Discourse on the Method (ed. 2)
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~21,700 words · 103 passages
Cite this work
- APADescartes. (n.d.). Discourse on the Method (ed. 2). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/descartes/a-discourse-of-a-method-for-the-well-guiding-of-reason
- MLADescartes. "Discourse on the Method (ed. 2)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/descartes/a-discourse-of-a-method-for-the-well-guiding-of-reason.
- ChicagoDescartes. Discourse on the Method (ed. 2). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/descartes/a-discourse-of-a-method-for-the-well-guiding-of-reason.
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.
The Great DESCARTES (who may justly challenge the first place amongst the Philosophers of this Age) is the Author of this Discourse; which in the Originall was so well known, That it could be no mans but his own, that his Name was not affix'd to it: I need say no more either of Him or It; He is best made known by Himself, and his Writings want nothing but thy reading to commend them. But as those who cannot compasse the Originals of _Titian_ and _Van-Dyke_, are glad to adorne their Cabinets with the Copies of them; So be pleased favourably to receive his Picture from my hand, copied after his own Designe: You may therein observe the lines of a well form'd Minde, The hightnings of Truth, The sweetnings and shadowings of Probabilities, The falls and depths of Falshood; all which serve to perfect this Masterpiece. Now although my after-draught be rude and unpolished, and that perhaps I have touch'd it too boldly, The thoughts of so clear a Minde, being so extremely fine, That as the choisest words are too grosse, and fall short fully to expresse such sublime Notions; So it cannot be, but being transvested, it must necessarily lose very much of its native Lustre: Nay, although I am conscious (notwithstanding the care I have taken neither to wrong the Authours Sense, nor offend the Readers Ear) of many escapes which I have made; yet I so little doubt of being excused, That I am confident, my endeavour cannot but be gratefull to all Lovers of Learning; for whose benefit I have Englished, and to whom I addresse this Essay, which contains a Method, by the Rules whereof we may Shape our better part, Rectifie our Reason, Form our Manners and Square our Actions, Adorn our Mindes, and