Descartes: A Biography (Hardcover)

Descartes is best remembered for ´I think, therefore I am´, but his main contribution to the history of ideas was to construct a philosophy that would be sympathetic to the emergence of the new sciences in the seventeenth century. He was midwife to the Scientific Revolution and a significant contributor to its key concepts, fashioning a philosophy that accommodated these needs whilst earning the unrelenting hostility of Catholic and Calvinist theologians. His contemporaries claimed that his proof of God´s existence was so unsuccessful that he must have been a cryptic atheist, and that his skepticism served merely to fan the flames of libertinism. Descartes died in obscurity but became one of the most famous of philosophers, a status that he enjoys today. This is the first biography in English to address the full range of Descartes´ interest in theology, philosophy, and the sciences, tracing his intellectual development throughout his career.