Entangling and Rupture of Body and Mind For Buildi

Foundations of Science
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-022-09874-w
Entangling and Rupture of Body and Mind for Building

of the Modern Science: Lessons from da Vinci and Descartes
Maira M. Fróes1 · Agamenon R. E. Oliveira2
Accepted: 25 August 2022

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022
Abstract
This article develops some of the many ways in which Leonardo and Descartes, throughout
the prolific period of human valuation from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, seem
to have approached and anchored their seminal contributions on the Cartesian body and
metaphysical mind. While Leonardo masterfully developed an iterative thinking system of
visual design applied to nature and artifacts, Descartes laid the groundwork for methodical
critical thinking in dimensions that ironically ranged from dreams to the controlled narra-
tive, from a deceptive body to a rational man. In an interdisciplinary articulation of histori-
cal and neurobiological leanings, contemporary concepts of the cognitive emotional brain,
led by Damasio as the basis for his conclusions about the "Descartes Error", as well as a
torrent of growing evidence that supports high cognitive abilities in associative processes
mediated by action/body lead us to a re-evaluation today of the legacies of Leonardo and
Descartes, rescuing a scientific mind/brain/body process that underlies the human master-
ing of a universal technology of discourse that would revolutionize science.
Keywords History of science · Neuroepistemology · Embodied cognition
1 Introduction
Remarkable transitions in scientific knowledge have occurred since the Middle Ages, and
expanded as a result of the Renaissance, leading later on to the Scientific Revolution of the
seventeenth century characterized by increasing specialization of science, separating itself
from philosophy and techné, which would later be asserted as art (Cohen, 1985). Our paper
will emphasize the historical tension between the body and mind marking these transitions,
assuming Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and René Descartes (1595–1650) as icons of the
human as an emerging system of access to universal laws. Such tensions are recognized
* Maira M. Fróes
froes@nce.ufrj.br
Agamenon R. E. Oliveira
agamenon.oliveira@lwmail.com.br
1
Graduate Program of History of Sciences and Techniques and Epistemology, Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
2
Polytechnic School, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
M. M. Fróes, A. R. E. Oliveira
at the core of both the emergence of modern science, in the past, and of the return to the
perspective of seeing the body and mind as an indissoluble unity, as affirmed by science in
contemporary times. Both movements had a strong impact on the way we came to recog-
nize timeless, intrinsic, qualities of the human in science.
Axial for the scientific modernization that the world would witness, da Vinci and
Descartes were protagonists of the Italian Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution of
the seventeenth century, respectively, representing distinct, in some ways complementary,
references to mind–body concerns. The foundations of a theoretical scientific revolution
had been established, with the advent of a universal technology of thought applied to the
ideas, interpretational models, and conceptual design which would build scientific knowl-
edge. In addition, the prominent places these two eminent intellectuals occupy in the his-
tory of knowledge are mostly attributable to significantly different strategies for addressing,
through the plenitude of their human conditions, creative interpretations of the universe
which keep reverberating throughout the centuries.
Studies directly and/or indirectly concerning the body by both Leonardo da Vinci and
Descartes, though in very distinct ways, leave no doubt that tension and union between
body and mind were, in many ways, central for revealing the complexity with which crea-
tive conceptions of the way things operate were born and enabled the first attempts to con-
struct a scientific grounding. Also, especially for Descartes, body-mind complexities were
axial in inspiring a clear-cut presentation of the demands for a system of narrative vali-
dation of scientific reasoning, in order to warrant its necessary universality. In Leonardo,
we still find the human body forming a unit, represented in a masterly way through draw-
ings and paintings, in its various dimensions, anatomical, physiological and embryological,
all integrated in a totalizing perspective. In Descartes, the body is already split: the unity
between body and mind is felt, recognized in a first-person perspective, and must be bro-
ken. The mechanical body, instead, was understood by the laws of physics, with no objec-
tion by the church, no one harassed nor persecuted as was Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) or
even Giordano Bruno (1548–1600), at cost of his life. This separation took its toll. Only
now, with the great advances in neurosciences anchored on a strong experimental basis,
has the disembodied conception of mind given place to a solid notion of mind–body unity,
the basis for licensing reason applied to science as operated by a unified thought system.
This remarkable contemporary scientific evidence goes back to Leonardo, while allowing
for the Cartesian qualities of reason, as required for validation of narrative discourse in sci-
ence. Comprehension of a body-mind unity in light of modern science comes with the ben-
efit of a clearer understanding and, thus, more efficient control over the creative thinking
resources available for the improvement of scientific knowledge and for facing the many
challenges to come.
2 Italian Renaissance
The intensification and expansion of trade across the Mediterranean and Western Europe
gave rise to the term Commercial Revolution, covering the period between the tenth and
sixteenth centuries (Thomas, 1979). This was an acceleration of a process that was already
underway and whose characteristics were the emergence of new kingdoms, creating a
demand for luxury goods that also did not stimulate the development of agriculture. The
history of this so-called “Commercial Revolution” was mainly centered on Italy. It was
the dynamic focus of this trade between East and West, with Italian merchants being the
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Entangling and Rupture of Body and Mind for Building of the Modern…
intermediaries in the growth of trade relations between Europe as a whole and Eastern
Byzantine and Muslim. Pisa, Lucca, and Siena were the three major cities that occupied
the front line of this movement at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Florence joined
them to become, at the end of that century, the largest of all. In the midst of these changes,
especially in the expanding urban centers, an astonishing transformation of cultural dimen-
sions took place, the Renaissance, a historical period that expanded and spread through
Europe between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries and marked the transition between
the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Dogmatic authority and rhetoric have gradually
lost strength, giving way to rational conviction and experience, including emerging senso-
rial descriptions, mostly visual, as instrumental to reliable knowledge in natural philosophy
(Isaacson, 2017).
The transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance is very well outlined by Marco
Ceccarelli (2008):
In the Middle Ages, Machines were developed for localized needs and no diffus-
ing occurred so that the expertise was restricted to much closed communities. In the
Renaissance, Society evolved to open world with any type of exchange, Machinery
was also object of merchandise, and technical consulting started to be need. Nev-
ertheless, at the beginning no technical awareness was expressed with professional
dignity, although machines were addressed of great attention in the Bottegas with
specialized pupils and workers. (Ceccarelli, 2008)
In the Italian Renaissance, ancient knowledge from both the Greeks and the Romans took
on an increasing role, inspiring rules for the conduct of thought, the sophistication of tech-
niques, and the exercise of ethics, including that represented by politics (Cohen & Cohen,
2019). It developed and presented its most striking characteristics, especially in the Tus-
cany region, having as main references the cities of Florence and Siena. It later spread
to the south, reaching Rome, which was mostly rebuilt. In the fourteenth century, Flor-
ence became one of the four or five largest cities in Europe, with an estimated population
of approximately 90,000–130,000 inhabitants. Florence, which was not a maritime city,
emerged in this context as an important industrial hub, always aiming at the sophistica-
tion of its products to perfection. Under the protection of the Médicis, an academy dedi-
cated to Platonic studies was founded, concentrating many poets, painters, sculptors, engi-
neers, and architects. In addition, other important figures appear like Mariano di Jacopo
(1382–1453/58), known as Taccola, but also as the “Archimedes of Siena”. His writings
had a great influence on other Italian architects and engineers, including Filippo Bru-
nelleschi (1377–1446), Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501), Leonardo da Vinci
and Antonio da Sangallo (1484–1546). They boosted humanistic ideas, promoting a wide
debate in the cultural field and breaking the monopoly of knowledge, once a privilege of
the Middle Ages’ Church (Thomas, 1979).
