Cartesian anxiety refers to the notion that, ever since René Descartes

René Descartes

René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...

 promulgated his highly influential form of body-mind dualism

Dualism (philosophy of mind)

In philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical....

, Western civilization

Civilization

Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...

 has suffered from a longing for ontological

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

 certainty, or feeling that scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

s, and especially the study of the world as a thing separate from ourselves, should be able to lead us to a firm and unchanging knowledge

Knowledge

Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something unknown, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject...

 of ourselves and the world around us. The term is named after Descartes because of his well-known emphasis on "mind" as different from "body", "self

Self

The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness. The self has been studied extensively by philosophers and psychologists and is central to many world religions.-Philosophy:...

" as different from "other

Other

The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...

".

Richard J. Bernstein

Richard J. Bernstein

Richard J. Bernstein is an American philosopher, the Vera List Professor of Philosophy and former dean of the graduate faculty at The New School....

coined the term in his 1983 book Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis.