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Descartes: The Story of a Mind
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Descartes: The Story of a Mind offers a rigorous, historically grounded reappraisal of René Descartes’s intellectual development. Rejecting fixed labels and anachronistic formulae, Mori portrays a thinker in motion—shaped by uncertainty, dialogue, and evolving contexts. Drawing on lesser-known texts, correspondences, and polemics, the book foregrounds the fragmentary, dialectical nature of Descartes’s philosophy. From early influences to the unity expressed in the tree of knowledge, the book reconstructs a dynamic Cartesian trajectory that bridges metaphysics, science, and ethics, revealing a mind perpetually negotiating its boundaries amid the shifting debates of the seventeenth century.
Gianluca Mori is Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Eastern Piedmont (UPO). He has published monographs, critical editions and many articles on Early Modern Philosophy, including Bayle philosophe (1999, 2020) and Early Modern Atheism from Spinoza to d’Holbach (2021).
Preface
Bibliographical Notice
1 A Long Apprenticeship
1 A Mature Student and a Jurist manqué
2 A Master: Isaac Beeckman
3 In Search of Himself: Journeys, Dreams, Projects
4 The Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii
5 Intuition, Deduction, Simple Natures
2 The 1630 Crisis and The World
1 The Creation of Eternal Truths
2 The Laws of Nature
3 The Fable of the World
4 Back to Reality: the Galileo Affair
3 The Discourse on the Method
1 A Successful Preface
2 Four Rules and a General Principle
3 A Provisional Morality
4 The Body Machine
5 Science and Society
4 The Meditations
1 The Reasons for Doubting
2 The Discovery of the Subject
3 From the Cogito to God
4 Freedom and Error
5 The Essence of Bodies and the “Ontological” Proof
6 The Body, the Mind, the Human Being
5 Objections and Replies
1 Scholastic Resistance: Caterus
2 Father Mersenne, or the Shadow Objector
3 Hobbes and Descartes: Duelling Philosophers
4 A Cartesian Theologian: Antoine Arnauld
5 Gassendi and Descartes: Flesh and Spirit
6 Father Bourdin and the Jesuit Reaction
6 The Principles of Philosophy
1 Analysis and Synthesis
2 A New Theory of Substance
3 Matter, Motion and Rest
4 Galileo’s Revenge: Science and Εxperience
5 From Apostle to Apostate: Henricus Regius
7 The Fruits of the Tree
1 Mechanics, Medicine and Morality
2 Elizabeth, the Princess Philosopher
3 The Passions of the Soul
4 A “Physicist” of Human Nature
5 From Wonder to Desire
6 Virtue, Happiness, Generosity
Conclusion: Descartes’s Mind/Descartes’s Body
A Descartes Chronology
Bibliography
Index
Bibliographical Notice
1 A Long Apprenticeship
1 A Mature Student and a Jurist manqué
2 A Master: Isaac Beeckman
3 In Search of Himself: Journeys, Dreams, Projects
4 The Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii
5 Intuition, Deduction, Simple Natures
2 The 1630 Crisis and The World
1 The Creation of Eternal Truths
2 The Laws of Nature
3 The Fable of the World
4 Back to Reality: the Galileo Affair
3 The Discourse on the Method
1 A Successful Preface
2 Four Rules and a General Principle
3 A Provisional Morality
4 The Body Machine
5 Science and Society
4 The Meditations
1 The Reasons for Doubting
2 The Discovery of the Subject
3 From the Cogito to God
4 Freedom and Error
5 The Essence of Bodies and the “Ontological” Proof
6 The Body, the Mind, the Human Being
5 Objections and Replies
1 Scholastic Resistance: Caterus
2 Father Mersenne, or the Shadow Objector
3 Hobbes and Descartes: Duelling Philosophers
4 A Cartesian Theologian: Antoine Arnauld
5 Gassendi and Descartes: Flesh and Spirit
6 Father Bourdin and the Jesuit Reaction
6 The Principles of Philosophy
1 Analysis and Synthesis
2 A New Theory of Substance
3 Matter, Motion and Rest
4 Galileo’s Revenge: Science and Εxperience
5 From Apostle to Apostate: Henricus Regius
7 The Fruits of the Tree
1 Mechanics, Medicine and Morality
2 Elizabeth, the Princess Philosopher
3 The Passions of the Soul
4 A “Physicist” of Human Nature
5 From Wonder to Desire
6 Virtue, Happiness, Generosity
Conclusion: Descartes’s Mind/Descartes’s Body
A Descartes Chronology
Bibliography
Index
This book is of interest to scholars and advanced students of Early Modern Philosophy, particularly those engaged with Descartes, the History of Metaphysics, and the development of scientific thought. It also appeals to intellectual historians, theologians, and readers concerned with the interplay between philosophy, science, and the cultural context of the seventeenth century.