HoP 467 Written in Mathematics: Descarte...

Pierre Bayle argues that religious disagreements should be tolerated and that there are powerful arguments against monotheism, even as some contemporaries embrace outright atheism. 

Go to www.glennadamson.com to find out more about Glenn's books including A Century of Tomorrows 

Is Pierre Bayle’s pioneering reference work, the Historical and Critical Dictionary, a monument to skepticism or to fideism? 

<p>On René Descartes's <em>Discourse on Method</em> (1637), an overview of his work that distills his method, outlines his famous <em>Meditations</em>, presents a provisional (Stoic) ethics, and considers whether he wants to be a public intellectual. This is all meant as a prefac ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the mind/body problem in philosophy. At the start of René Descartes' Sixth Meditation he writes: "there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and mind is entirely indivisible. For when I consid ... Show More

The use of diagrams in geometry raise questions about the place of the physical, the sensory, the human in mathematical reasoning. Multiple sources of evidence speak to how these dilemmas were tackled in antiquity: the linguistics of diagram construction, the state of drawings in ... Show More

Kant developed a philosophy of geometry that explained how geometry can be both knowable in pure thought and applicable to physical reality. Namely, because geometry is built into not only our minds but also the way in which we perceive the world. In this way, Kant solved the app ... Show More

There's a story told about French philosopher René Descartes and his daughter. He boards a ship for a voyage over the North Sea with a large wooden box which he insists be handled with such great care that the sea captain’s curiosity is aroused. When Descartes is out of his cabin ... Show More

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the problems of consciousness, one of the greatest mysteries facing science and philosophy today. The frustrations, the stubborn facts and the curiosities of today’s thinkers, philosophers, physicists and psychologists, demonstrate the elusiveness, ... Show More

How to use the instruments to draw geometrical figures