Townsend Center for the Humanities

Traditions of Conversion historicizes and texturizes Descartes' conversion with a vibrant inquiry into early modern European conversion narratives. In the end, Grafton effectively troubles Descartes' self-portrait as the embodiment of disembodied reason with an examination of Descartes' autobiographical notes, which record that the foundations of his new philosophy lay not in reason but in a dream.