Descartes is the poster-boy for the method of " reductionism ", which I think of as "Math Envy". This is the idea that you can build up all knowledge from simple principles. These days, we pretend to start with Quantum  Mechanics, yet we are awarding Nobel Prizes for people who make "baby steps" from Quantum Mechanics to the chemistry of Hydrogen. The fact is that reductionism is dead. There is no path from "simple" to "complex". We need to start somewhere else. That's good news, since it turns out that we all know a Hell of a lot more than we thought we did. It turns out that we can start with what we all share and what we know: the fantastic and virtually limitless capabilities of the human mind. We don't need to "boil it down" to something simpler, or "explain" it in terms of chattering neurons. We learn very little about our minds by comparing them to the "minds" of chimpanzees, cats and frogs. ...

Alisdair MacIntyre is a major reformer of modern philosophy, still kicking at the time of writing at the age of 87. He is particularly noted for his treatment of ethics in " After Virtue ". His ethical treatment of  economics are discussed here Fore the purpose of this blog, his main contribution is the concept of "intelligibility". How do you regard one system of ethics as superior or "more advanced" than another? His answer is that, in an advanced system, "lesser" systems are at least " intelligible ". For example, we can understand the idea of chopping off heads to make the sun rise every day even if we abhor it. On the other hand, "modern" ideas of tolerance, forgiveness and justice may not have made sense to the average Aztec. I like this idea as an alternative to slugging away and trying to prove ourselves "right", which has resulted only in the exponential growth of philosophical papers nobody reads. We need ...