The Correspondence of René Descartes: A Philosophy that Takes too Many Liberties?
René Descartes, Corespondenţa completă. Vol.I. 1607-1638, ed. Vlad Alexandrescu, trans.
Vlad Alexandrescu, Robert Arnăutu, Robert Lazu, Călin Cristian Pop, Mihai-Dragoş
Vădana, Grigore Vida (Iaşi: Polirom, 2014), ISBN- 978-973-46-4245-8, 858 pp.
Oana ŞERBAN
Considered an intimate instrument of expressing ideas and arguing different theoretical stances, Descartes’ philosophical correspondence is widely recognised as a solid introduction to the historical and scientific aspects of his significantly writings.
Nevertheless, the epistolary tradition associated with the Cartesian corpus of philosophical texts reveals a privileged access to certain problems claimed by the Republic of Letters, placing Descartes’ intellectual attitudes as reactionary approaches of major European events, such as Galileo Galilei’s condemnation by the Inquisition, arousing a high caution in launching potential contradictory thesis to the dogma of the Catholic Church, or the successful experiments of Pascal, that created a compatible scientific area with Descartes’ assumptions from The Principles of Philosophy.