Philosopher Rene Descartes, author of the famous “Discourse on Method,” is usually presented as a knight of pure reason and a meticulous rationalist. However, as Sergei Fokin shows in this book, the notorious directness of Descartes’s thought is impossible without a kind of “dark side” - a certain “crookedness” dictated by both the harsh conditions of the time, when freethinking was punishable by severe punishment, and the literary laws of the era. Fitting the philosopher’s work into the political, cultural, social, religious and biographical contexts of the 17th century, the author demonstrates the complex trajectories that he had to follow in his vocation - the search for truth. One of the main objectives of the book is to draw those lines of Descartes’ thought that, going back to the attitudes of baroque and classicism, precision and gallantry, libertineism and salon culture, are refracted in the latest intellectual practices - from psychoanalysis and deconstruction to historical or economic anthropology and the philosophy of translation. Sergey Fokin – Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Department of Romance-Germanic Philology and Translation of St. Petersburg State University of Economics.