The Italian Renaissance was a period of significant cultural achievements and the
emergence of great figures in their fields and specialties. Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374)
and Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) in literature; Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli
(1445–1510), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) and Rafael Sanzio (1483–1520) in
fine arts, and Leon Alberti (1404–1472) and Filippo Bruneleschi (1377–1446) in archi-
tecture. It was also a period of the accelerated development of Humanist and Naturalist
thought, consolidating a favorable scenario for science, arts, and technology. It is important
to highlight the impulse given to mathematics in this period, and its use as an important
tool for commerce and the arts, subsequently boosting various sciences such as cartogra-
phy, topography, trigonometry, algebra, and physics itself (Oliveira, 2019).
13
The valuation of the natural also marks the Italian Renaissance. Previously, the human
body was seen as something despicable, the fruit of sin (Le Goff & Truong, 2006). The
aversion to the body, which had been a fundamental characteristic of religious culture,
was gradually softened, superseded by a naturalist position that has not been allowed
since Greco-Roman art. Since the end of the Middle Ages, anatomical knowledge had
been undergoing a revision, as can be seen in the books by the surgeons Theodorico
Borgogni (1205–1298) and Guilhermo de Saliceto (1215–1280), in addition to classes,
taught at the University of Bologna by Tadeo de Florencia (1223–1303) and Remandino
de Luzzi (1275–1336), together with the dissection of corpses, released by Pope Sixtus
IV (1414–1484), in his pontificate, for didactic purposes (Fernandes, 2000). Physiology,
then, underwent a radical change thanks to important discoveries in the field of anatomy,
and vice-versa. For example, we can cite the works of Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564),
Gabrielle Fallopio (1523–1562), Bartolomeo Eustachio (1524–1574), and William Harvey
(1578–1657). They revolutionized studies on the human body and shocked academic cir-
cles by refuting Galen’s teachings. Vesalius, considered by many to be the precursor of
scientific medicine in the Western world, deserves a special mention. Vesalius’ anatomical
science had a profound impact on medical knowledge at the time and marked a break with
purely speculative medicine. The scientific proof of the inexistence of the so-called rete
mirabilis as a supposed dwelling of the soul in the brain, combined with the discovery of
blood circulation undermined the anatomical assumptions of Galenic medicine. This move-
ment also marked the emergence of drawing as a system for a critical elaborative apprehen-
sion of hidden structural and functional orders when forms and, for instance, the passage of
time, were provided as starting points. Drawing would come to represent a strategic instru-
ment for mental design (Kickhöfel, 2011). Da Vinci would push this resource to the limit.
3 Leonardo: The Body in Science
Leonardo da Vinci was an intellectual exponent, a polymath genius, in his fertile and revo-
lutionary time.
Despite his prolific original contributions to drawing, painting, and sculptures, one of
his biographers Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) defends the thesis that da Vinci’s greatest leg-
acy to knowledge development is through writing. He affirms: he labored much more by
his words than in fact or by deed (Vasari, 1991). Obviously, Vasari had in mind the numer-
ous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day.
Leonardo´s mathematical education was greatly influenced by the Milan court math-
ematician Luca Pacioli (1445–1517). It is well known that Leonardo illustrated Pacioli´s
book Divine Proportione, in which the role of proportions and mathematical ratios are ana-
lyzed in the context of architecture, arts, anatomy, and mathematics (Pacioli & da Vinci,
2014). Developing the geometrics relationships between the parts of the human body, in
da Vinci´s Notebooks, section On the Proportions and on the Movements of the Human
Figure, he states:
Every man, at three years old is half the full height we will grow to at last. If a man
2 braccia high is too small, one of four is too tall, the medium being what is admira-
ble…(da Vinci, 2020)
Da Vinci is known for his search for the first and eternal causes of animate and inanimate
existence, as an apparently unified and ordered dynamic of natural things (Kemp, 2011).
13
In fact, Leonardo contributed to the elevation of the status of knowledge through science,
or natural philosophy, an emerging tendency at that time. Among others, he would extend
to the human body the legacies of architecture, according to the contribution of Filippo
Brunelleschi and Leon Alberti (1378–1455), who empirically (the former) and systemati-
cally (the latter) emphasized the importance of mathematics and geometry for the repre-
sentation of perspective (Kickhöfel, 2011). Leonardo affirms the artificer’s commitment
to measures and proportions in the anatomical representation. This was defended by the
humanist sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti, but Leonardo greatly expanded the complexity of the
arguments, taking inspiration from natural and artifact shapes, registered as traces of his
functional thinking. A seminal contribution is Leonardo’s study of the proportions of the
human body, masterly presented in the famous figure of the Vitruvian Man (1492) (Fig. 1,
below). This work was directly inspired by the De Architecture (Book III), written by the
roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (~ 80–15 B.C). Leonardo, however, would come
to refine it conceptually in relation to the proposals presented textually by Vitruvius (Hey-
denreich, 2017). Through visual representation, Leonardo gained insight into how to best
fit the human form and postural dispositions to the geometric references of the Euclid-
ean circle and square. Mathematics in Leonardo’s contribution is recurrent, as applied,
for example, to interpret order in natural forms and in the physical behavior of projectiles
(Oliveira, 2019). In his Vitruvian Man, Da Vinci reinforced Vitruvius’ commitment to
the claim that shapes of Euclidean geometry represent hidden orders innate to the human,
which embodied the perfection of natural laws. This work illustrates its affinity with the
idea of a first mathematical principle in nature, forming a solid, logical basis, available to
human reason, licensing it as a referential order for the world. In addition, it gives a dimen-
sion of the visual and sensorial connection that he established with his works, consolidat-
ing a method for the abstraction of general natural structures. In his Notebooks he affirms:
The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the chief means by which the
understanding can more fully and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature.
(da Vinci, 2004)
The shapes in da Vinci were not exactly sensory, nor did they present mere imitations, but
resulted from the application of his deductive thinking to both the observed natural and the
represented elements (Kickhöfel, 2011). In his Notebooks he defines perspective as follows:
Perspective is nothing more than a rational demonstration applied to the consider-
ation of how objects in front of the eye transmit their image to it, by means of a
pyramid of lines. The pyramid is the name I apply to the lines which, starting from
the surface and edges of each object, converge from a distance and meet in a single
point. (da Vinci, 2020)
From Platonic to natural forms, da Vinci was convinced that forms express original and
also continuous causes of physical beings. Movement was fundamental to his readings of
nature, suggesting functional rules anchored in forms.
In the Renaissance, anatomy was already classified as science but was traditionally dis-
cursive (Cassirer, 1943; Kickhöfel, 2003, 2011). Works that dealt with human anatomy
were mostly devoid of illustrations; these, when present, were sparse and simple, and were
not committed to visual, formal fidelity, with no special concern for more realistic tex-
tures, proportions, or even volumes. Studies and discoveries referenced from natural bodies
were considered minor and profane, a conservative bottleneck that da Vinci and others,
such as Vesalius himself, would face. The anatomical representation of the human form
would be profoundly transformed by da Vinci. Although he signed the first known realistic
13
Fig. 1 Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci. Comments in the text. Source: https://www.wikigallery.org/

wiki/painting_211870/Leonardo-Da-Vinci/Vitruvian-Man
13
and commented collection of folios of human anatomy, the pieces dispersed, and for more
than three centuries this would leave Andreas Vesalius as a pioneer in his place (Kickhöfel,
2003, 2011).
