The Circular Ruins
The end of his meditations was sudden, though it was foretold in certain signs. First (after a long drought) a faraway cloud on a hill, light and rapid as a bird; then, toward the south, the sky which had the rose color of the leopard's mouth; then the smoke which corroded the metallic nights; finally, the panicky flight of the animals. For what was happening had happened many centuries ago.
~Jorge Luis Borges
Descartes' Fate
and Closing comments
Generally speaking, Descartes' foundationalist project is considered a failure by philosophers. This is true in his own day, as can be seen in the case of Thomas Hobbes, as well as today—a time when new epistemic theories are more prevalent. This is part of a general trend of moving more and more towards testable claims. This is a type of thinking that is generally referred to as the scientific worldview, although we've been calling it positivism in this class.
However, the transition to engaging primarily with testable (positivist) claims is incomplete. In fact, there has been much push-back. For example, Aristotelianism survived in biology up until the time of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace (see DeWitt chapter 29 and 30; Barrett 2017). Today, some anti-empirical sociological views are very fashionable, even among non-academics (Campbell 2024). Clearly, some ideas die hard.
The same could be said for Descartes' notion that the emotions are lesser than the intellect. First of all, the work of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio dispels the notion that emotion and reason are completely separate, a notion that is Kant’s as much as it is Descartes’ error. Moreover, emotion may itself be a kind of information-processing (see Damasio 2005).
Intellectually, the road ahead will not be easy. This is a point touched on by both historian of science Richard DeWitt and theoretical physicist Roland Omnès: that we are past the intuitive when it comes to scientific knowledge. We are analogy-less, metaphor-less. The findings of science will continue to be less and less intuitive. Some think this is necessarily a bad thing; I see it as an opportunity to restructure society, to change the culture so that we are all more scientifically-literate.
Much like the people of the 17th century were living through a transitional period, we might be seeing the collapse of one or more worldviews. Oddly enough, it's tough to say which worldviews are at risk. We seem more fragmented than ever. Not only is there a complete lack of political unity, we can also mourn the lack of intellectual unity. Philosophy and science used to be connected, but the push for formalism in science rendered it so technical that, today, only the initiated understand it. Philosophers stopped looking over the shoulders of scientists, stopped interpreting and understanding science. The population became even more distanced from scientific understanding. Now belief in conspiracy theories is rampant, scientific literacy is low, it feels like we can't agree on what "truth" is, and it sometimes feels like we're going to tear each other apart... Interestingly enough, philosophy began during a time of social upheaval, crisis, and war. Philosophy might be dead now, but, perhaps, it may soon start up again.
