The scientific revolution conjures a vision of a perfect overthrow of an archaic worldview, and the dethroning of devious medievalists determined to keep control. But can we trust the hype? There is another view: that what occurred in that roiling period between Copernicus and Newton was more mess than method; and no two philosophers could agree on anything. For National Science Week we cast a closer eye on a time when the world truly turned.

A pivotal character of the time was René Descartes, whose ideas challenged the existing Aristotelian conceptions. As part of an occasional series on essential reading we revisit a Cartesian classic.