DANIEL, Gabriel; DEFOE, Daniel (formerly attrib.).

£2,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

A Voyage to The World of Cartesius. First edition in English of this entertaining critique of Cartesian philosophy, formerly attributed to Daniel Defoe. The Voyage, recounting a journey through Cartesian space, draws out several aspects of Descartes's thought.As a French Jesuit, royal historian, and polemicist, Gabriel Daniel (1649-1728) had several reasons to write a narrative satire of famed philosopher. In the Voyage, the disembodied soul of Descartes travels to and beyond the moon, to build a world from the unformed matter that his philosophy tells him he must find there. In weaving this tale, Daniel criticizes Cartesian mind-body dualism, vortices, and the material uniformity of the physical world. For Justin E. H. Smith, this blends the line between satire and treatise: "We also see in the Voyage an accurate reflection of some of the most important implications of Descartes's thought" (p. 11).Defoe's frequently clandestine approach to publication, and his ability to write persuasively on any side of an issue, has resulted in an ever-changing "canon." By the late 19th century, when this work was rebound, almost 400 titles were assigned to Defoe. This is nearly 300 more than listed in the first (1790) bibliography of his work, where the Voyage is entered (as "undoubtedly De Foe's") on page 71.The translation was undertaken (and the epistle signed) by Thomas Taylor (1669/70-1735), then at Magdalen College, Oxford. The attribution to Defoe is perhaps easiest to understand i

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