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Fiction

Parenthetic Doubt

A newly discovered fragment of an early work by Descartes.

Translator’s Note. The following is translated from a manuscript found beneath the floorboards of a house in the Latin Quarter of Paris, used since 1615 as a brothel. On internal evidence it is ascribed to Descartes, and is believed to be a page from one of his early notebooks. It gives a fascinating insight into the mind and working method of a great philosopher, grappling with the problems that were later to receive their definitive Cartesian solutions in the Discourse on Method and the Meditations. — Andrew Belsey

I was sitting in my room late one night, meditating on what might possibly exist, and trying to write down my scattered thoughts as they occurred to my mind.

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