Original scientific paper
DESCARTES' CULPABILITY
Rade Kalanj
; Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb
Abstract
The paper problematizes the issue of "Descartes' culpability" for the techno-scientific reduction of the concept of nature, and master and possessor like relation towards nature. The pointing out of his "culpability" is an ordinary and unavoidable part of all contemporary philosophical and sociological reconstructions of modernity. In environmental thought Descartes is (as well as Bacon) that theoretician who has - due to his dualism, mechanicism and anthropocentric rationalism - pre-established the environmental crisis and its consequences. In a word - he is held to be responsible for turning the modern culture against nature. However, such interpretations of Descartes are stereotypical and unjust. They isolate his thought out of the 17th century context, disregard his crucial importance for the shaping of scientific (and, consequently, environmental) worldview. Descartes has frequently been ascribed attitudes that he never hold. Such interpretations deny an important methodic component of the environmental science. The paper is not an apology of Descartes, but an attempt to establish his proper place in the history of the development of environmental science, critique and ideology.
Keywords
tree of knowledge; dualism; useful science; mechanicism; metaphysics; rationalistic anthropocentrism; universal science
Hrčak ID:
141393
URI
Publication date:
15.9.1995.
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