Da Vinci’s bodies reveal variable form-action couplings, suggesting ongoing move-
ments. The anatomical representation of the human arm in Fig. 2 below gives us an imme-
diate insight into the form-function connections envisioned by the ingenious mind of da
Vinci, using the process of drawing to access anatomy, instead of words. In this simple
folio below, the sophistication of his operational sight has been made evident. It does not
represent a dead, relaxed arm, it expresses the anima and configures its causes. A func-
tional unity is presented around the right wrist. The folio illustrates muscles that, accord-
ing to Leonardo, might be directly and/or indirectly involved in the movement, especially
those distributed in the arm and forearm, as well as those around the shoulder involved
in the represented arm elevation. From the distal extremities of forearm muscles, tendons
extend and attach to the dorsal aspect of the hand metacarpal bones, allowing the tension
of muscle contraction to be transferred to the hand, and leading to the observed extension
around the wrist. Coherently, the hand musculature was left out of the drawing, as it is not
an active participant in the movement from the author’s perspective. He made clear that
this work was not a mere, descriptive representation of bones, muscles, and other elements
of the arm, but of those anatomical pieces that work as connected entities in charge of the
illustrated gesture. By selective drawing of the elements that govern a given movement, da
Vinci brings to the foreground their concerted action, abdicating the immediacy of ana-
tomical neighborhood relations.
Persuasive or not, his insightful thinking diagnosed functional correlates between for-
mal plans, even in distant natural bodies (Capra, 2007). This is exemplified in the folio
below (Fig. 3), where the heart and associated vessels are compared to a seed and its grow-
ing ramifications. The parallelism suggested by drawings is reinforced by da Vinci’s com-
mentaries in loco. In synthesis, taking a developmental perspective well-known in plants,
and establishing formal parallels to humans, he claims the existence of a general scheme
that would confer the heart the role of a central organ, an organizing and nurturer center for
the emergence and growth of blood vessels, similar to what can be verified in plant buds.
The apparent chaos, suggested mainly by the ephemeral character of forms, espe-
cially those corresponding to living bodies and natural events, would be justified as
Fig. 2 Anatomy of arms by
Leonardo da Vinci. Comments
in the text. Source: https://www.
wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_
337631/Leonardo-Da-Vinci/
Study-of-arms
13
Fig. 3 The heart compared to a seed by Leonardo da Vinci. Comments in the text. Source: https://www.
rct.uk/collection/919028/recto-the-heart-compared-to-a-seed-verso-the-vessels-of-liver-spleen-and-kidneys
13
patterns of movement, development, growth, and aging present in Leonardo’s works

(Capra, 2007, 2011). Humans, plants, even minerals, such as water bodies, often have
an implicit passage of time, transposed to drawings as suggestions for movements and
changes. Insights of patterns, of rules that control the dynamics inscribed in a series of
movements, are suggested along their folios, commonly collapsed into a single image.
Da Vinci expresses in different bodies a passage of time that occurs at varying scales
and rhythms, some of which could not be captured at first sight, but based on sustained
visual inspection, mnemonic retention, or even imagination. Such dynamics were
printed as accumulated and multilayered traces in sketches, causing the observer’s
eyes to moving saccadically, thus jumping between the tracks of his creative process,
and enabling the perceptual capture and mental production of the movement suggested
from the static support. His mastery of sketching and representation in perspective was
certainly essential to bring his works to life from memory, as well as to boost his crea-
tivity in deducing the functional processes behind them.
Leonardo was the inventor of the sketch. He would affirm this in his Book of Painting,
proposing it as a study of movements and a system of tests to arrive at the best representa-
tion of the object dynamically apprehended by the artificer (Capra, 2007; Kickhöfel, 2011).
In addition to expressing bodies in movement in standing representations, drawings enun-
ciated the dynamics of Leonardo’s thought itself. Leonardo was aware of this, as depicted
in his writings: “movements of spirit”, “write about attitudes and movement”, “figuring
out the causes” (Kickhöfel, 2011). The creative thinking sketched in his drafts strongly
suggests the persistent search for putative general functional bases, or the “first causes” we
have mentioned above. These qualities led the art historian Martin Kemp to propose that
drawing became a form of visual thought for da Vinci, from which knowledge would be
established (Kemp, 2011).
We have selected some examples of Leonardo’s works we understand give direct sup-
port to this interpretation. It is well represented, for example, in his sketch of nudes in
Fig. 4, below. Sketching appears in partially overlapped layers of traces in variable con-
trasts, giving clues to the movements mentally rehearsed and/or created by da Vinci, trans-
posed as wavering human figures.
In Studies of Water, Fig. 5 below, da Vinci vigorously transfers to the static plane the
turbulence of flowing water, leaving to the observer, himself included, the opportunity
to mentally experience it through chaotic scanning of his traces. Drawing emerged from
the understanding of dynamics, while, recursively, this understanding was accomplished
through drawing.
Leonardo’s forms are living forms, continually shaped and transformed by the under-
lying processes (...) rocks and sediments shaped by water... (Capra, 2011)
The act of painting by da Vinci is a process of knowledge; it is a signature of his under-
standing of natural functional dynamics and his transduction into inventions. He left semi-
nal contributions to the knowledge of the human body and other natural bodies. His stud-
ies are consistent with his creative fronts in the various fields he explored, revealing the
universality and systemic nature of his rationalization process, far beyond a descriptive
approach. For him, natural orders were subject to human reason through the rational exam-
ination of their effects on nature. They were, therefore, accessible through mathematical
and mechanistic abstraction, resulting from the exercise of human reason. Clarifying the
rules supposedly responsible for governing the intrinsic dynamics of the elements of the
natural world would eventually provide physical support for many of his inventions, as has
been historically confirmed. The dynamic design process mediated by the body, a signature
13
Fig. 4 Various figure studies by Leonardo da Vinci. Comments in the text. Source: https://www.wikigallery.
org/wiki/painting_106129/Leonardo-Da-Vinci/Various-Figure-Studies
of da Vinci, most likely favored the apprehension of patterns behind the physical changes
he observed, ensuring adequate conditions for the mechanistic mental sketches, transposed
and applied to his anatomized machines.
13
Fig. 5 Water studies by Leonardo da Vinci. Comments in the text. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/

wiki/File:Leonardo_da_vinci,_Studies_of_water.jpg
13
4 The Scientific Revolution
Studies on the Scientific Revolution are based on certain milestones established by its his-
torical protagonists: Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) defends a reform of the proposition
presented by Claudius Ptolemy (100–170) concerning the need to restore the lost harmony
to planets; Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) and Galileo accept Copernicus’ realistic proposi-
tion; based on this perspective, mathematical tools were developed to study the skies; the
mathematization of free fall and the movement of projectiles confirm the realistic bases
of Copernicanism; an inertial conception of movement, associating an abstract and ideal-
ized model of nature, is developed in connection with empirical results and experimenta-
tion, becoming a more general explanatory framework able to sustain the emergence of the
modern science (Cohen, 1994).
