(The Discourse on the Method is a philosophical and autobi...)
The Discourse on the Method is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. Its full name is Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. The Discourse on The Method is best known as the source of the famous quotation "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I think, therefore I am") Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed; for everyone 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.
(The appearance of "Meditations on First Philosophy" in 16...)
The appearance of "Meditations on First Philosophy" in 1641 marked a dramatic turning point in the history of Western thought. In "Meditations on the First Philosophy," René Descartes delves into epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. He asks questions such as whether there is such a thing as knowledge, and if so, what distinguishes it from opinion.
(Principles of Philosophy was written in Latin by René Des...)
Principles of Philosophy was written in Latin by René Descartes. Published in 1644, it was intended to replace Aristotle's philosophy and traditional Scholastic Philosophy. This volume contains a letter of the author to the French translator of the Principles of Philosophy serving for a Preface and a letter to the most serene princess, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Frederick, King of Bohemia, Count Palatine, and Elector of the Sacred Roman Empire.
(This edition features reliable, accessible translations; ...)
This edition features reliable, accessible translations; useful editorial materials; and a straightforward presentation of the Objections and Replies, including the objections from Caterus, Arnauld, and Hobbes, accompanied by Descartes' replies, in their entirety. The letter serving as a reply to Gassendi - in which several of Descartes' associates present Gassendi's best arguments and Descartes' replies - conveys the highlights and important issues of their notoriously extended exchange.
(Besides his more famous works of philosophy - Discourse o...)
Besides his more famous works of philosophy - Discourse on Method, Meditations on First Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy - Descartes devoted a great deal of time and thought to the study of physiology and anatomy.
("I think, therefore I am." René Descartes (1596-1650) is ...)
"I think, therefore I am." René Descartes (1596-1650) is not only one of the men who belong in the pantheon of the West’s greatest thinkers: he influenced everyone else who belongs there too. The book contains his selected works.
René Descartes was a French scientist and philosopher, who invented analytical geometry and introduced skepticism as an essential part of the scientific method. He is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers in history.
Background
René Descartes was born in 1596 in La Hay en Touraine, France, to Joachim and Jeanne Descartes. Jeanne died shortly after Descartes turned one. Descartes was thought to have been fairly ill throughout his childhood. He and his siblings were raised by their grandmother, while Joachim was busy elsewhere with work and as a council member in the provincial parliament.
Education
At the age of about ten or eleven René was finally considered healthy enough to begin school. He boarded at the Jesuit School at La Flèche in Anjou. In a concession to his delicate health, he was allowed to rise later in the morning than other students.
René spent seven or eight years at La Flèche learning logic, theology, philosophy, Latin, and Greek. In his final two years, he also learned mathematics and physics. He was a boy of prodigious curiosity, asking questions endlessly.
René learned something of Galileo’s work including his recent amazing discovery of Jupiter’s moons. At this time, Galileo had still not published his greatest works overturning Aristotle’s physics; his trouble with the Catholic Church lay in the future. At the age of 18, in 1614, René Descartes left La Flèche.
In 1614 Descartes went to Poitiers, where he took a law degree in 1616. At this time, Huguenot Poitiers was in a virtual revolt against the young King Louis XIII. Descartes’s father probably expected him to enter Parlement, but the minimum age for doing so was 27, and Descartes was only 20. In 1618 he went to Breda in the Netherlands, where he spent 15 months as an informal student of mathematics and military architecture in the peacetime army of the Protestant stadholder, Prince Maurice (ruled 1585-1625). In Breda, Descartes was encouraged in his studies of science and mathematics by the physicist Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637), for whom he wrote the Compendium of Music (written 1618, published 1650), his first surviving work.
Descartes spent the period 1619 to 1628 traveling in northern and southern Europe, where, as he later explained, he studied "the book of the world." While in Bohemia in 1619, he invented analytic geometry, a method of solving geometric problems algebraically and algebraic problems geometrically. He also devised a universal method of deductive reasoning, based on mathematics, that is applicable to all the sciences. This method, which he later formulated in Discourse on Method (1637) and Rules for the Direction of the Mind (written by 1628 but not published until 1701), consists of four rules: accept nothing as true that is not self-evident, divide problems into their simplest parts, solve problems by proceeding from simple to complex, and recheck the reasoning. These rules are a direct application of mathematical procedures. In addition, Descartes insisted that all key notions and the limits of each problem must be clearly defined.
Descartes's first major work, Rules for the Direction of the Mind, was written by 1629 but was not published until 1701. The work begins by assuming that man's knowledge has been limited by the belief that science is determined by the various objects of experience. The first rule, therefore, states that all true judgment depends on reason alone. For example, mathematical truths are valid even without observation and experiment. The second rule argues that the standard for true knowledge should be the certainty demanded of mathematical demonstrations. The third rule states that the mind should be influenced only by what can clearly be observed. The remaining rules are devoted to the explanation of these ideas or showing their use in mathematical problems.
