Discourse on the Method (ed. 2)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~21,700 words · 103 passages
Cite this work
- APADescartes. (n.d.). A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason [Discourse on the Method (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/descartes/a-discourse-of-a-method-for-the-well-guiding-of-reason
- MLADescartes. A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason [Discourse on the Method (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/descartes/a-discourse-of-a-method-for-the-well-guiding-of-reason.
- ChicagoDescartes. A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason [Discourse on the Method (ed. 2)]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/descartes/a-discourse-of-a-method-for-the-well-guiding-of-reason.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
The story of how Descartes resolved to doubt everything he had learned and to rebuild knowledge from the one certainty that survived: I think, therefore I am.
Context and history
Published in 1637 in Leiden, anonymously and in French — not in Latin, the language of the learned: Descartes wanted it readable, he said, even by women and by people without schooling. It was the preface to three scientific essays (optics, meteors, geometry), but the preface has eaten the book. Written from Holland, where Descartes lived with the caution of a man who had seen what happened to Galileo four years earlier. It is the birth certificate of modern philosophy: the doubting self as the foundation of everything.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Authors of them, and even a studyed conversation, wherein they discover to us the best only of their thoughts. That eloquence hath forces & beauties which are incomparable. That Poetry hath delicacies and sweets extremly ravishing; That the Mathematicks hath most subtile inventions, which very much conduce aswel to content the curious, as to facilitate all arts, and to lessen the labour of Men: That those writings which treat of manners contain divers instructions, and exhortations to vertue, which are very usefull. That Theology teacheth the way to heaven; That Philosophy affords us the means to speake of all things with probability, and makes her self admir'd, by the least knowing Men. That Law, Physick and other sciences bring honor and riches to those who practice them; Finally that its good to have examin'd them all even the falsest and the most superstitious, that we may discover their just value, and preserve our selves from their cheats. But I thought I had spent time enough in the languages, and even also in the lecture of ancient books, their histories and their fables. For 'tis even the same thing to converse with those of former ages, as to travel. Its good to know something of the manners of severall Nations, that we may not think that all things against our _Mode_ are ridiculous or unreasonable, as those are wont to do, who have seen Nothing. But when we employ too long time in travell, we at last become strangers to our own Country, and when we are too curious of those things, which we practised in former times, we commonly remain ignorant of those which are now in use.…