Cogito, ergo sum : the life of René Descartes

Rene Descartes was a highly influential philosopher, mathematician, and scientist and is regarded as the "Father of modern philosophy and mathematics". This is the biography of Descartes, and it describes the life of Descartes, in the flesh and blood, rather than a technical analysis of his philosophical, scientific, and mathematical ideas.

Ren Descartes is the philosophical architect of our modern world. In metaphysics, he established the view that mind and body are distinct substances, which is foundational for any belief that the human soul is immortal. In mathematics, he invented analytic geometry—the basis of calculus-which makes physics as we know it possible. Descartes perfected the method of proposing and testing hypotheses with experiments that anyone could repeat, which forms the basis of modern science. In optics, he discovered and described laws of refraction and reflection. In medicine, he was a pioneer in vivisection and anatomical description for understanding the human body. In physiology, his analysis of the relations among the sense organs, nerves, and the brain is still taught today. In psychology, he discovered conditioned reflexes and investigated the role of the emotions in human behavior.

Descartes said there was no point in trying to refute Aristotelian Scholasticism; rather, he would simply show a better way. Some 350 years after his death, our twenty-first century world-from mind-body dualism to heart pumps, from pop psychology to personal computers-is thoroughly Cartesian. Nothing in the modern world would alarm, or surprise, Descartes were he alive today.

Descartes's motto was that a life well hidden is well lived. Much of his own life is obscure to us now, which has led to tales of the great philosopher lying in bed meditating each morning until eleven, piously following the dictates of a Cardinal, writing verses for a Queen, and so on. Many of these myths are exploded in Cogito Ergo Sum, the first biography published since 1920 based on extensive original archival and fieldresearch. It is also explicitly the life of Descartes, in the flesh and blood, not a compendium of technical analyses of philosophical positions found in "life and works" biographies so dear to contemporary professional philosophers.

For more than forty years Watson has pursued Descartes in libraries and in the locales throughout Europe where Descartes studied, wrote, lived, and finally died. In this sometimes idiosyncratic and iconoclastic book, impeccably researched but amazingly readable, Watson brings Descartes and his milieu to life as has never been done before. Cogito Ergo Sum is certain to be the standard life of Descartes against which all future biographies will be judged.

"This is unlike any other book on Descartes I know of. . .It is exciting to accompany Watson through the countryside of rural Holland and France, through the twisted streets of old Stockholm, through the dusty books and archives, listening to his crusty comments and sometimes wild conjectures. . .Whatever the results of the scholarly debates that this book occasions, what emerges is a vivid picture both of Descartes and of Watson himself."- Daniel Garber, University of Chicago

"For all of his puckish delight in a juicy anecdote, Watson recognizes and carefully explicates the cultural centrality of Descartes' intellectual legacy. That legacy ensures numerous readers sure to praise a biographer who delivers both the philosopher's cerebral doctrines and his unmistakably human conduct." — Booklist (starred review)

"The narrative...is both rigorous and engrossing and readers will see clearly how pertinent the seventeenth-century Descartes is to the modern world." — Library Journal

The New Yorker

Probably the strangest biography of the year, this volume is the product of more than forty years of obsession by Watson, a professor of philosophy at Washington University, in St. Louis. He is less interested in the revered philosopher and mathematician than in the diminutive, arrogant Frenchman who fathered a child out of wedlock, probably dabbled in drugs, and practiced vivisection on animals (which Descartes considered machines without souls). Unearthing the real Descartes took some spadework -- much of the misinformation about him was popularized by the famous 1691 biography by Adrien Baillet -- and Watson isn't shy about playing up his own achievements as a researcher. This excessively colloquial, willfully eccentric book is as infuriating as it is entertaining, right down to the index, which includes such entries as "Pop a pill, 326" (this particular citation points to an aside of Watson's about how modern readers deal with anxiety).

