Discourse on Method
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After he finished school, René Descartes was left with more doubts than certainties. His Jesuit education included some of the best teaching available in mathematics, physics, and letters, and yet Descartes found the foundations of his schooling hollow. Determined to discover for himself what was real, he spent the next nine years traveling through Europe, interacting with locals of all walks of life, including nobles, soldiers, and laborers, in search of the breadth of experience that would later inspire his greatest work: Discourse on Method. When it was first published, the book offered a remarkable new approach to gaining knowledge based on reason and skepticism, the steps for which Descartes lays out sequentially, from the deconstruction of all previously held beliefs to the slow and methodical rebuilding of fact anchored in the first and most innate truth: I think, therefore I am.
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René Descartes
René Descartes, known as the Father of Modern Philosophy and inventor of Cartesian coordinates, was a seventeenth century French philosopher, mathematician, and writer. Descartes made significant contributions to the fields of philosophy and mathematics, and was a proponent of rationalism, believing strongly in fact and deductive reasoning. Working in both French and Latin, he wrote many mathematical and philosophical works including The World, Discourse on a Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and Passions of the Soul. He is perhaps best known for originating the statement “I think, therefore I am.”
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Reviews for Discourse on Method
257 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Absolutely fundamental to understand Descartes philosophy
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The title is certainly misleading. Sex and science (and above all the combination of the two) are definitely my thing, but this book has precious little of either. It is an interesting enough account of how necessity and the profit profit motive lie at the root of much innovation, but that hardly justifies this lengthy treatment.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Travail de philosophie classique, ce livre est un essentiel des bibliothèques Françaises.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Like a warm bath for the mind, and takes about as long - parts 1-4 at least. Reading it in English, I wonder if he is so straightforward and readable in French. Parts 1-4 are eloquent and minimal, and certainly worth re-reading - meditations of reason. Part 5, home to the famous 'cogito ergo sum' line, is pretty tedious after the first page and that very quote. Just skip part 6. The introduction - despite being longer than the actual text - is worth reading. It sets the scene and gives the historical context. Interesting to note that it was originally published in French, so perhaps the line we know him by should rather be 'je pense donc je suis'. If it had ended on that line, I would rate it 5.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Together with Bacon's New Organon, this small, lucid book is the methodological foundation of the entire scientific revolution - the "birth" of modern science during the 17th century - & perhaps even of technology as such. The celebrated & hypnotic mantra "nous rendre comme maîtres & possesseurs de la nature" - to acquire command of all nature by the radically cautious & methodical acquisition of knowledge that Descartes outlines - became a programme, a prize, an obsession, & decided, for good & evil, the size & shape of our universe.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book marks the shift in philosophical speculation, from the Nature-Grace ethos of the Medieval age to that of Nature-Freedom of the Enlightenment. Descartes essentially put an X through the then standing assumptions regarding knowledge. Agree or disagree, this book defines much of Western thought to this day. This is an important book. Funny, most of the really powerful and long-lasting ideas have been in brief books like this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This work contains his famous "cogito, ergo sum" after which he seems to leap to other conclusions, including God, that do not necessarily follow. He lived for 8 productive years in wartime Holland, where he was able to isolate himself by moving frequently. He did not publish some of his works, having seen the effect for Galileo of publishing great discoveries. This may also have influenced some of his proofs of God: causality implies that something created all of this and I have imperfections; hence there must be something greater than me. He also advocated the power of one master workman in science as in other crafts, and perhaps saw himself as destined to make all of the discoveries along the paths he was pursuing. He observed that what led to knowledge was not so much good sense as pursuit of it through mental effort. He observed that, while giving his mind somewhat of a grounding, formal schooling served mostly to disclose his ignorance and that of those around him. His philosophical method includes regarding as false anything only probable and yet he notes that learned philosophers have debated for years without finding truth in the same matters. Amidst all of this, he is also able to make such practical observations as one regarding fashion: that what pleased people 10 years ago will again please them 10 years hence, and yet be ridiculous today.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Interesting first part where he "debunks" the previous history of philosophy; but what was all that stuff about the motion of the blood and heart towards the end?
