Sou afetado, logo existo (I am affected, therefore I exist), not as a denial of Descartes but as a layer that comes before him.
The introduction, in the author's text, says that the principle was formulated by René Descartes in the Discourse on the Method of 1637 and that Cartesian thought became one of the historical matrices of modern science and contributed to methodological reductionism. It credits that strategy with extraordinary advances and says that its success also favoured a tendency to treat what is isolated by method as if it could be understood apart from the relations that constitute it. Right after this paragraph the edition shows an image based on a portrait of Descartes attributed to Frans Hals or his school.
Two later paragraphs return to him. One says that thinking may be enough to demonstrate existence, as Descartes proposes, but may be insufficient to describe what it means to exist as a conscious being. The other says that, while the epistemology of Descartes rests on the act of thinking, the project of permeability asks whether thinking, on its own, is sufficient for that.
Source editions
Where this entry comes from in the Agency editorial.