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Showing posts from June, 2012

Middle Ground

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My second son was born earlier this week.  Like most people who have babies, I started thinking about the future as I stared at him.   I also had the opportunity to read more this week, and I finished a book started earlier in the month. In  Descartes' Bones  we learn how rationalist philosopher Rene Descartes' remains traveled through Europe and the centuries.  Descartes is most famously known for the Latin phrase  cogito, ergo sum   by which he reduced certain knowledge to, 'Some being of which I am part, is thinking right now.'  Since he began the rationalist journey in his Discourse on Method, Descartes has been dandy and devil to both religious and naturalistic thinkers.  In his own lifetime, he was seen as both a heretic and devout Catholic, often at the same time.  Author Russell Shorto   crafted a fine book with a strong thesis.  He claims to show how Descarte founded modernity by attempting to stay on the middle ground between atheistic rationalism and rel