Descartes did not develop a "phenomenology" in the way later thinkers like Husserl, Heidegger, or Merleau-Ponty did—but it’s fair to speak of a proto-phenomenology in his method of doubt, and a dualistic ontology that shaped centuries of Western thought. Let’s split this carefully.
🧠 DESCARTES’ ONTOLOGY: DUALISM
At the heart of Descartes’ metaphysical system is substance dualism:
🧍♂️ 1. Res extensa – “Extended Thing”
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The realm of matter and space.
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It is measurable, divisible, locatable—subject to mechanical laws.
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This is the world of bodies, machines, and external nature.
🧠 2. Res cogitans – “Thinking Thing”
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The realm of mind, consciousness, will, doubt, understanding.
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It is non-spatial, indivisible, and immediate to itself.
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The ego cogito—“I think, therefore I am”—locates being in thinking.
This is Cartesian dualism: two substances with entirely different attributes, yet somehow interacting (a problem he struggled to resolve).
“From the mere fact that I think, I know that I exist.”
— Meditations on First Philosophy
👁️ DESCARTES’ PHENOMENOLOGY: METHODICAL DOUBT
Though Descartes doesn’t use the word “phenomenology,” his first-person method and focus on conscious awareness prefigures it.
🪞 What he does:
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Suspends all beliefs that can be doubted (epoché in Husserlian terms).
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Seeks a foundation that cannot be shaken: cogito ergo sum.
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Starts from subjective experience, particularly of thinking and doubting.
In this way, Descartes treats the thinking subject as the starting point of knowledge, and his meditations resemble a phenomenological reduction: bracketing the external world to focus on what remains immediately present to consciousness.
But unlike Husserl or Heidegger:
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Descartes reaffirms metaphysical dualism, whereas phenomenologists often seek to overcome it.
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He privileges clarity and distinctness, reducing experience to what can be known with certainty—thus repressing ambiguity, temporality, embodiment.
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He sees the mind as transparent to itself, not riddled with opacity or historicity.
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