Some Notes Regarding the Cartesian Foundation in Descartes’ La recherche de la vérité
Alexandre Guimarães Tadeu de Soares
This article aims to reconstruct the conceptual framework set by Descartes in opposition to Aristotelian philosophy. It outlines and comments on fragments from La recherche de la vérité, a dialogue in which a representative of Scholasticism and a Cartesian thinker confront each other. Aristotle is directly addressed in his theoretical kernel, which allows a radical refl ection on the principle of non-contradiction and on the notion of principle itself. As a result of this analysis, we may characterize two modes of understanding the status of philosophy or metaphysics, which displays a “founding” function according to both Aristotle’s and Descartes’s followers and. However, for the former this function is merely logical, whereas in Descartes metaphysics performs this task in the full sense of the word.
Keywords: Descartes · foundation · La recherche de la vérité · Aristotle
Alexandre Guimarães Tadeu de Soares – Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (Federal University of Uberlandia) (Brazil), member of the Brazilian Academy of Philosophy, member of the Modern and Contemporary Philosophy Study Center of the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (State University of Campinas), correspondent for Brazil of the Bulletin Cartésien and author of O filósofo e o autor (The Philosopher and the author) and of other studies regarding the History of Modern Philosophy and metaphysical problems.
The journal founded by Leszek Kołakowski, Bronisław Baczko and Jan Garewicz appears continuously since 1957.
