Download or read book Descartes and the Enlightenment written by Peter A. Schouls and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 1989-02-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Schouls limits himself to a discussion of these three concepts in order to escape facile and vague generalizations. For the same reason, in relating Descartes to eighteenth-century thinkers, Schouls limits his attention to a single part of the spectrum of acknowledged Enlightenment reflection, the French "philosopes." From their writings he demonstrates that they are, and acknowledge themselves to be, Descartes' progeny.