Talk:Cartesian anxiety

The older versions are better
The original version is as follows:

"Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, since René Descartes posited his influential form of body-mind dualism, Western civilization has suffered from a longing for ontological certainty, or feeling that scientific methods, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self" as different from "other".

I've often copied that text verbatim in online debates, and it is succinct and accurate - went to the trouble of taking the book it referred to out of the library to validate it. Jeeprs (talk) 03:40, 25 October 2022 (UTC)