Descartian

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Synonym of Cartesian. not-comparable

    "If we have succeeded in purging our theories thoroughly of the Descartian dualism, we are, in principle, ready to deal also with the psycho-physiological dualism which is its modern successor. No doubt, the latter has changed with the fashions of thought sufficiently to discard the Descartian “substances”, and put in their place two series of “phenomena”—a series of psychical processes open only to introspection (its own?), and a series of physiological processes open to public observation like all other physical facts."

Example

More examples

"If we have succeeded in purging our theories thoroughly of the Descartian dualism, we are, in principle, ready to deal also with the psycho-physiological dualism which is its modern successor. No doubt, the latter has changed with the fashions of thought sufficiently to discard the Descartian “substances”, and put in their place two series of “phenomena”—a series of psychical processes open only to introspection (its own?), and a series of physiological processes open to public observation like all other physical facts."

Etymology

From Descartes + -ian.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.