Book preview
Discourse on Method - René Descartes
PART I
GOOD SENSE IS, OF ALL things among men, the most equally distributed; for every one thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess. And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken: the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men; and that the diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it. The greatest minds, as they are capable of the highest excellences, are open likewise to the greatest aberrations; and those who travel very slowly may yet make far greater progress, provided they keep always to the straight road, than those who, while they run, forsake it.
For myself, I have never fancied my mind to be in any respect more perfect than those of the generality; on the contrary, I have often wished that I were equal to some others in promptitude of thought, or in clearness and distinctness of imagination, or in fullness and readiness of memory. And besides these, I know of no other qualities that contribute to the perfection of the mind; for as to the reason or sense, inasmuch as it is that alone which constitutes us men, and distinguishes us from the brutes, I am disposed to believe that it is to be found complete in each individual; and on this point to adopt the common opinion of philosophers, who say that the difference of greater and less holds only among the accidents, and not among the forms or natures of individuals of the same species.
I will not hesitate, however, to avow my belief that it has been my singular good fortune to have very early in life fallen in with certain tracks which have conducted me to considerations and maxims, of which I have formed a method that gives me the means, as I think, of gradually augmenting my knowledge, and of raising it by little and little to the highest point which the mediocrity of my talents and the brief duration of my life will permit me to reach. For I have already reaped from it such fruits that, although I have been accustomed to think lowly enough of myself, and although when I look with the eye of a philosopher at the varied courses and pursuits of mankind at large, I find scarcely one which does not appear in vain and useless, I nevertheless derive the highest satisfaction from the progress I conceive myself to have already made in the search after truth, and cannot help entertaining such expectations of the future as to believe that if, among the occupations of men as men, there is any one really excellent and important, it is that which I have chosen.
After all, it is possible I may be mistaken; and it is but a little copper and glass, perhaps, that I take for gold and diamonds. I know how very liable we are to delusion in what relates to ourselves, and also how much the judgments of our friends are to be suspected when given in our favor. But I shall endeavor in this discourse to describe the paths I have followed, and to delineate my life as in a picture, in order that each one may also be able to judge of them for himself, and that in the general opinion entertained of them, as gathered from current report, I myself may have a new help towards instruction to be added to those I have been in the habit of employing.
My present design, then, is not to teach the method which each ought to follow for the right conduct of his reason, but solely to describe the way in which I have endeavored to conduct my own. They who set themselves to give precepts must of course regard themselves as possessed of greater skill than those to whom they prescribe; and if they err in the slightest particular, they subject themselves to censure. But as this tract is put forth merely as a history, or, if you will, as a tale, in which, amid some examples worthy of imitation, there will be found, perhaps, as many more which it were advisable not to follow, I hope it will prove useful to some without being hurtful to any, and that my openness will find some favor with all.
From my childhood, I have been familiar with letters; and as I was given to believe that by their help a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life might be acquired, I was ardently desirous of instruction. But as soon as I had finished the entire course of study, at the close of which it is customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely changed my opinion. For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance. And yet I was studying in one of the most celebrated schools in Europe, in which I thought there must be learned men, if such were anywhere to be found. I had been taught all that others learned there; and not contented with the sciences actually taught us, I had, in addition, read all the books that had fallen into my hands, treating of such branches as are esteemed the most curious and rare. I knew the judgment which others had formed of me; and I did not find that I was considered inferior to my fellows, although there were among them some who were already marked out to fill the places of our instructors. And, in fine, our age appeared to me as flourishing, and as fertile in powerful minds as any preceding one. I was thus led to take the liberty of judging of all other men by myself, and of concluding that there was no science in existence that was of such a nature as I had previously been given to believe.
I still continued, however, to hold in esteem the studies of the schools. I was aware that the languages taught in them are necessary to the understanding of the writings of the ancients; that the grace of fable stirs the mind; that the memorable deeds of history elevate it; and, if read with discretion, aid in forming