Author : Emily Grosholz
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 9780198242505
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (425 download)
Book Synopsis Cartesian Method and the Problem of Reduction by : Emily Grosholz
Download or read book Cartesian Method and the Problem of Reduction written by Emily Grosholz and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1991 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cartesian method, construed as a way of organizing domains of knowledge according to the "order of reasons," was a powerful reductive tool. Descartes made significant strides in mathematics, physics, and metaphysics by relating certain complex items and problems back to more simple elements that served as starting points for his inquiries. But his reductive method also impoverished these domains in important ways, for it tended to restrict geometry to the study of straight line segments, physics to the study of ambiguously constituted bits of matter in motion, and metaphysics to the study of the isolated, incorporeal knower. This book examines in detail the negative and positive impact of Descartes's method on his scientific and philosophical enterprises, exemplified by the Geometry, the Principles, the Treatise of Man, and the Meditations.