CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

We have talked about two of the ways Delphine distinguishes as answers to the question: what is being Cartesian? The first was to return to what Descartes recognized as his own, particularly in the ?margins? of his work: added prefaces, replies to objections, letters. The third, in giving the floor to some of his detractors, because they also collaborated in the establishment of a philosophical identity. The novelty of our path was to give the floor to the skeptics, that is, to adversaries who are always present ?all Cartesian metaphysics is an attempt to defeat them? and yet they are never mentioned by their proper names. We have given them a plausible name and a plausible face: those of François de La Mothe Le Vayer.To observe more closely the differences between Le Vayer and Descartes, we proposed three subjects: the style of writing, the conception of reason and the differences between human beings and animals. In the three, as we saw, the differences are manifest, and, mainly in the last two cases, we might well think of an implicit dispute or controversy. Thus, if the adversaries contributed to defining Cartesianism, Le Vayer, by opposition, teaches us that being a Cartesian is, at least, defending a systematic philosophy, founded on the natural light of reason, with its divine guarantee, and establishing an essential difference between the human mens and the animal soul