When considering the seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution, two traditions of phil-
osophical thought stand out: Platonic-Pythagorean thought, taking a geometric point of
view of the world, and a pre-established order based on the mathematical principles of the
cosmos; the second tradition came from mechanistic philosophy, which conceived nature
as a mega machine provided with hidden mechanisms as part of a gigantic structure. These
two traditions did not always live in harmony. The Pythagorean tradition sought to find
order through a mathematical description that revealed the essence of the structure of the
universe. On the other hand, the mechanistic tradition aimed to discover the cause behind
individual phenomena. Cartesians were committed to the idea that nature was entirely
accessible and transparent to human reason. Any obscure explanations in natural philoso-
phy should be eliminated. They further argued that natural phenomena would be governed
by the same mechanisms recognized in our daily life (Cohen, 1994).
5 Descartes’ Disembodied Science
For the study that we undertake, the main protagonist of the second period was Descartes,
responsible for the definitive demolition of the concepts that were established and culti-
vated by medieval scholasticism, introducing the critical spirit in the process of knowledge.
His contributions solidified the ongoing separation of science and religion of his time. “I
think, therefore I am” is the cause revealed, the first among all the initial causes. It sum-
marizes the action that shaped in Descartes the manifestation of reason as the milestone of
all his philosophical building. Descartes’ reason dethroned revelation, strengthening the
idea of determinism in natural processes. This laid the foundation of modern science, this
giant’s immemorial contribution to the great leap that science would make from then on
(Gaukroger, 1995).
According to Descartes, mathematics seals the connection between nature and human
reason, suggesting a universal character to the inductive reasoning in mathematics and pro-
posing a virtuous relationship between observation and experimentation. He created a new
branch of the discipline, analytic geometry, opening up immense perspectives for its appli-
cation to biology and physics. Descartes thus went far beyond his exceptional genius as a
mathematician.
On the night of 10–11 November 1619, on the banks of the Danube, Descartes experi-
enced a sequence of three dreams that he documented in his notebook Olympia, as testi-
fied by the biographer Adrien Baillet (1649–1706) before getting lost (Kennigton, 1961;
13
Keevak, 1992; Aczel, 2007). In this passage, Descartes describes and interprets a series
of three dreams, raising a network of meanings from symbolic, imaginary, subjective, and
speculative interpretations. This experience would have culminated, or at least have come
together with the intuition of what Descartes himself would refer to as an "admirable sci-
ence" (Keevak, 1992), establishing the foundations of rational thought as access to truth.
The interpretation that he himself gave to the sequence of his dreams appears at the foun-
dations of the Method, a system that established itself as the basis for the validation of
scientific thought and the root of a nascent experimental science as we have conceived it
ever since (Descartes, 2008). When Descartes bets on logical mental essays as exercises for
critical reason applied to the truth, he understands mathematical narrative as the universal
basis for scientific knowledge. In the world of shapes, Descartes would prove the validity
of mathematics in the unnatural world of perfect Euclidean geometric forms, unifying it
through analytic geometry: perfect forms became expressible as mathematical functions,
by logical equivalence. Its application, by approximation, to the physical world of imper-
fect forms would anchor physics in a revolutionary way (Aczel, 2007; Gaukroger, 1995).
Philosophy was seen as the science of access to first causes at that time (Descartes,
2006; Kickhöfel, 2011). Strongly guided by Aristotelian logic, the claim was that science
could be perfectly explained through an essentially mathematical narrative, a structure of
order that Descartes intuitively conceived as genuine for God and all of His creation, and
for which human reason is most familiar. According to Descartes humans are unique, rep-
resenting the expression of the first causes of God, and, on the other hand, their revealed
nature. God himself, as perfectly rational, had endowed us with a soul, a substantial Pla-
tonic form, home of thought. This, in turn, would be able to exercise reason, recogniz-
ing and deciphering it in nature itself (Descartes, 2008). For Descartes, the fluidity of the
imaginary, typical of thought, contradicted the presumed rigidity of physical laws. Gov-
erned by cause and effect relationships, the structure and functioning of the physical world
would reflect the perfect operation of God’s creative laws. Perfect reason would assume
the status of God’s proof, making us in His resemblance. This is a metaphysical, subjective
side of Descartes’ amazing philosophical building (Gomes, 2015).
Representing a moist machine to which the superior human mind was attached, the
body, according to Descartes, was a source of misunderstandings, against which the
rational exercise of thought was the only reliable shield. The body was largely responsible
for hasty conclusions, those based on sensations, passionate feelings, and common sense.
The only way to face its effects on thought would be through the autonomy of the mind,
allowing the practice of a universal reason, accessible to everyone. This would enable
the discernment and selection of ideas that proved to be refractory to systematic doubt.
Rational thought appears in Descartes’ philosophy as an operating system capable of
transposing the natural laws of the world into a logical narrative. Animal senses, passions,
and principles appeared as contaminants rejected in the exercise of scientific thought. An
epistemological abyss between subject and object, intuition and logic, affect and reason,
body and mind, has existed in science ever since. Science is thus born, in modernity, as a
theoretical exercise of truth through a necessary break between reason and bodily nature,
including that concerning the human condition (Descartes, 2008).
Perceiving clearly and distinctly is the first step in Descartes’ philosophy to avoid fuzzy
pre-assumptions, ensuring correct understanding and the best placement of potential
causes in a causal series. Descartes’ main causes are abstract; truths are assured by a strong
and indisputable plausibility, surviving the instrument of a non-speculative but methodical
doubt, an essential part of the mathematical philosophical thinking method developed by
Descartes (Descartes, 2006). Causal series are inescapably endowed with a logical order
13
that proves resistant to methodical doubts. Descartes argues that it inspires confidence, and
certainty, by perfect and absolute evidence, as one cannot explain a fact except by deducing
it from its causes, proving it the true one among several possible explanations (Descartes,
2008). Narrative, therefore, is an expression of mental abstraction in this process, break-
ing up hasty conclusions drawn from perception. Consistently, perceptive sensation differs
from comprehension. According to Descartes, it is necessary to dissociate sensation and
causal nature, the latter taken as a principle of truth emanated from an object of knowl-
edge. In fact, as qualifiers, truths would assert themselves even without objects, that is,
they would assume a sense of experience for which a rational narrative process, based on
methodical doubt, would suffice. Correspondingly, any thought that proves insufficient in
the narrative dimension, preventing clear and distinct demarcation of the object, must be
discarded. Understanding from perception must necessarily be put to test and revisited in
the light of Cartesian reason. Reason, therefore, is a way of thinking and does not equate to
perception (Descartes, 2006).
Thinking rationally is thus different from perceiving in Cartesian philosophy. Rational
thought is of a critical narrative nature, it is a basic resource for certifying knowledge of
the nature of things. With regard, therefore, to perception, Descartes argues that it is a sys-
tem of access to objects of knowledge, but knowledge in itself is only valid if based on rea-
son. The truth is attainable by the desire to reach a rational understanding of the percepts.
To reach the conclusion that something is true was, according to Descartes, the realization
of the application of the judgment, or of the will, committed to the rationally recognized
evidence, that is, for which the first causal truth has been shown to be sufficiently clear and
distinct. In other words, to know well and, subsequently, to judge well, mental exercises
must reach the clarity and distinction of the object of thought. The judgment of approval
or disapproval, of true or false, does not require dogmatic moral or religious construc-
tions, nor pure perception, but rather reason, that is, reason without flesh, reason capable of
imposing itself on the body. Access to reason, as the Method proclaims, requires its radical
separation from faith (Descartes, 2006, 2008).
Thought, the source of narrative processes of causality, represented a system of ideas
vulnerable to the influences promoted by extensive substance, that is, the body and its
senses, leaving room for misunderstandings. In opposition to the resources of reason,
Descartes identified what he considered the immediate senses imposed by the body,
which corrupted the desirable knowledge. Against this background, the thesis that tension
between truth and obscurity, inherent to human experience, would be disarmed by reason,
justified his efforts to protect science at the levels of its narrative organization, whether
mental, written, spoken, or experimental, as widely acknowledged until today.