By 1634 Descartes had written The World, in which he supported several theories, including the idea of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) that Earth is not the center of the universe but revolves around the sun. Only fragments of the book survive because when Descartes heard that a book published by Galileo (1564-1642), which also supported Copernicus, had been condemned by the Catholic Church, his fear of similar treatment led him to withdraw his work. In 1634 he also wrote the brief Treatise on Man, which attempted to explain human physiology (a branch of biology dealing with organs, tissues, and cells).
In 1637 Descartes finished Discourse on Method, which uses a personal account of his education as an example of the need for a new method of study. Descartes also presents four rules for reducing any problem to its basics and then constructing solutions. In 1641 and 1642 Meditations on First Philosophy appeared together with six sets of objections by other famous thinkers. The Meditations is one of the most famous books in the history of philosophy. While earlier Descartes's works were concerned with explaining a method of thinking, this work applies that method to the problems of philosophy, including the convincing of doubters, the existence of the human soul, the nature of God, and the basis of truth.
The remainder of Descartes's career was spent defending his positions. In 1644 he published the Principles of Philosophy, which breaks down and expands the arguments of the earlier Meditations. In 1649 Descartes accepted an invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689) to become her teacher. During this time he wrote The Passions of the Soul, which explains passion as a product of physical and chemical processes.
("I think, therefore I am." René Descartes (1596-1650) is ...)
Religion
In 1663, despite his efforts to avoid such a fate - René Descartes regarded himself as a devout Catholic - a number of Descartes’ works joined Galileo’s on the index of books prohibited by the Catholic Church. Over 300 years later, in 1966, this index was finally discontinued.
Descartes’s papers came into the possession of Claude Clerselier, a pious Catholic, who began the process of turning Descartes into a saint by cutting, adding to, and selectively publishing his letters. This cosmetic work culminated in 1691 in the massive biography by Father Adrien Baillet, who was at work on a 17-volume Lives of the Saints. Even during Descartes’s lifetime, there were questions about whether he was a Catholic apologist, primarily concerned with supporting Christian doctrine, or an atheist, concerned only with protecting himself with pious sentiments while establishing a deterministic, mechanistic, and materialistic physics.
These questions remain difficult to answer, not least because all the papers, letters, and manuscripts available to Clerselier and Baillet are now lost. In 1667 the Roman Catholic Church made its own decision by putting Descartes’s works on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Latin: "Index of Prohibited Books") on the very day his bones were ceremoniously placed in Sainte-Geneviève-du-Mont in Paris. During his lifetime, Protestant ministers in the Netherlands called Descartes a Jesuit and a papist - which is to say an atheist. He retorted that they were intolerant, ignorant bigots. Up to about 1930, a majority of scholars, many of whom were religious, believed that Descartes’s major concerns were metaphysical and religious. By the late 20th century, however, numerous commentators had come to believe that Descartes was a Catholic in the same way he was a Frenchman and a royalist - that is, by birth and by convention.
Descartes himself said that good sense is destroyed when one thinks too much of God. He once told a German protégée, Anna Maria van Schurman, who was known as a painter and a poet, that she was wasting her intellect studying Hebrew and theology. He also was perfectly aware of - though he tried to conceal - the atheistic potential of his materialist physics and physiology. Descartes seemed indifferent to the emotional depths of religion. Whereas Pascal trembled when he looked into the infinite universe and perceived the puniness and misery of man, Descartes exulted in the power of human reason to understand the cosmos and to promote happiness, and he rejected the view that human beings are essentially miserable and sinful. He held that it is impertinent to pray to God to change things. Instead, when we cannot change the world, we must change ourselves.
Views
Descartes’s general goal was to help human beings master and possess nature. He provided an understanding of the trunk of the tree of knowledge in The World, Dioptrics, Meteorology, and Geometry, and he established its metaphysical roots in the Meditations. He then spent the rest of his life working on the branches of mechanics, medicine, and morals. Mechanics is the basis of his physiology and medicine, which in turn is the basis of his moral psychology. Descartes believed that all material bodies, including the human body, are machines that operate by mechanical principles. In his physiological studies, he dissected animal bodies to show how their parts move. He argued that, because animals have no souls, they do not think or feel; thus, vivisection, which Descartes practiced, is permitted. He also described the circulation of the blood but came to the erroneous conclusion that heat in the heart expands the blood, causing its expulsion into the veins.
On November 10, 1619, Descartes was dozing in a warm, stove-heated room in the German town of Neuburg an der Donau.
There he had a series of dreams that would ultimately change the way scientists work. He believed a spirit sent by God gave him new ideas about: the Scientific Method, Analytical Geometry, and Philosophy. 18 years later, in 1637, he published his ideas in Discours de la mèthode (Discussion of the Method), La Gèomètrie (Geometry), Les Mètèores (Meteorology), and La Dioptrique (Optics). The first two of these works contain his most significant contributions.
In Discussion of the Method, Descartes shared his framework for doing science.
One of his main lines of thought was skepticism - that everything should be doubted until it could be proved.
His four main ideas for scientific progress were:
1. Never accept anything as true until all reasons for doubt can be ruled out.
2. Divide problems into as many parts as possible and necessary to provide an adequate solution.
3. Thoughts should be ordered, starting with the simplest and easiest to know, ascending little by little, and, step by step, to more complex knowledge.
