Abstract

This chapter explains the relationship between metaphysics and science as expounded by Descartes. The topic includes the effect of concepts of God and soul into the discovery of the scientific method. Metaphysical certainty grounds the rule of evidence in God, who is the source of all truth, and then extends from mathematics to everything so demonstrated in physics, and the knowledge that material things exist. The chapter examines in particular the stages of science's subordination to God, and some of its consequences: What are the meaning and limits of the “fable” of The World? What is the difference between hypotheses, which move toward a conjunction with the real, and the “comparisons” employed in the Essays, which are not based on “principles”? Is the modern notion of a model ruled out, and with what legitimacy?