6 The Science of Descartes’ Dreams
In the Cartesian view, the body represents the impulse and arbitrariness of will, feelings,
passion, and supports judgments governed by idiosyncratic, intuitive, and obstinate mental
schemes. The contamination of human reason by the corporeal sensitive would challenge
the science he masterfully inaugurated. As a protective resource, methodical Cartesian
doubt appeared, following principles advocated by Aristotelian logic, a supposedly effi-
cient shield.
Our first-person sensations are driven by our bodily senses, desires, and emotions, and
are generally perceived as fuzzy, nebulous, and fleeting, in essence, often leading to the
13
inaccurate and misleading interpretations of the common sense. This is well known in
experimental psychology and cognitive science schools and confirmed to some degree by
experimental neurobiology, inspiring psychological, cognitive, and philosophical models
of individual conscious experience and mental/motor behavior. As presented above, this
was clear, in a self-declared first-person perspective, to Descartes. A deep contradiction
between immediate, unarmed, and spontaneous subjective judgments about ourselves and/
or the external nature, on the one hand, and the apparent impersonality of the physical
world, on the other, was evident to Descartes, who directly addressed this conflict in his
writings. Rhythms and patterns of nature, presumably endowed with precision, resem-
bled machines designed and built by the pure exercise of human reason. Descartes was
convinced that it was possible to adopt a disembodied reason through critical thinking. A
Catholic, Descartes saw in the natural order the expression of the perfect divine essence,
the reason of God. Through a careful metaphysical approach, he concluded that a divine
essence inhabited the rational spirit of civilized human beings. For this to arise, however,
the exercise of reason had to take place behind doors that were firmly closed against the
wet machine represented by the body, its passions, and the easy suggestions of the senses.
Descartes thus perpetuated himself as an icon of the mind–body dualistic vision that paved
science from then on, dominating the concept of civilization in Western culture for the ben-
efit of science itself.
The Method, the philosophical and systematic basis of science, has been disturbingly
and ironically associated with the subjective and symbolic interpretation of a sequence of
dreams Descartes would have experienced, according to his lost manuscript Olympica, as
immortalized by his biographer Baillet (Aczel, 2007) and not disclaimed in light of the
history of science (Keevak, 1992). Starting from methodological foundations that pro-
claimed the rejection of any subjectivity in science to safely diagnose truths and orders
of the world, it is surprising, and somewhat paradoxical, that its origin goes back to the
ethereal substrate of dreams loaded with abstraction and potential symbolism, as reported
by the philosopher himself in his notebook Olympia (Aczel, 2007). Descartes’ first-person
experiences with dreams unfold in the well-known ’dream argument’, a system that attests
to the fulfillment of the rules of logic, in defense of a pure reason that would not bend to
the senses, beliefs, or imagination (Descartes, 2006; Gomes, 2015). The door to the imagi-
native and intuitive processes of scientific thought has been left ajar. A highly abstract,
subjective, intuitive process of creative conception would assert itself. The contradiction
inherent in the method’s dream-origin contrasts with its ultimate commitment to reason-
accessible physical reality. What does science, whose founding rules go back to methodical
doubt and rationalism, have to say today about the autonomy of reason, i.e., the disembod-
ied reason defended by Descartes?
The old concept of the independence of objective reason has been challenged by con-
temporary science. Our humanity, permeated with senses, affection, and imagination, in
coexistence with reason, has been one of the great scientific revelations of our time. Grow-
ing evidence supports the interpretation that emotion and affection are part of human cog-
nition (Damasio, 1994, 2001, 2003; Ledoux & Brown, 2017; Okon-Singer et al., 2015). In
the 1990s, the Decade of the Brain would establish itself as the opening of an "Age of the
Brain", in which studies of human cognition would increasingly encompass the less Carte-
sian aspects of our cognitive and behavioral experiences, bringing the life sciences closer
to the humanities. The tension between reason and emotion, which had lasted for centuries,
would gradually be relaxed.
Both nonconscious and conscious cognition, have been addressed in humans by contem-
porary experimental science, drawing the concerted attention of neurobiology, cognitive
13
psychology, and philosophy. In the 1990s, a series of complementary studies led by neu-
roscientist Antonio Damasio would end up reinforcing his emerging hypothesis which, in
response to environmental stimuli and individual contexts, together with activation of inter-
oceptive sensory afferents and autonomous visceromotor effectors, a realignment of body
states is installed. In pace with physiological adaptations, coherent behavioral emotional
answers develop, favoring survival and success, although the individual is initially unaware
of that. Damasio and his team demonstrated that, faced with risky elements of an experi-
mental game, research participants exhibited changes in skin conductance or skin galvanic
responses (GSRs), interpreted as highs and lows in sweat levels attributed to local and sys-
temic waves of adrenaline under stressful conditions. Elevations of GSRs were correlated
with changes in the statistics of individual choices, among game options, of nonconscious
implementation. What is most surprising in these studies is that, along a significant amount
of time during the game, players were not able to report any change in their evaluative
perception of advantages and disadvantages, nor in their game choices. Oblivious of any
behavioral or bodily changes, the individual is nonconscious of any reason which would
be supporting the dynamics of his/her experience with the game. Such consciousness has
been shown to come further in the game. The redirection of player actions relative to the
first rounds of the game is consistent with non-aware choices he/she has made towards
the most advantageous alternatives. It means part of the experience operates through the
player’s rational and cognitive screening of advantageous and disadvantageous options in
the game, but the foundations of this intelligent script are not consciously available. Dama-
sio has concluded that alterations of bodily somatic states acted as danger flags interpreted
by functional nonconscious modules of the central nervous system, which would then com-
mand compensatory, preventive, and/or protective intelligent motor behavior. A neurobio-
logical definition of emotion, rooted by body-brain communication with some independ-
ence from conscious monitoring, comes up with significant plausibility. These findings
led to the conclusion that a non-narrative system of will preceded a conscious behavioral
mode, altering, nonconsciously, inferential balances and behavior. In other words, results
revealed that it is possible to proceed in the game in a manner consistent with the tacit
operability of a nonconscious, learned, automatic mathematical computation, determining
judgments accompanied by coherent actions. Since then, a profusion of hypotheses has
been considered, exploring on both theoretical and experimental dimensions, the mecha-
nisms by which cortical (associated with conscious aspects of behavior) and subcortical
circuits (associated with nonconscious ones) were influenced by sensory monitoring of
external stimuli and internal body states, determining behavior. Although differing on con-
ceptual and mechanistic grounds concerning consciousness and unconsciousness, the non-
narrative advantageous cognitive behavior persists under different experimental conditions,
and significantly contributes to challenging the scientific comprehension of the nature and
processing rules which govern the human mind, especially reasoned evaluation and deci-
sion-making (Bechara et al., 1997; Turnbull et al., 2014; Vogel, 1997).
