Descartes Bones: A Skeletal History
of the Conflict between Faith and
Reason by Russell Shorto
I Really Enjoyed This Book!
On a brutal winters day in 1650 in Stockholm, the Frenchman René
Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time, was
buried after a cold and lonely death far from home. Sixteen years later, the
French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed Descartes
bones and transported them to France.
Why would this devoutly Catholic official care so much about the remains
of a philosopher who was hounded from country to country on charges of
atheism? Why would Descartes bones take such a strange, serpentine
path over the next 350 years—a path intersecting some of the grandest
events imaginable: the birth of science, the rise of democracy, the mind-

body problem, the conflict between faith and reason? Their story involves
people from all walks of life—Louis XIV, a Swedish casino operator, poets
and playwrights, philosophers and physicists, as these people used the
bones in scientific studies, stole them, sold them, revered them as relics,
fought over them, passed them surreptitiously from hand to hand.
The answer lies in Descartes’ famous phrase: Cogito ergo sum—I think,
therefore I am. In his deceptively simple seventy-eight-page essay,
Discourse on the Method, this small, vain, vindictive, peripatetic, ambitious
Frenchman destroyed 2,000 years of received wisdom and laid the
foundations of the modern world. At the root of Descartes’ “method” was
skepticism: What can I know for certain? Like-minded thinkers around
Europe passionately embraced the book--the method was applied to
medicine, nature, politics, and society. The notion that one could find truth
in facts that could be proved, and not in reliance on tradition and the
Churchs teachings, would become a turning point in human history.
In an age of faith, what Descartes was proposing seemed like heresy. Yet
Descartes himself was a good Catholic, who was spurred to write his
incendiary book for the most personal of reasons: He had devoted himself
to medicine and the study of nature, but when his beloved daughter died at
the age of five, he took his ideas deeper. To understand the natural world
one needed to question everything. Thus the scientific method was created
and religion overthrown. If the natural world could be understood,
knowledge could be advanced, and others might not suffer as his child did.
The great controversy Descartes ignited continues to our era: where
Islamic terrorists spurn the modern world and pine for a culture based on
unquestioning faith; where scientists write bestsellers that passionately
make the case for atheism; where others struggle to find a balance
between faith and reason.
Descartes’ Bonesis a historical detective story about the creation of the
modern mind, with twists and turns leading up to the present day—to the
science museum in Paris where the philosopher’s skull now resides and to
the church a few kilometers away where, not long ago, a philosopher-priest
said a mass for his bones.
Personal Review: Descartes Bones: A Skeletal History of the
Conflict between Faith and Reason by Russell Shorto
This is a really fascinating book.

The author first introduces the reader to the philosophy of Descartes and
why he was the most influential thinker of his time.
Descartes argued that in order for our society to advance, we must give up
believing in religion and superstitions. He did not say he did not believe in
a God, but simply that God does not or is unable to interfere in the day to
day life of individuals. Furthermore, though there is a God, religion is man
made and the way we think of God is all wrong. In order for real progress,
humanity must give up religion. For this reason, many thought of
Descartes as the father of atheism.
Descartes, however, cannot be thought of as an atheist for he believed in a
God. In `Meditationes' (Meditation), he writes, "Agnoscam fieri non posse
ut existam talis naturae qualis sum, nempe ideam Dei in me habens, nisi
revera Deus etiam existeret, Deus, inquam, ille idem cujus idea in me est."
(I could not possibly exist with the nature I actually have, that is, one
endowed with the idea of God, unless there really is a God; the very God, I
mean, of whom I have an idea.)
Ever wonder why humanity progressed at almost an exponential rate in the
last 150 years? Suddenly, in the span of 150 years, we have discovered
electricity; we have gone to the moon; sent satellites to the edge of our
universe; fly routinely in space; introduced personal computers in every
home; fly at the speed of sound etc... Some say man has walked on Earth
for millions of years; others say man walked on Earth for hundred of
thousands of years. Whatever may be the case, why is it that in only the
last 150 years did we see this rapid progress in technology? Could it be
because men like Descartes changed our way of thinking on how to view
ourselves in this vast universe? Is it because we have been slowly
abandoning religion? Does religion impede progress? These are questions
you will be asking yourself throughout the book. Each reader will come up
with his own conclusion, for the author does not attempt to give one.
Descartes certainly changed our way of thinking, and for this reason many
consider him the father of our progress (both technological and spiritual).
However, the book is not only on the philosophy of Descartes, but on his
bones as well.
When Descartes was buried, his head went missing (Einstein's brain was
also taken). Though Descartes was against superstitions and human
worship, it is ironic that his head was taken for the very reasons he did not
believe in and discouraged. During his time, jewelry were made from the
bones of famous people, and many collected the bones of famous people.
Why was the skull of Descartes taken, and by whom? Why were other
bones missing too? The author follows the bones of Descartes in a
detective like fashion, tracing our history and its progress behind the trail
left by Descartes' bones.

When the skull of Descartes appeared in a museum, many questioned
whether it was really the head of Descartes. After all, all skulls look alike.
The author describes the detective work that finally determined the
authenticity of the skull.
This was a very entertaining book and I really enjoyed reading it. Though I
always knew Descartes to be a a great mathematician and philosopher, I
never knew his influence in changing our way of thinking (I must have
been sleeping during philosophy 101). Of course today many know
Descartes for his famous saying, "I think, therefore I am." The simple
meaning of the phrase is that if someone is wondering whether or not he
exists, that is in and of itself proof that he does exist (because, at the very
least, there is an "I" who is doing the thinking).
Interestingly, Descartes never put it in that way (i.e. in that order of words).
What he really wrote was, "that the proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily
true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind."
(Meditation II.) In his belief in his own existence he finds it is impossible to
doubt that he exists.
He also wrote in `Discours de la methode' (Discourse on Method), "Je pris
garde que, pendant que je voulais ainsi penser que tout etait faux, il fallait
necessairement que moi, qui le pensais, fusse quelque chose." (I noticed
that while I was trying to think everything false, it must be that I, who was
thinking this, was something.")
Is mind therefore separate from the body? This is another interesting
question that will challenge you throughout the book.
The skull of Descartes ended up used to settle a scientific debate. It was
believed that the size of the head determines the person's intelligence. In
other words, the bigger the skull, the more intelligent the person. When the
skull of Descartes was found to be rather small, that theory was quickly
abandoned. Even in death Descartes debunked bad science! What a
fascinating book!
To close, Descartes wrote in `Discours de la methode' (Discourse on
Method), "La lecture de tous les bons livres est comme une conversation
avec les plus honnetes gens des siecles passes, qui en ont ete les
auteurs, et meme une conversation etudiee en laquelle ils ne nous
decouvrent que les meilleures de leurs pensees." (The reading of good
books is like a conversation with the best men of past centuries--in fact like
a prepared conversation, in which they reveal their best thoughts.)
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