Descartes' Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason

History of Rene Descartes and the influence of the cartesian school throughout the last 350 years!!!

The premise was an interesting one, the history surrounding the remains of Descartes. Descartes didn't himself feature in the book but, again, the remains or consequences of what he started did. Finding out a tad more about Descartes, such as hurling an insult at Pascal, (really??!), having a love affair, a child, and a rather substantial arrogance regarding his own...more

The premise was an interesting one, the history surrounding the remains of Descartes. Descartes didn't himself feature in the book but, again, the remains or consequences of what he started did. Finding out a tad more about Descartes, such as hurling an insult at Pascal, (really??!), having a love affair, a child, and a rather substantial arrogance regarding his own intelligence-was interesting. But the world of science after Descartes is the true subject of this book, and the culmination of a problem we still have today...between the seen and unseen...physical and spiritual worlds. I can't agree with Shorto's conclusion he proposes will unite these two camps and the "majority of people in the middle" are to come to a peaceful resolution by stating that both sides must accept that they do not possess absolute truth. I feel this would be an impossible solution since both sides function on the fundamental belief that they possess this absolute truth. To accept that they do not, invites doubt and can crumble the entire foundation of one's existence and belief! Radicals, who cause so many problems are radical for a reason. His solution depends on rational, agreeable, and understading people. In short, the ones who already get along this way now. All in all it was a interesting sometimes strange walk through the halls of historical science. It is difficult to fully appreciate how mysterious the human body must have been only a few hundred years before. I could not imagine not possessing a rudimentary understanding of how the body and brain operates. Science has uncovered a lot of information about how things actually work, but in no way can I see this causing religion to be irrelevant.   hide

I wanted to like this book more than I did. While Shorto has clearly researched his subject thoroughly, his practically encyclopedic history of Descartes' influence on other great minds of the time sometimes got mired in distracting detail. The mystery of the philosopher's peripatetic skull was quite interesting, along with various speculations on what happened and why. I'd recommend...more

I wanted to like this book more than I did. While Shorto has clearly researched his subject thoroughly, his practically encyclopedic history of Descartes' influence on other great minds of the time sometimes got mired in distracting detail. The mystery of the philosopher's peripatetic skull was quite interesting, along with various speculations on what happened and why. I'd recommend the book as a quick way to get a broad sense of the history and influence of Descartes and other philosophical/political celebrities of the time.   hide

I thought it lacked a coherent and specific thesis. It contained a bundle of interesting ideas, none of which seemed particularly attributable to the author, but which were, nevertheless, well cited. I'm not entirely certain what R Shorto's real point was, and this is a short book so you'd think that it would be easy to determine, but I believe that he became sidetracked along his...more

I thought it lacked a coherent and specific thesis. It contained a bundle of interesting ideas, none of which seemed particularly attributable to the author, but which were, nevertheless, well cited. I'm not entirely certain what R Shorto's real point was, and this is a short book so you'd think that it would be easy to determine, but I believe that he became sidetracked along his trail of quotes and anecdotes, and fundamentally corners himself into defending a rather watered down and over expansive "Descartes --> modernity!" trope that is so prevalent as to have become a meme. This isn't anything revolutionary- so the book becomes a little like an undergrad paper fleshed out with a gimmicky detective spin concerning the whereabouts and origins of Descartes' putative skull. This story is interesting in of itself, but I suppose the circumstantiality of the "facts" and their arrangement requires something more than history. This "something," the thesis (that is, "Descartes = modernity") occupies twenty pages in the introduction, another thirty in the conclusion, and pops up every ten pages or so throughout as Shorto strives to shove his interesting factoids, suppositions, etc, into said idea. The problem is that it rarely works; the conclusion should seem evident from the author's description of the evidence- yet, in this book, the relationship is either reversed, with the possibility of the conclusion justifying the evidence, or, worse, evidence and conclusion juxtaposed without any explicit or implicit relationship. Unfortunately most of the book followed the latter pattern. I believe that Shorto should have dropped his philosophical agenda and focused entirely on reconstructing history, for these sections shine with enthusiasm and warrant, while the abstract manifesto hovers, detached, overhead. Come to think of it, the book is thus dualistic- there is history, fact, and philosophy, logic. The two occupy a similar space, but whatever connects them eludes. In this case, as in Descartes', such separation becomes a problem.   hide