Back to da Vinci, we have seen he made extensive use of perception–action process-
ing of his experiences with paintings. From a modern neurobiological perspective, it is
fair to conclude that, in his drawings, fast sensory-motor loops were operating, together
with an insightful understanding of the portrayed object dynamics, as declared by da Vinci
himself. Contemporary neurobiological studies concerning improvisation and/or creativ-
ity claim for the coordination of two distinct modes of functioning of the brain (Limb &
Braun, 2008; De Pisappia et al., 2016). One is correlated to the free generation and fluid
association of ideas, technically referred to as divergent thinking, and involves a system
called default mode network. The other is implicated in relevance evaluation and selection
13
of suitable schemes for theoretical and/or action planning, governed by activation of brain
networks involved in convergent thinking and executive behavior. Imaginative/inventive
exercises, according to these findings, required more than the activation of neural functions
associated with logical-narrative behaviors, governed by convergent thinking. According to
experimental neurobiology, the creative exercise demands subjectivities, tacit experiences,
in other words, the Cartesian body expressed in divergent thinking. This dual, articulated
process was fully experienced by da Vinci.
Human cognition, emotion, and behavior have been increasingly assessed from the per-
spective of experimental neurobiology, bearing the need for interpretation of the signifi-
cance of its complex scientific results in light of philosophy (Klar, 2020; Northoff, 2004).
This is reminiscent of the philosophical foundations of science, raised on the putative ten-
sion between body and mind, and now inspires challenging propositions in the neurobiol-
ogy of cognition (Agnati et al., 2013; Barsalou, 2008; Carruthers, 2017; Gallese, 2018; Per-
lovsky & Ilin, 2012). Current referential neurobiological, psychological, philosophical, and
cognitive schools provide us strong indications that a hidden, nonconscious thought coex-
ists with sensory motor imagetic, semantic awareness, through which the prolific human
cognition becomes able to deal from concrete to the most conceivable abstract ideations
(Bechara et al., 1997; Fifel, 2018; Schaefer & Northoff, 2017). In the wake of surprising
findings of recent times concerning thinking, reason, and decision making, the evidence
that conscious flow, typically provided with mental verbalization and sensory imagery,
may not be necessary for reason, although it is essential for the formulation of a convinc-
ing logical narrative required in science, clearly roots, anachronistically, Descartes’ insight;
he sought the validation of scientific thought, transposing in some dimension the given
nonconscious thought to consciousness as an inferential, logical narrative, a collection of
salient elements dissected from cognitive processing. Such concern makes sense in light of
these contemporary neurobiological findings. Narrative imposes itself, in Descartes’s the-
ory, as an objectified, textually encoded, mnemonic record, a sort of backup to enable criti-
cal verification and the best scientific analysis. Discourse in general, and also, of course, in
science, is a semantic instrument for recording inferential, rational, critical, propositional
cognition. Furthermore, it emerges, at least partially, from nonconscious and non-report-
able thinking, as discussed above, becoming narrative and reportable. Whether ineffable
or speakable, the former apparently better suited for the intuitive/improvisational creative
process, while the latter for the formulation of the edifice of critical, reflexive, and univer-
sal interpretive conclusion, both cognitive processing modes, or levels, seem to fuel each
other. Neither is expendable in human experience, and that implies scientific thinking.
When designing the Method, Descartes conditioned reason on a clear and distinct delim-
itation of the primordial object in a causal series, in an exclusively mental, abstract dimen-
sion, therefore devoid of sensible human attributes. However, neurobiological advances
witnessed over the past two decades contradict, the absolute confidence once placed in our
ability to isolate mental objects from the body, as defined by the great philosopher.
If the non-speakable component of cognitive processing has an impact on the assump-
tions of the Method, as considered above, no less conspicuous is the evidence that every
given perceptual stimulus, in other words, of extracorporeal origin, as well as every men-
tally conceived imaginary object, requires an enormous neurobiological activity, so it
demands the body. Under experimental, controlled circumstances, it became clear that
absolute Cartesian objectification might not be achievable; the vast majority of our objec-
tive experiences involve feeling the perceptual objects "as if" in our guts. Mirror neuron cir-
cuitries, for example, are a novelty of this Era of the Brain, and they were so called because
they have been shown to viscerally develop, in the neural tissue, premotor command
13
routines involving the somatosensory and premotor cortices as if the observer was going to
perform by himself the observed actions of others (Gallese, 2018; Rizzolatti & Craighero,
2004). The observed actions of others are not just perceived, but lived mentally; expressed
motor performance is not necessarily accomplished, except when intended and authorized
by the observer. Likewise, if the stimulus is a concrete object in the environment, sublimi-
nal action/motor activities come into play, revealing an entanglement of the observer and
the object, or an affordance of the object (De Wit et al., 2017; Tucker & Ellis, 1998). Ulti-
mately, this is expressed as mental performance supported by sensory and premotor neural
transduction systems that allow cognitive exploration of the perceived object. The external
object becomes a visceral bodily mental rehearsal. Once the individual generates visceral
correspondents from external sources of perceptual stimulation, he/she transforms them, at
some important and unavoidable level, into subjective correlates. Objectivity, in the abso-
lute sense of the term, is, clearly, not experienced, according to these findings. Even for
non-sensory, commonly referred to as amodal, conceptual, abstract stimuli, as provided,
for example, by any rational, codified construct, we now have some evidence that sensory,
motor, and/or emotional/affective components of the brain circuitries are significantly
involved in cognitive qualities of experience. Cortical sensorimotor activations have been
shown to be automatically coupled to neural successful processing of words of correspond-
ing sensorimotor significance (Barsalou et al., 2003; Pulvermuller et al., 2005). Similarly
and surprisingly, neural processing of abstract words, referred to as amodal, evoke multi-
modal systems for perception, action, and emotion, suggesting that cognitive handling of
abstract contents depends on experiencing our inner states, and thus, on emotional engage-
ment (Barsalou et al., 2003; Barsalou., 2008; Vigliocco et al., 2009; Pulvermüller, 2013;
Dreyer et al., 2015). Such systems also operate in the experience with sophisticated social
interpersonal cognition as represented by empathic binding. The observer may experience
the emotional and/or affective content that is supposedly recognized as being experienced
by the other, and this correlates to the activation of neural circuits found to be involved in
corresponding emotional transits in the first person (Gallese, 2003, 2018; Hein & Singer,
2008). The implication of the sensory in human cognition might be even deeper from the
perspective of experimental neuroscience. Working memory is a neurobiological system
responsible for temporary and limited information holding, a transient, few seconds mem-
ory everyone experiences, and is taken as a pillar of cognitive processing (Cowan, 2008).
It provides for immediate reasoning and circumstantial judgment for guiding mental con-
structs and behavior. Many studies suggest that working memory is mostly dependent on
attention provided by multimodal activities in the brain (reviewed and discussed in Car-
ruthers, 2017). Both attention and working memory systems have been related to sensory
and associative processing, and respond to conscious perception, determining our ability
to generate and to keep perceptual representations endogenously, in parallel to thought.
The point is that, underlying the stream of consciousness, attentional signals do not come
exclusively from cortical circuits, known to be directly related to conscious thinking, but
have also been shown to involve midlevel (subcortical) sensory areas, related to noncon-
scious mental processing and entrance for working memory contents. Thought and deci-
sion-making have thus been claimed as nonconscious sensory-based, or generalized as
bodily-based (Carruthers, 2017). Such interpretations, although still under intense debate,
echo Descartes’ central concern with the body, now translated into the role of sensorimo-
tor systems in cognition. These current scientific discussions are so effervescent, so con-
temporary, that they have inspired a platform of theoretical–experimental assays generally
referred to as embodied cognition and the like. Embodied views of cognition reside, in
general, on the argument of tight coupling of cognition to perception, emotion/feelings,
13
and action (Carr et al., 2018; Gallese, 2018; Hommel, 2019; Kiverstein & Miller, 2015;
Thompson & Varela, 2001), strongly supported by neurophysiological and neuroanatomi-
cal organizations (Pessoa, 2014). As we have seen, the dualities recognized in the seven-
teenth century as body and mind, emotion and reason, subject and object, are today chal-
lenged by evidence that the subject is viscerally intermingled with objective readings of
reality. The combination of all these investigative strands of contemporary neurobiology
inspires the revisiting of Descartes’ insights, experienced in the first person, in which he
expressed and justified his concern and his efforts to purify reason, in the search for truth,
through the exercise of methodical doubt. He glimpsed the possibility and validation of a
regulated discourse as a system for accessing nature. If not, in the end, free from the body,
Descartes would take the fundamental step towards a science freed from the vices of dog-
matic and submissive thinking.
