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{{g}} | {{a|g|[[File:Rene Descartes.jpg|450px|center|thumb|[[Rene Descartes]], yesterday. Or is it?]]}}René Nigel Descartes (1596-1650) was a conveyancer on Provincial Dijon, and that rare thing among land law types: a [[prose stylist]]. Yes, he was one of ''us'', my gorgeous little contrarian friends — fluent in three or four languages, and grew so enraged by loathesome syntax of mid-enlightenment Bourgogne that he set out to change it. His first approach was an attempt to conclusively define the expression “[[for the avoidance of doubt]]”. He never quite got there — the phrase remains a staple of legal eagles to this day — but he did manage to conclusively prove his own existence, at least to his own satisfaction — if you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to... right, [[LinkedIn]] denizens? — and also a Christian deity, the latter being a bit more controversial. | ||
At any rate, remembered today not as a louche mortgageur, but as a ground-breaking metaphysical philosopher who did not say “''[[animadverto ergo scio]]''”, or “''[[scribo non ergo non scribo]]''” much less “''[[nego, ergo advocatum sum]]''” though he might have, and he worried about the reality of [[res extensa]] in a way a [[mediocre lawyer|lawyer]] does not, always. | |||
[[Descartes]]’ work was ineffectually questioned by [[Otto Büchstein]] in his now forgotten ''[[Discourse on Intercourse]]'', who appended to [[cogito ergo sum]] his own aphorism [[convenimus ergo es]], based on the a priori inevitability of [[conference call]]s. | [[Descartes]]’ work was ineffectually questioned by [[Otto Büchstein]] in his now forgotten ''[[Discourse on Intercourse]]'', who appended to [[cogito ergo sum]] his own aphorism [[convenimus ergo es]], based on the a priori inevitability of [[conference call]]s. | ||
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