The problem with both philosophers is their "
practicalism and progressivism." "Both thinkers," claimed Anderson (1980: 52), "were animated by the spirit of reformation in science, and both emphasize the practical end of all speculation." Anderson characterized Descartes as "anti-Classical," as opposed to the tradition of liberal education, because his approach denies the concreteness of culture and learning, replacing the concreteness of tradition with what he calls an "abstract rationality" (Anderson, 1980: 53):