01284nas a2200109   4500008004100000245009500041210006900136260001200205520086600217100002201083856006901105       2014                        eng d00aThe Dawn of Modern Era: Montaigne and Spinoza as Alternatives to Cartesian Weltanschauung.0 aDawn of Modern Era Montaigne and Spinoza as Alternatives to Cart  aLeipzig3 aMechanism is at the origin of the actual economical conception, based on endless growth. It is founded on Descartes's thought, with its strong distinction between mind and material world, continued by Bacon and Newton (as Latouche points out). Some years before and some years after Descartes, Montaigne and Spinoza respectively proposed significantly different conceptions. The French one, inside a skepticism, enemy of any abstract system claiming to control the real world; the Dutch one proposing a unique substance composing all the universe, id est a sort of rational pantheism. Exploring the meaning of these three philosophical theorizations, expressed at the very beginning of Modern Era (16th and 17th centuries), may help us to understand not only the roots of the present mainstream, but also the premises of alternative ways of thinking, like ours.1 aTosi, Pier, Luigi  uhttps://degrowth.community/conference2014/scientific-papers/3638