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title: René Descartes
titleEn: René Descartes
titleRu: Рене Декарт
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description: "French philosopher and mathematician (1596–1650), named in A Confession (1879–82) for knowledge that begins with complete doubt."
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deathDate: "1650-02-11"
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René Descartes (<span lang="ru">Рене Декарт</span>; 1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist and physiologist.[^1]

## In A Confession

[[A Confession]] (<span lang="ru">Исповедь</span>, 1879–82) names him once, in chapter IX. Strictly rational knowledge, "that knowledge which begins, as Descartes's did, with complete doubt about everything", rejects all knowledge taken on faith, builds everything afresh on reason and experience, and can give no reply to the question of life but an indefinite one (IX.7).[^2] See [[Experimental and speculative knowledge]].

The PSS commentary says the reference is to his *Principia philosophiae* (*Principles of Philosophy*), and that Tolstoy read an extract from it in [[Nikolai Strakhov]]'s translation, in Strakhov's article "On the basic concepts of psychology" in the *Journal of the Ministry of Public Education*, 1878, No. 5, pp. 31–35.[^3]

## Open questions

- The commentary dates the *Principia* 1647; that is the year of the French translation, the Latin original being of 1644. Which one Strakhov translated from is not checked.

## Dive provenance

- [1879-1882-a-confession](../works/non-fiction/personal-papers/1879-1882-a-confession/index.md) — the text of A Confession (PSS 23:1–59) and its commentary (PSS 23:515–537); Johan's reader notes of 10 October 2026 asked for this page.

[^1]: <span lang="ru">«Французский философ, математик, механик, физик и физиолог»</span> (Tolstoy Digital, `personList.xml`, person 4258: 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650).

[^2]: <span lang="ru">«строго разумное знание, то знание, которое, как это сделал Декарт, начинает с полного сомнения во всем, откидывает всякое допущенное на веру знание и строит всё вновь на законах разума и опыта»</span> (PSS 23:34, ch. IX). English: Maude.

[^3]: <span lang="ru">«Толстой имеет в виду его сочинение „Principia philosophiae“ („Основания философии“, 1647). Толстой читал выдержку из сочинения Декарта в переводе H. Н. Страхова в его статье „Об основных понятиях психологии“, появившейся в „Журнале Министерства народного просвещения“ 1878, № 5, стр. 31—35»</span> (PSS 23:533, commentary, note 28). English: ours.