The Conversation that Descartes had with Burman on April 16, 1648 sheds light on the meaning of the phrase ens reale, which was common in modern scholastic treatises but unusual under his pen, and thus on the Cartesian concept of realitas. Ens verum et reale, such is the object of mathematics: no less real than that of physics, even if it does not exist out of the mind and requires imagination. As for the object of metaphysics, if it is no (...) less real than that of physics and mathematics, it is both existent and unimaginable. The answers given by Descartes that are examined here are significant samples which in addition show the need to re-edit the Conversation in the light of Clauberg's Opera. (shrink)

In the Pensées, Pascal uses the astonishing phrase “the reality of things” to designate, not the actual existence of things, but the being-thing of all things (in accordance with the meaning of the Latin realitas rerum). It will be established that with this phrase, although it is of Cartesian origin, the analysis of “Disproportion of Man” aims at a criticism of the Cartesian ratio formalis infiniti sive infinitas, which Pascal shows not to be suitable to think God, but only to (...) describe and name nature asthe totality of thinkable objects. (shrink)

Analyse dans la pensée de Descartes, la distinction entre la vérité dans les sciences qui se dévoile au fil de sa recherche, et l'essence de la vérité.

La signification de la mathesis universalis des Regulae se confond avec la question historiquement disputée de la priorité de la méthode sur la métaphysique. Cette difficulté, exemplairement consignée dans l'interprétation husserlienne de Descartes, est levée lorsqu'on constate que Descartes n'a cessé — du Discours jusqu'aux Meditationes — d'affirmer la primauté constitutive de la méthode sur les sciences, métaphysique comprise, conformément au projet de la mathesis universalis. Ainsi se trouve institué un écart définitif entre le commencement méthodique et le fondement métaphysique (...) dont le sens strictement non-méthodologique de la Regula generalis est l'indice. In the Regulae, the meaning of the mathesis universalis merges with the vexed question throughout history wether method should take priority over metaphysics. This difficulty, exemplarily enshrined in Husserl's interpretation of Descartes, is removed once it is notice that Descartes — from the Discourse to Meditationes — kept asserting the constitutive primacy of method over sciences, metaphysics included, in keeping with the project of the mathesis universalis. Thus a definitive gap between the methodological starting point and metaphysical foundation happens to be instituted, gap of which the strictly non-methodological meaning of the Regula generalis is a hint. (shrink)