Descartes’ Philosophy: Historical and Cultural Context
Historical Context of Descartes’ Philosophy
The thought of Descartes developed in the historical context of the first half of the seventeenth century, an era of contrasts, where artistic and cultural splendor (Baroque and Scientific Revolution) coexisted with war and disease. This century saw a mixture of optimism and pessimism. Politically, the dominant trend was instability and war. In Europe, there was a new distribution of forces in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648, “Peace of Westphalia”), in which religious and political interests were intertwined. Descartes participated in it, first on the Protestant side and then on the Catholic side. Following the war, France and England were established as the new powers, coinciding with the decline of the Spanish Empire (under the reign of the last Habsburgs), while in the Netherlands, there was unprecedented economic progress through trade. During this time, absolute monarchy was the form of government that prevailed in most of Europe, reaching its peak in the reign of Louis XIV, with the identification of the monarch with the state. From the socioeconomic point of view, in the seventeenth century, there was a strong development of the bourgeoisie linked to mercantile capitalism, while promoting the expansion of maritime trade and colonial expansion.
Cultural Landscape of the 17th Century
In cultural terms, the seventeenth century is the century of modernity, the century of the Baroque, a century that mixes optimism with pessimism, caution, and doubt. This latter is reflected in art. Spain experienced its “Golden Age” in literature, with playwrights such as Cervantes, Calderón (who reflects a conception of life as a “dream” and “tragedy”), and Lope de Vega, and poets Quevedo and Góngora. In France, the drama of Molière highlighted, and in England, Shakespeare. Baroque painting, characterized by the use of “chiaroscuro,” reached unparalleled heights with Rubens, Rembrandt, Velázquez, and El Greco. Architecture was characterized by excessive ornamentation. Art and religion were responsible for remembering the transience and vanity of life, showing great concern for death (something that would stain everything with existential pessimism). But if anything characterizes this century, it will be the triumph of the Scientific Revolution at the hands of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo (and later, Newton), responsible for a paradigm shift that would upset the view that man had until then of the universe and the place he occupied in it.
Philosophical Developments
From a philosophical point of view, we witness the final decline of Scholasticism and the rise of modern philosophy. Descartes, considered the “father” of it (by placing the “subject” or “I” and “knowledge” at the center of philosophical reflection), gave rise to the “mainstream rationalist” philosophy, in whose ranks include Spinoza and Leibniz. This current bears the mathematical method in order to make philosophy a rigorous science and is characterized by its absolute confidence in human reason as the origin and source of knowledge. According to rationalism, reason has “truths” that do not have their origin in experience (innate truths), thus producing a devaluation of experience. These theses found radical opposition in the “mainstream empiricist” philosophy, a movement born in England and whose representatives may be drawn to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume. Against the rationalists, they were inspired by physics and the experimental method for doing philosophy, and they reported experience as the source and limit of our knowledge. The debate was served.