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Descartes, René

Descartes has a dominant position in shaping modern philosophy, but this is not our concern here. With enough modest inherited wealth to live as he chose, he spent his life in travel, on his work in philosophy, mathematics, physics and physiology and as a soldier serving in Holland, Bohemia and Hungary. In 1621 he left the army and in 1629 settled in Holland for some 20 years, before being persuaded to become tutor to Queen Christina of Sweden, a headstrong and athletic 19-year-old. From childhood Descartes had risen late and claimed to do his best thinking in a warm bed; the Queen’s insistence on tutorials in philosophy at 5 am in a freezing library either hastened or produced the lung disease which killed him within 5 months of arrival.

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Cambridge University Press David Millar, Ian Millar, John Millar, Margaret Millar 1996, 2002

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René DescartesPortrait of Rene Descartes
Descartes, René

REFERENCES

  • Baillet, Adrien, The Life of Monsieur Descartes, 2 vols, translated from the French by S. R. , London: Simpson, 1693; reprinted New York: Garland, 1987 (original edition, 1691).
  • Chappell, Vere; Willis Doney, Twenty-Five Years of Descartes Scholarship, 1960-1984: A Bibliography, New York: Garland, 1987.
  • Cottingham, John (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
  • Garber, Daniel, Descartes' Metaphysical Physics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
  • Gaukroger, Stephen (ed.), Descartes: Philosophy, Mathematics and Physics, Brighton: Harvester Press, and Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble, 1980.
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From Credo

  • Gaukroger, Stephen, Descartes: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford: Clarendon Press, and New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
  • Lindeboom, G. A., Descartes and Medicine, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1979.
  • Sebba, Gregor, Bibliographia Cartesiana: A Critical Guide to the Descartes Literature, 1800-1960, The Hague: Nijhoff, 1964.
  • Sepper, Dennis L., Descartes' Imagination: Proportion, Images, and the Activity of Thinking, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
  • Shea, William R., The Magic of Numbers and Motion: The Scientific Career of René Descartes, Canton, Massachusetts: Science History Publications, 1991.
  • Voss, Stephen (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.