commands us to detach ourselves from corporeal things: 8) the idea of “endless darkness”, which separates us from the earth itself, causing us to think that “all the heavens were created to serve the earth alone, and that the earth exists only for man,” 4) the idea that governs our actions—the basis of our attitude towards universal society and to the Evil World. And about such ideas, Descartes really speaks, papomipayaya However, that “each of us is a person, separated from others, whose interests, therefore, are in some way different from the interests of the rest.”
") However, this reminds us of the interest in sounding something alien to Cartesian intellectualism. For all of Descartes's attention is focused on the study of moral judgments, and not moral feelings. Then, human nature is not only intellectual, but also emotional.
Questions of ethics rejected Descartes with the danger of their subject, which was still entirely under the control of religion. He dealt with them casually, answering questions from his large circle of correspondent friends. Even before that, he was engaged in “the affairs of sovereigns and dignitaries,” i.e., politics. It is not wrong, however, to recognize the indirect significance of Descartes, according to
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— 59 bearing on the direction that interests us, as the future methodologist of political individualism. He indicated the spiritual core of the individual as a cognizing being independent of the religious traitor. The reason of the individual, according to Descartes, is the only criterion for evaluating political forms. The political form, as an ideal to which one should strive, can be constructed mathematically. His discussion of the method of establishing a completely new principle, which will find wide application in subsequent political philosophy. This methodological principle is that the explanation of the whole must come from the explanation of the parts. Here it is easy to discern the individualism of subsequent theories of natural law.
Descartes did not apply his principle to politics. But for his time he achieved more. He created the concept of the spiritual, epistemological individual, which later became the basis for constructing the concept of the political individual, this atom of the state contract. He freed the epistemological individual and thereby prepared the way for the liberation of the political individual, who, in his opinion, was still entirely dependent on “sovereigns and dignitaries.”
To understand the full importance of the new methodological principle proclaimed by Descartes of explaining the world by parts and, consequently, the state by the individual, it is necessary to remember that the medieval philosophy of the state did not come out of the Aristotelian tradition (monarchy, aristocracy, republic-democracy.) It added to it only the idea of the kingdom of heaven, as a criterion for the comparative assessment of political, secular states. forms It always proceeded from the Aristotelian theory: man is a political animal. Therefore, all the attention of the legal philosophers of antiquity and the Middle Ages was concentrated on
1) See further chap. about philosophy of enlightenment.
rt UR C h a i
— 213 focused on the question: what is the social form and its structure to which a person belongs? A concrete description of such forms and their cyclical transition from one to another (the theory of transformation)—this is all the content of political teachings up to and including the Middle Ages, over which Ipa is the satsai! the ileia of perkva and the heavenly kingdom was based. This content is material for compilers even in the 17th century. (Klassen from Helmstedt: Ro sae sotrepaii - 1650 - according to Aristotle, Neppis Agivaens: Yuosisha roisa w Apzuoey $ she'oit gedisa; Alz. 1651. Nogpe: orega dew. Egapsogyo. Rlegte (Segshepa Pe tesyoa hespogit her tag RaBNsagim etanizegabope, Chediye rusheriii shogImz. 1623. etc.) In this fascination with forms lies a partly erroneous view, which has passed into the philosophy of the state of modern times, which consists in the fact that only the political form can destroy social evil.