Christian History Home > Issue 13 > Meeting of the Minds
Meeting of the Minds
Jan Amos Comenius and Rene Descartes
PAUL HEIDEBRECHT AND THE EDITORS | posted 1/01/1987 12:00AM
Rene Descartes (1596–1650), the great philosopher-mathematician from Touraine, France, was Catholic and Jesuit-trained. Like Comenius, he was a realist, but he never integrated the spiritual and the natural; thus he developed his dualistic philosophy. He is generally the first modern rationalist thinker.
In 1642, Descartes met Comenius at Endegeest near Leyden, Holland. The meeting was arranged by Samuel Hartlib, a mutual friend. Comenius was by this time a renowned educationist, Descartes was already a celebrity for his new philosophy. They met, cordially, for four hours, discussing their respective views of reality.
The two were not on the same wavelength. The fact that Descartes was Catholic and Comenius Protestant is not insignificant, but should not be overplayed. It was a conflict of mindsets. Descartes had little use for Comenius’s efforts to integrate spiritual realities with the discoveries of science, nor for his dedication to the pansophic ideal of a unified knowledge, nor for ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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