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The Young Descartes: Nobility, Rumor and War

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Rene Descartes is best known as the man who coined the phrase “I think, therefore I am.” But though he is remembered most as a thinker, Descartes, the man, was no disembodied mind, theorizing at great remove from the worldly affairs and concerns of his time. Far from it. As a young nobleman, Descartes was a soldier and courtier who took part in some of the greatest events of his generation—a man who would not seem out of place in the pages of The Three Musketeers.

In The Young Descartes, Harold J. Cook tells the story of a man who did not set out to become an author or philosopher—Descartes began publishing only after the age of forty. Rather, for years he traveled throughout Europe in diplomacy and at war. He was present at the opening events of the Thirty Years' War in Central Europe and Northern Italy, and was also later involved in struggles within France. Enduring exile, scandals, and courtly intrigue, on his journeys Descartes associated with many of the most innovative free thinkers and poets of his day, as well as great noblemen, noblewomen, and charismatic religious reformers. In his personal life, he expressed love for men as well as women and was accused of libertinism by his adversaries.

These early years on the move, in touch with powerful people and great events, and his experiences with military engineering and philosophical materialism all shaped the thinker and philosopher Descartes became in exile, where he would begin to write and publish, with purpose. But though it is these writings that made ultimately made him famous, The Young Descartes shows that this story of his early life and the tumultuous times that molded him is sure to spark a reappraisal of his philosophy and legacy.

Author: Cook Harold
Publisher: CHICAGO UNIVERSITY PRESS
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9780226462967
Cover: Hardback
Edition Number: 1
Release Year: 2018

Preface


Part 1 Mysteries: Remains of a Hidden Life
Words on Paper
In Search of a Person behind the Words

Part 2 A France of Broken Families
Families
Politiques
Breaking with His Father
Aristocratic Paris
Libertine Paris
A Political Education

Part 3 Gearing Up for War: Mathematical Inspirations
Breda
Military Engineering
Meeting Isaac Beeckman
The Holy Roman Empire
Anxious Dreams
Curious Meetings

Part 4 War and Diplomacy in Europe
Into Bohemia
To Hungary and Disaster
The Baltic and Return to The Netherlands
Again in France
Paris and the Rosicrucian Scare
The Valtellina and Rome

Part 5 The Struggle for France
Problems with the Cardinal
The Campaign for La Rochelle
Confrontation and Departure
The Meetings
Confrontation and Conversation
Becoming a Sectarian
Feeling Threatened
Exile

Part 6 Not Yet Concluded
Chronological Table
List of Early Correspondence and Publications
Acknowledgments
For Further Reading
Notes

Index

Harold J. Cook is John F. Nickoll Professor of History at Brown University. He is author of several books on the early modern period, including Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age and Trials of an Ordinary Doctor: Joannes Groenevelt in Seventeenth-Century London. His recent work has focused mainly on the global entanglements of science and medicine, politics, and economies.

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