More specifically concerning: descartes
dreamer awake
20 April 2023, around 8.34.
Sed laboriosum est hoc institutum, & desidia quaedam ad consuetudinem vitae me reducit. Nec aliter quàm captivus, qui forte imaginariâ libertate fruebatur in somnis, cùm postea suspicari incipit se dormire, timet excitari, blandisque illusionibus lente connivet: sic sponte relabor in veteres opiniones, vereorque expergisci, ne placidae quieti laboriosa vigilia succedens, non in aliquâ luce, sed […]
word to the wise
2 June 2025, around 13.10.
In the case of most books, once we have read a few lines and looked at a few of the diagrams, the entire message is perfectly obvious. The rest is added only to fill up the paper. —Descartes (Early Writings, trans. Cottingham et al., p. 2) woh of word oðer of werc —Ancrene Wisse (f.50b […]
regularities
5 June 2025, around 18.27.
If in the series of things to be examined we come across something which our intellect is unable to intuit sufficiently well, we must stop at that point, and refrain from the superfluous task of examining the remaining items. —Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind, trans. Cottingham et al., Rule 8) Trouble getting […]
dubiety
10 June 2025, around 8.09.
We are almost all blind curators, reluctant or otherwise unable to believe that things can change. We mistake the reality in which we are used to living for nature, for an order of things that it would perhaps be desirable but ingenuous to hope to change. We mistake the facade of what’s real for the […]