Proof

"In the fourth part of the Discourse, Descartes returns to the main thrust of his development of a philosophy. He starts with his methodical doubt: I doubt, or negate, everything that cannot be proven in a mathematical way, he says. So what can Descartes prove? Everything is taken to be false. But Descartes, the person, is doing this doubting. So one thing can be deduced as true: Descartes exists. Otherwise, he could not doubt. Thus, from the negation of everything, a proof is derived of the existence of the person doing the doubting. This is the most brilliant deduction in the history of Western thought."

--Amir D. Aczel, Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe, 2005

nestled in the modern mind

"Greek thinkers in the classical period, though they set no bounds to the daring of their thought, and though their wild speculations could easily lead to thoroughgoing scepticism, were yet too healthy-minded to entertain seriously either the problem of the existence of the 'outside' world or its specialized version, the reality of other persons. It was Descartes, the 'father of modern philosophy', who neatly chopped the whole human person into a knowing subject and a known object, that sired the rogue twins.

"Doubt for Descartes was a methodological stance, but the thought that all of the world around us could conceivably be a delusion or a dream, which Descartes introduced simply as a thought experiment, nestled in the modern mind, so that there is hardly any major philosopher during the past four centuries who has not had to grapple with it."

--D.R. Khashaba, "Subjectivism and Solipsism"

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Epiography of The Steppe

New Amazon list of the sources for the epiography of The Steppe.

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The Steppe #1

I am, I exist.

—Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

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Descartes in Ulaanbaatar

All winter, I walked passed three copies of this portrait of Descartes taped to a sign for a photo shop on the sidewalk on Peace Avenue. I often wondered how many people on the streets of Ulaanbaatar recognized the founder of modern Western philosophy.