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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Preface to 'Principles of Philosophy'' and 'How Things Might Have Been'

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1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
21962 Metaphysics is the roots of the tree of science [Descartes]
     Full Idea: The whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences.
     From: René Descartes (Preface to 'Principles of Philosophy' [1647]), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 01.2
     A reaction: If Descartes had not believed this he would not have bothered with metaphysics, and philosophy might have been dead by 1650.