SOURCE: "Descartes' Philosophy of Science and the Scientific Revolution," in The Cambridge Companion to Descartes, edited by John Cottingham, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 258–85.

In the following essay, Clarke examines the epistemological and metaphysical underpinnings of Descartes' philosophy of science, contrasting it with scholasticism.

Descartes' concept of science can be understood only by paying careful attention to the historical context in which it was constructed. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century involved two related developments: a change in scientific practice (or, more accurately, a whole series of such changes) which is reflected in the founding of new scientific societies such as the Royal Society and the Académie royale des sciences, and a complementary change in how natural philosophers described the kind of knowledge that resulted from the new scientific practices. Descartes contributed to both developments. He shared this distinction with such eminent figures as Galileo Galilei, Francis...