The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution: Descartes, Pascal, Leibniz, and the Cultivation of Virtue
Jones, Matthew L. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
Amid the unrest, dislocation, and uncertainty of
seventeenth-century Europe, readers seeking consolation and assurance
turned to philosophical and scientific books that offered ways of
conquering fears and training the mind—guidance for living a good life. <i>The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution</i> presents a triptych
showing how three key early modern scientists, René Descartes, Blaise
Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz, envisioned their new work as useful for
cultivating virtue and for pursuing a good life. Their scientific and
philosophical innovations stemmed in part from their understanding of
mathematics and science as cognitive and spiritual exercises that could
create a truer mental and spiritual nobility.nbsp; In portraying the
rich contexts surrounding Descartes’ geometry, Pascal’s arithmetical
triangle, and Leibniz’s calculus, Matthew L. Jones argues that this
drive for moral therapeutics guided important developments of early
modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution.