Fable, Method, and Imagination in Descartes

Abstract

This project began as a doctoral dissertation at DePaul University in Chicago, in particular with a graduate seminar in which I was struck by how strange it seemed that Descartes, the philosopher of clear and distinct ideas, would refer to one of his fundamental works on science, The World, as a fable. To some degree, this fact still seems strange to me. In trying to work out why Descartes would have done this, I discovered a strand of literature on the subject and eventually realized that paying close attention to it could have a significant impact in how we understand the father of modernity.