ABSTRACT
Descartes epitomises-and was widely seen by his contemporaries as having inspired-the enormous social, scientific and even religious
changes taking place in the Enlightenment. When Newton explained to Hooke how it was by standing on the shoulders of giants that he had been able to see further, it was specifically ‘further than Descartes’. No doubt when the ‘Newton of the mind’ longed for by so many contemporary psychologists appears on the scene, he will say much the same thing.
