{"id":1774,"date":"2010-06-21T10:43:41","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T14:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/?p=1774"},"modified":"2012-11-12T21:46:38","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T01:46:38","slug":"descartes-bones-by-russell-shorto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2010\/descartes-bones-by-russell-shorto","title":{"rendered":"Descartes&#8217; Bones by Russell Shorto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1775\" title=\"descartes-bones\" src=\"http:\/\/richard.rathe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/descartes-bones.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/descartes-bones.jpg 241w, https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/descartes-bones-150x124.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 241px) 85vw, 241px\" \/>This entertaining little book sheds light on many subjects. First, it is a concise biography of the life and ideas of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rene_Descartes\" target=\"_blank\">Ren\u00e9 Descartes<\/a>.\u00a0He outlines how Descartes&#8217;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Discourse_on_the_Method\" target=\"_blank\">Discourse on the Method<\/a> led to the birth of the modern era. He also gives a clear overview of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mind-body_dichotomy\" target=\"_blank\">Cartesian Dualism<\/a> and why we struggle with it to this day.<\/p>\n<p>Second, this is a compelling <strong>detective story<\/strong>\u2014tracing the mysterious path of Descartes&#8217; remains from one European capital to another and how he became a &#8220;<strong>secular saint<\/strong>&#8221; whose bones were treated as holy relics.<\/p>\n<p>The final chapters attempt to tie up loose ends. The author speculates on why <strong>Descartes&#8217; skull<\/strong> has come down to us while the rest of his bones were lost. He introduces us to several modern Cartesians and explains why Descartes remains one of the most influential thinkers to this day. He concludes by addressing\u00a0the perennial\u00a0struggle\u00a0between <strong>faith and reason<\/strong>, a conflict that Descartes helped create and ultimately transcend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This entertaining little book sheds light on many subjects. First, it is a concise biography of the life and ideas of Ren\u00e9 Descartes.\u00a0He outlines how Descartes&#8217;\u00a0Discourse on the Method led to the birth of the modern era. He also gives a clear overview of Cartesian Dualism and why we struggle with it to this day. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/2010\/descartes-bones-by-russell-shorto\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Descartes&#8217; Bones by Russell Shorto&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,20,8,47,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-people","category-reviews","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1774"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3833,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1774\/revisions\/3833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmangrove.org\/rathe.org\/richard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}