Abstract

Most works about Descartes have explicitly provided a mathematical image of the world in his metaphysics. A descriptive analysis of how Descartes describes nature through mathematics and enters exact sciences into natural philosophy has not been provided, because philosophical circles have neglected his scientific and mathematical works and have more considered his metaphysical works. Some scholars have, even, regard Descartes’s philosophizing as independent from his scientific works, while delicate points of his mathematical thinking has exerted influence on all his metaphysical works, which will be neglected if his mathematical works are not studied. The present paper seeks to review Descartes’s path to achieve a mathematical image of the world through studying the intricacies of his scientific and mathematical works and show how such an insight to nature regards man as dominant over the world, able to possess and change it.