4. Make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that nothing is omitted.
Descartes made the revolutionary discovery that he could solve problems in geometry by converting them into problems in algebra.
In La Gèomètrie he showed that curves could be expressed in terms of x and y on a two-dimensional plane and hence as equations in algebra. The Cartesian coordinate system is named in his honor. (Descartes’ name in Latin is Cartesius.)
Descartes never actually drew an x- or y-axis in his work. These were assumed in his diagrams. The axes were formally introduced by the mathematician Frans van Schooten and other mathematicians in Leiden who translated La Gèomètrie from French into Latin while developing it further. Latin editions of La Gèomètrie were released in 1649, 1659 and 1661.
Descartes also introduced the modern notation for exponents. For example, rather than writing a.a.a, he would write a3.
By unleashing the mathematical power of algebra to tackle problems in geometry, Descartes surpassed the expertise of Ancient Greece’s brilliant geometers: he could now solve problems that had defeated them.
Analytical geometry was independently invented earlier by Pierre de Fermat, who lived in France at the same time as Descartes. Fermat worked on mathematics for his own pleasure and often kept his results private. He did, however, enjoy issuing challenges to other mathematicians to solve problems.
In 1638 Fermat sent a work entitled Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci to the mathematician, Marin Mersenne, to show how problems he had posed at an earlier date could be solved. Fermat’s approach was different from Descartes’. Descartes showed how geometry could be expressed as algebra; Fermat showed how algebra could be expressed as geometry.
Calculus has been crucial to the progress of mathematics and the sciences. It was developed in the 1660s by Isaac Newton and developed independently in the 1670s by Gottfried Leibniz.
In La Gèomètrie, Descartes showed how he could find tangents to curves. This process is a vital part of differential calculus. His mathematical competitor Fermat was also able to find tangents to curves; his methods were actually simpler than Descartes’. Both Descartes and Fermat helped guide Newton and Leibniz’s development of calculus.
Four years before he released his 1637 works, Descartes had intended publishing The World. In 1633, however, he learned that the Catholic Church had tried Galileo for heresy and sentenced him to life in prison. This was reduced to permanent house arrest because Galileo was rather elderly. The Church also prohibited Galileo’s works. Descartes, like Galileo, believed the sun sits at the center of the solar system. He decided not to risk the Church’s wrath and did not publish The World.
Descartes is regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of all time. Here we are concerned with science rather than philosophy, so we will restrict ourselves to noting his most famous declaration: “I think therefore I am.” This could also be expressed as: “I can think, therefore I exist.” Descartes regarded this statement as the unshakeable foundation that all other philosophy could be built upon.
His most famous philosophical work is Meditations on First Philosophy, published in 1641.
Descartes’ most comprehensive work, Principles of Philosophy, was published in 1644. In it, he tried to deduce all of nature’s laws from first principles. Although the book had much to commend it to philosophers, its science was incorrect.
He argued that action at a distance is impossible and agreed with the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle that there could be no vacuum. Soon, however, all his power as a philosopher would be defeated by scientific experiments.
In 1654 Otto von Guericke constructed the first vacuum pump. In 1662 Robert Boyle demonstrated that the magnetic force can travel through a vacuum, establishing that action at a distance is possible.
Quotations:
"I took pleasure, above all, in mathematics, because of the certainty and the absoluteness of its reasons; but I had not yet discovered its true use… I was astonished that with such solid foundations nothing more eminent had ever been built upon them."
"Seeing it [philosophy] had been cultivated by the most powerful minds… but nevertheless, there is not in it one single thing which is not disputed, and therefore open to doubt, I had not the presumption to hope that I should succeed better than others. Considering how many different opinions there are… while it was impossible that more than one of them could be true, I regarded as little better than false everything that was merely probable."
"The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues."
"It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."
"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."
"Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it."
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
"Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare."
"In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate."
"Everything is self-evident."
"Except for our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."
"When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable."
Personality
Descartes was wealthy enough to pursue his own interests. His father gifted him a number of properties which Descartes, at the age of 24, sold. This raised enough money for him to live on comfortably for the rest of his life.
Descartes spent much of his life on the move. He lived for 20 of his later years in various locations in Holland. He also studied and taught mathematics there. He found he could work better in Holland, with fewer distractions than in France.
In death, as in life, Descartes was mobile. 16 years after his first burial his remains were moved and buried in the Saint-Ètienne-du-Mont church in Paris, France. In 1819 his remains minus skull and finger were moved again, this time to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Près in Paris, where he now rests.
Physical Characteristics:
From birth, René suffered poor health and had a permanent cough. Local doctors thought he would not survive infancy. His father employed a nurse who devoted herself to René’s care. As an adult he believed his nurse saved his life - he paid her a permanent pension.
Connections
Although never married, but in 1635, aged 39, Descartes became a father. His partner was an Amsterdam servant, Helena Jans van der Strom. Their daughter was named Francine. Mother and daughter lived with Descartes in his house - he told people Francine was his niece. He planned to educate his daughter in France, but sadly, at the age of five, she died of scarlet fever. Francine’s mother later got married, with Descartes playing a fatherly role by paying the wedding dowry.