French criticism of American ebullience may seem as relentless as Cartesian logic.

For Mr. Balmond and Mr. Koolhaas, such solutions are part of a running argument that architecture has been confined too long within the Cartesian logic of compartmentalized space.

Cartesian logic: an essay on Descartes's conception of inference (1989)

Theirs is a long tradition, steeped in Cartesian logic, of trying to convert primal, pheromone-charged experience into numbingly abstract discourse.

Largely because of this, computers for some 50 years have been electronic versions of Cartesian sequential logic.

Broadly speaking, Northern Europe, North America and related countries are predominantly Linear-Active, following tasks sequentially using Platonic, Cartesian logic.

In the country that invented Cartesian logic, the philosopher is king.

Conceptually, Mr. Ketter's work, like Peter Halley's more reductive painting, suggests how modern culture is permeated from top to bottom with Cartesian logic.

In the country that Descartes imprinted with Cartesian logic, people side with transit workers when bus, rail and subway strikes make it impossible to get to work on time.

In France nothing is ever what it seems on the surface, so the French, using good Cartesian logic, think it can't be anywhere else, either.