Resumen de Descartes and the Problem of Discontinuity in the History of Philosophy as an Art of Living

Luca Mori

• Starting with an interrupted exchange of views between Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, Descartes’ thought can act as a strict test bed for any attempt at defining interruptions and continuity in the history of philosophical spiritual exercises from the ancient world to the modern age. This paper provides a new interpretation of the role that has been assumedly played by Descartes in the history of philosophical exercises, by introducing a quadripartite hermeneutic model to discover continuities and discontinuities between different theoretical positions.