7 Body and Mind in Descartes and da Vinci
Da Vinci’s mode of knowledge, largely associated with what we now classify as art, has
been substantiated, at some level, by contemporary neurobiology. Perception has proved
to be an image-based process, that is, the production of mental correlates for sensorimotor
relational experiences established between the individual and the environment. This means
that not only primary sensory processing and its multisensory associations in the brain, but
also internalized premotor processing, accompanied or not by externalized motion, account
for the complex perception of stimuli in a given relational setting, collectively coming into
play for cognitive assimilation of the experience, while tuning it to the individual’s internal
state and self-awareness (Agnati et al., 2013). The visuomotor thought process, vivid in da
Vinci’s legacy (Kickhöfel, 2011), is consistent with these recent neuroscientific discoveries
and interpretations. Perception has been shown, at different levels, to be anchored in motor
processing. Action and non-action stimuli have the potential to activate related motor cir-
cuits in the brain. The motor system influences the perception of visual events, far beyond
the perception of the actions of our originally proposed conspecifics (Press & Cook, 2015).
The perception of physical events has been suggested to involve hidden motor contribu-
tions for inferential analysis concerning the direction, position, and speed of animate or
inanimate actors in the physical environment. Furthermore, the importance of these fea-
tures of motor cognition can go beyond visual perception to reveal the action at the center
of any apprehension of the outside world. Some currents in neurophilosophy reinterpret
the experimental results, concluding that the meanings we give to our experiences with the
world are contingent on the possibility of action on salient environmental objects, obeying
rules for innate and learned sensorimotor skills (O’Reagan and Nöe, 2001). Da Vinci’s
works attest to the empirical domain of action for perception and reinforce the evidence of
action for cognition that accumulates in contemporaneity (Buzsáki et al., 2014).
Although far from exhausted in the objective plane of science, artistic experiences have
been implicated in sophisticated processes of intellectual insight and creativity. Significant
neuroscientific approaches to less understood aspects of human cognition, as related to
the subjective rapture, imagination, and creativity, have been conducted in connection to
artistic practices, raising a growing interest of the neuroscientific community in the neural
basis of creative performance (Agnati et al., 2013; De Pisapia et al., 2016; Limb & Braun,
2008; Schoeller & Perlovsky, 2016). Neurophysiological indicators suggest a significant
correspondence between divergent thinking and the intensity of individually reported
13
aesthetic-emotional feelings allied to cognitive processing involved in stimulus judgment

and reward evaluation (Ishizu & Zeki, 2011; Vessel et al., 2013). The subjective character
of the observer’s aesthetic experience with artwork has been shown to come to the fore-
ground, and it is strongly related to the activation of the self-referred neurobiological-
behavioral system, the DMN (Default Mode Network; Raichle, 2015), already mentioned
above in the context of divergent thinking, so that qualification of aesthetic experiences is
strongly correlated to the mental state achieved by the observer, while relation to narrative
constructs seems irrelevant (Vessel et al., 2013). In a similar context, physiological, bodily
manifestations of aesthetic rapture (such as chills, for example) have been shown to be con-
ditioned to the coherence of cognitive character, even before conscious awareness/recogni-
tion (Perlovsky & Ilin, 2012; Schoeller & Perlovsky, 2016), i.e., so-called aesthetic judg-
ments are accompanied by a recognizable cognitive load. On the other hand, the universal
character of the neurobiological resources demanded in conditions of self-declared aesthet-
ical rapture is suggested by the overlap of active brain areas of different individuals with
very distinct collections of preferred works (Kawabata & Zeki, 2004; Vessel et al., 2013).
Physical qualities, and even technical and critical-artistic classifiers of the works adopted
as stimuli, have also been shown not to be related to conspicuous changes in brain acti-
vation patterns when considering circuits related to cognitive processing (Ishizu & Zeki,
2011; Vessel et al., 2013). Such cognitive resources are potentially demanded in scientific
practice. Descartes’ mental experiences, if taken according to the prism of his own descrip-
tions of the process, might indicate aesthetics and logic as specialized manifestations of a
unique cognitive-behavioral processing. In fact, we have just mentioned above that subjec-
tive experiences, as the ones obtained from studies with artworks observations or creative/
improvisation exercises, involve the interplay of neurobiological substrates shown to be
also active in experimental conditions of reason-based formulations, suggesting that the
more technical cognitive resources, exemplified in attentional and discriminatory exercises,
coexist with neural processing of aesthetic-affective implications. These are a few, among
many examples made available from contemporary experimental neuroscience, which
require us to review the narrative bases for knowledge and control.
Senses can be found throughout Descartes’ discourse, as in the passage “I know I exist
because I see it clearly and distinctly” (Descartes, 2008), revealing Descartes’ sensory
experience as a window for rational disclosure. Today we are faced with a complex sys-
tem of iterative, interdependent processes, that seems to include bodily attributes of the
experience, perceptual and emotional-affective conscious sensations, cognitive insight, and
adaptive intelligent behavior, more or less independent from narrative thinking, exposing
an even greater demand for scrutiny of the organismic actors and the mechanisms involved
in the narrative construction of science. The successful demarcation of a safe field for sci-
ence, valid throughout these four centuries, resides in definitions of thinking by Descartes.
“To think” for Descartes, in a broader sense, was to live mentally, including experiences
consequent to body awareness, feelings and sensations capable of seducing the soul,
seat of rational thought, and, therefore, capable of compromising the discernment of the
world, and the objectivity of science. Part of the soul’s resources are thus influenced by
the extensa substance to which it is attached, i.e., the body, favoring fantastic, nonplausi-
ble interpretations, and imagination flights concerning the truth. In short, Descartes rec-
ognized a risk, inherent to the human condition, in the formulation of a valid thought for
science. “To exist” on a sole dependence of thought, as affirmed by Descartes, suggests the
precedence and/or equivalence of the experiences of thought to those of the body. Thought
thus presents itself, at a minimum, as an access system for the body, and its obscure subjec-
tivities. It is, thus, also, the locus for manifestation of a body consciousness. Did Descartes
13
manage to get rid of the body in the process of formulating the fundamental and revolu-
tionary bases of reason that would rule scientific thought and a scientific culture?
Understanding in the Cartesian view is a state of elevation of the spirit (Descartes,
2008). Among the steps advocated by Descartes for the application of reason was the need
for a "moral construction that regulated the actions of his life" (Descartes, 2006). Meta-
physics anticipates Physics and has as its first affirmation, God and the principles of a spir-
itual order, which, according to Descartes, are accessible through an intuitive and moral
process. He would often return to intuition, directly suggesting or affirming it. An example
is the understanding that cubic roots cannot be built with a square and compass (Aczel,
2007). Descartes leaves the full, rational justification open, the mathematical demonstra-
tion would not come, but the conclusion taken intuitively was assertively stated by him.