Ren‚ Descartes is the philosophical architect of our modern world. In metaphysics, he established the view that mind and body are distinct substances, which is foundational for any belief that the human soul is immortal. In mathematics, he invented analytic geometry-the basis of calculus-which makes physics as we know it possible. Descartes perfected the method of proposing and testing hypotheses with experiments that anyone could repeat, which forms the basis of modern science. In optics, he discovered and described laws of refraction and reflection. In medicine, he was a pioneer in vivisection and anatomical description for understanding the human body. In physiology, his analysis of the relations among the sense organs, nerves, and the brain is still taught today. In psychology, he discovered conditioned reflexes and investigated the role of the emotions in human behavior.

Descartes said there was no point in trying to refute Aristotelian Scholasticism; rather, he would simply show a better way. Some 350 years after his death, our twenty-first century world-from mind-body dualism to heart pumps, from pop psychology to personal computers-is thoroughly Cartesian. Nothing in the modern world would alarm, or surprise, Descartes were he alive today.

Descartes's motto was that a life well hidden is well lived. Much of his own life is obscure to us now, which has led to tales of the great philosopher lying in bed meditating each morning until eleven, piously following the dictates of a Cardinal, writing verses for a Queen, and so on. Many of these myths are exploded in Cogito Ergo Sum, the first biography published since 1920 based on extensive original archival and fieldresearch. It is also explicitly the life of Descartes, in the flesh and blood, not a compendium of technical analyses of philosophical positions found in life and works biographies so dear to contemporary professional philosophers.

For more than forty years Watson has pursued Descartes in libraries and in the locales throughout Europe where Descartes studied, wrote, lived, and finally died. In this sometimes idiosyncratic and iconoclastic book, impeccably researched but amazingly readable, Watson brings Descartes and his milieu to life as has never been done before. Cogito Ergo Sum is certain to be the standard life of Descartes against which all future biographies will be judged.

This is unlike any other book on Descartes I know of. . .It is exciting to accompany Watson through the countryside of rural Holland and France, through the twisted streets of old Stockholm, through the dusty books and archives, listening to his crusty comments and sometimes wild conjectures. . .Whatever the results of the scholarly debates that this book occasions, what emerges is a vivid picture both of Descartes and of Watson himself.- Daniel Garber, University of Chicago

For all of his puckish delight in a juicy anecdote, Watson recognizes and carefully explicates the cultural centrality of Descartes' intellectual legacy. That legacy ensures numerous readers sure to praise a biographer who delivers both the philosopher's cerebral doctrines and his unmistakably human conduct. - Booklist (starred review)

The narrative...is both rigorous and engrossing and readers will see clearly how pertinent the seventeenth-century Descartes is to the modern world. - Library Journal

"Rene Descartes is the philosophical architect of our modern world. In metaphysics, he established the view that mind and body are distinct substances, a position foundational for any belief that the human soul is immortal. In mathematics, he invented analytic geometry - the basis of calculus - which makes physics as we know it possible. Descartes perfected the method of proposing and testing hypotheses with experiments that anyone can repeat, which forms the basis of modern science. In optics, he discovered and described laws of refraction and reflection. In medicine, he was a pioneer in vivisection and anatomical description for understanding the human body. In physiology, his analysis of the relations among the sense organs, nerves, and the brain is still taught today. In psychology, he discovered conditioned reflexes and investigated the role of the emotions in human behavior. Descartes said there was no point in trying to refute Aristotelian Scholasticism; rather, he would simply show a better way. Some 350 years after his death, our twenty-first-century world - from mind-body dualism to heart pumps, from pop psychology to personal computers - is thoroughly Cartesian. Nothing in the modern world would alarm or surprise him were he alive today."--BOOK JACKET. Many of the myths about his life are exploded in this, the first biography on Descartes published since 1920. Based on original archival and field research, it is explicitly the life of Descartes, in flesh and blood, not a compendium of technical analyses of philosophical positions usually found in life & works biographies. 375 p. : 24 cm Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-346) and indexes