Another example is the intuitive quality of the conviction he claimed to have of the math-
ematical essence of order systems in the physical world.
Human senses are sources of possible misunderstanding (Descartes, 2006). However,
Descartes would also claim that words are imperfect to express thought. According to him,
we need to understand distinctly (with attention to things and not words) before naming.
An intuitive, pre-narrative phase in the knowledge process would thus be admitted. Coher-
ently, Descartes would also affirm calculus as a reduction, therefore, not as circumstantial
proof, of the mathematical nature of the rational way of thinking, or mathematical think-
ing. In a generic definition, he would conclude that the certainty of mathematics or math-
ematical thinking consists of "… perfect evidence of the ideas he puts into action and in
the order in which he links them." The result is wisdom (Descartes, 2008).
Descartes builds his thought and defends the bases of true knowledge of the world in
the first person; he is the first reference of the first founding cause of Cartesian philosophy.
The first truth, "I think, therefore I am", refers to his existence. Everything that exists only
does so because of the testimony of the individual Descartes, his first-person experiences,
his methodical narratives, the principles he envisioned, for generalization in science. His
first-person self-experiences the possibilities of a single, universal, and fundamental organ-
izing nucleus (Aczel, 2007; Descartes, 2008), a sort of protective mask. Descartes admitted
that he resorted to masks, metaphorically, to protect his identity from the Inquisitionist
Church of the time, using codenames and, for instance, symbolic language. It can be specu-
lated that taking dreams as indicators of the foundation of a new way of thinking, or even
conceiving a system of access to the universalizing laws of the world, would also have
helped to shield him from the persecutory threats of the Church at the time (Aczel, 2007;
Descartes, 2008).
Ironically, Descartes’ dreams could not resist the exercise of methodical doubt. They
would be relegated to the category of mistakes of the body, passions of the soul (Aczel,
2007; Kennington, 1961). Descartes’ dreams, his bet on their meanings, and his interpre-
tive connections, are undeniable experiences of entanglement, of aesthetic rapture. Terms
and experiences throughout his work testify to the direct association of Descartes’ aesthetic
entanglement with the conception of the narrative and validation of scientific thought:
references to the “heat of battles” or the “admirable discovery”, or expressions such as
“enthusiasm”, “contented”, “admirable science”, “the spirit of God”, “wonderful discov-
ery” (Aczel, 2007; Descartes, 2008; Kennington, 1961). Furthermore, “extreme desire”,
“trust”, and “dark and disturbing art” when referring to the symbolic characters used by
him in his lost Olympia notebook (Aczel, 2007), as well as the defense of reason as the
very essence of virtue, the recognition of the will, the affection for understanding, for the
good and beauty, could be found in Descartes’ search for the values of knowledge through-
out the Discourse on Method (Descartes, 2008).
13
In Descartes, the imagination involved in discerning philosophical principles is asso-

ciated with excitement, wonder, simplicity, and solidity. Descartes affirms the reach
of wisdom, perfection of life (again moral/ethical conduct), and happiness through
knowledge (Descartes, 2006). It is noticeable the abstraction of meaning embedded in
these qualifiers of experience with the knowledge construction process, according to
Descartes himself (Descartes, 2006). Descartes also affirmed reason as the very essence
of virtue, the action of will, as affection on understanding (Descartes, 2008). The more
focused on the good, the better grounded would be the knowledge, according to the
philosopher. The character of truth makes the (object of) knowledge capable of being
apprehended by the subject, mobilizing it at the level of will. According to Descartes,
the truth feeds the imagination, generating satisfaction, albeit discreet. Descartes sug-
gests something equivalent to intellectual pleasure. Coherently, he affirms that knowl-
edge affects us and that happiness reflects rational understanding. Moreover, that affec-
tion, goodness, and beauty are found in the process of seeking knowledge: “…when you
are right, all that is left is to be happy” (on the satisfaction of reason) (Descartes, 2006,
2008). In the words of the philosopher, emotion and/or affection are asserted as power-
ful catalysts for a sense of reason.
The involvement of aesthetics and cognitive skills in the exercise of science still
sounds exotic, but it is undeniably pertinent and instigating from a scientific perspective
(Fróes, 2015, 2016; Inácio-Barbosa et al., 2017). Logical and rational transits of experi-
ence represent manifest aspects of neurobiological processing that integrates perception,
action, aesthetics, emotions, and/or feelings in logical narratives (Fróes, 2015). Our
internal representational objects, constructions of our experimentation with external tar-
gets of scientific interest, evoke an aesthetic and subjective ecstasy that is inextricably
linked to human efforts to find the best interpretations and most efficient models for sci-
entific predictions. Da Vinci’s body-mediated thinking anchors the view that the body,
and in the current epistemological categorization, the arts, can be powerful sources for
scientific reasoning. We live with an indelible subjectivity in the objectification of sci-
ence, with a subject in the object of science. We find satisfaction in the creative exercise
of science. On the other hand, the success of the Method since its formulation is also
remarkable, which proves that logical resources and narrative reason are attainable to a
significant degree, despite the scientist’s condition as a subject. The intrinsic subjectivi-
ties during the process of personal/subjective scientific experience seem to be efficiently
counterbalanced by the formalization of a universal thought, which, at some important
level, obeys logical schemes anchored in the Method’s developments and validates sci-
ence over these four centuries. If the bulk of the evidence that denies the strict Car-
tesian dualism in the process of scientific inspiration/intuition is impressive, it points
to the inseparability of the aspects that we were oriented to polarize as subjective and
objective, especially in the process of experience. It substantiates today, more than ever,
why Descartes was so magistral, so revolutionizing, in establishing a method to pro-
tect the narrative from the other manifestations of malleable, individual human nature,
in the name of universal rules. And why da Vinci was such a genius at relying on his
mind–body coordinated creative abilities. The advent of modern science during the age
of encounters is an enormous and revolutionary cultural step, in which the human meets
the human in nature and in the natural conception of the world.
Funding This article is one of the research results with the support of the Coordination for the Improvement
of Higher Education Personnel—Brazil (CAPES)—Financing Code 001, directed to the Graduate Program
of History of Sciences and Techniques and Epistemology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
13
Declarations
Conflict of interest On behalf of both authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of
interest.
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Maira Monteiro Fróes holds a DSc degree in Biological Sciences (Biophysics), at the Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro, and a postdoc training at Collège de France, Paris. She is an Associate Professor at the
Institute Tercio Pacitti of Computational Applications and Research, and is a Permanent Professor at the
Graduate Program of History of Sciences, Techniques, and Epistemology, both at Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro. She is TEDx and Salzburg Conferences Global fellow. Investigations include an emerging
experimental epistemology by intersections with biophysics and systems neuroscience, her original fields in
science. She heads the complex of Laboratories of Advanced Methods and Epistemology,
13
Agamenon Rodrigues Eufrasio Oliveira is Professor at the Polytechnic School of the Federal University of
Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and Researcher at CEPEL (Electric Energy Research Center). He holds DSc degrees
in Mechanical Engineering (1982) and in History of Science (2006) (UFRJ). His scientific contributions
comprise two published books, two edited books, one translated book, a hundred and five scientific articles
and twelve published book chapters. Research covers the History of Science in the 19th century, focusing on
the development of engineering sciences and mathematics, and development of science and technology in
the 21st century, especially new technologies and their industrial implications
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