Discourse on Method

René Descartes, Andrew Bailey, Ian Johnston

• Publisher: Broadview Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781460406298
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía moderna

The Discourse on the Method for Reasoning Well and for Seeking Truth in the Sciences offers a concise presentation and defense of René Descartes's method of intellectual inquiry — a method that greatly influenced both philosophical and scientific reasoning in the early modern world. Descartes's timeless writing strikes an uncommon balance of novelty and familiarity, offering arguments concerning knowledge, science, and metaphysics (including the famous "I think, therefore I am") that are as compelling in the twenty-first century as they were in the seventeenth. Ian Johnston's new translation of the original French text is modern, clear, and thoroughly annotated, ideal for readers unfamiliar with Descartes's intellectual context. An approachable introduction engages both the historical and the philosophical aspects of the text, helping the reader to understand the concepts and arguments contained therein.

Discourse on the Method

for Reasoning Well and for Seeking Truth in the Sciences

If this discourse seems too long to be read in a single sitting, it can be divided up into six parts. In the first will be found various considerations concerning the sciences; in the second, the principal rules of the method which the author has discovered; in the third, some rules of morality which he has derived by this method; in the fourth, the reasons whereby he proves the existence of God and of the human soul, which are the foundations of his metaphysics; in the fifth part, the order of questions in physics which he has looked into, and particularly the explanation for the movements of the heart and for some other difficulties which are part of medicine, including the difference which exists between our souls and those of animals; and in the last part, some matters he believes necessary for further advances in research into nature, beyond where he has been, along with the reasons that induced him to write.

PART ONE

The most widely shared thing in the world is good sense, for everyone 2 thinks they are so well provided with it that even those who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else do not usually desire to have more good sense than they have. In this matter it is unlikely that everyone is mistaken. But this is rather a testimony to the fact that the power of judging well and distinguishing what is true from what is false, which is really what we call good sense or reason, is naturally equal in all people, and thus the diversity of our opinions does not arise because some people are more reasonable than others, but only because we conduct our thoughts by different routes and do not consider the same things. For it is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to apply it well. The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues, and those who proceed only very slowly, if they always stay on the right road, are capable of advancing a great deal further than those who rush along and wander away from it.

As for myself, I have never presumed that my mind was anything more perfect than the ordinary mind. I have often even wished that I could have thoughts as quick, an imagination as clear and distinct, or a memory as ample or as actively involved as some other people. And I know of no qualities other than these which serve to perfect the mind. As far as reason, or sense, is concerned, given that it is the only thing which makes us human and distinguishes us from the animals, I like to believe that it is entirely complete in each person, following in this the common opinion of philosophers, who say that differences of more and less occur only 3 between accidental characteristics and not between the forms or natures of individuals of the same species.

But I will not hesitate to state that I think I have been very fortunate to have found myself since my early years on certain roads which have led me to considerations and maxims out of which I have created a method by which, it seems to me, I have a way of gradually increasing my knowledge, raising it little by little to the highest point which the mediocrity of my mind and the short length of my life will allow it to attain. For I have already harvested such fruit from this method that, even though, in judging myself, I always try to lean towards the side of distrust rather than to that of presumption, and although, when I look with a philosopher’s eye on the various actions and enterprises of all people, there are hardly any which do not seem to me vain and useless, I cannot help deriving extreme satisfaction from the progress which I think I have already made in seeking truth and conceiving such hopes for the future that, if among the occupations of people, considered simply as people, there is one which is surely good and important, I venture to think it is the one I have chosen.

However, I may be mistaken and perhaps what I have taken for gold and diamonds is only a little copper and glass. I know how much we are subject to making mistakes in what concerns ourselves and also how much we should be wary of our friends’ judgments when they are in our favor. But I will be only too happy to make known in this discourse what roads 4 I have followed and to reveal my life in it, as if in a picture, so that each person can judge it. Learning from current reports the opinions people have of this discourse may be a new way of educating myself, something I will add to those which I habitually use.

Thus, my purpose here is not to teach the method which everyone should follow in order to reason well, but merely to reveal the way in which I have tried to conduct my own reasoning. Those who take it upon themselves to give precepts must consider themselves more skilful than those to whom they give them, and if they fall short in the slightest thing then they are culpable. But since I intend this text only as a history, or, if you prefer, a fable, in which, among some examples which you can imitate, you will also perhaps find several others which you will have reason not to follow, I hope that it will be useful to some people, without harming anyone, and that everyone will find my frankness agreeable.

I was nourished on literature from the time of my childhood, and because I was persuaded that through literature one could acquire a clear and assured understanding of everything useful in life, I had an intense desire to take it up. But as soon as I had completed that entire course of study at the end of which one is usually accepted into the rank of scholars, I changed my opinion completely. For I found myself burdened by so many doubts and errors that it seemed to me I had gained nothing by trying to instruct myself, other than having increasingly discovered my own ignorance. Yet I was in one of the most famous schools in Europe, 5 a place where I thought there must be erudite people, if there were such people anywhere on earth. I had learned everything which the others learned there; still, not being satisfied with the sciences we were taught, I had gone through all the books I could lay my hands on dealing with those sciences¹ which are considered the most curious and rare. In addition, I knew how other people were judging me, and I saw that they did not consider me inferior to my fellow students, although some among them were already destined to fill the places of our teachers. And finally, our age seemed to me as flourishing and as fertile in good minds as any preceding age. Hence, I took the liberty of judging all others by myself and of thinking that there was no doctrine in the world of the kind I had previously been led to hope for.

However, I did not cease valuing the exercises which kept people busy in the schools. I knew that the languages one learns there are necessary for an understanding of ancient books; that the gracefulness of fables awakens the intellect; that the memorable actions of history raise the mind and, when read with discretion, help to form one’s judgment; that reading all the good books is like having a conversation with the most honorable people of past centuries, who were their authors, even a carefully prepared dialogue in which they reveal to us only the best of their thoughts; that eloquence has incomparable power and beauty; that poetry 6 has a most ravishing delicacy and sweetness; that mathematics has very skillful inventions which can go a long way toward satisfying the curious as well as facilitating all the arts and lessening the work of people; that writings which deal with morals contain many lessons and many exhortations to virtue which are extremely useful; that theology teaches one how to reach heaven; that philosophy provides a way of speaking plausibly on all matters and of making oneself admired by those who are less scholarly; that jurisprudence, medicine, and the other sciences bring honor and riches to those who cultivate them; and finally that it is good to have examined all of them, even the most superstitious and false, in order to know their legitimate value and to guard against being wrong.

But I believed I had already given enough time to languages and even to reading ancient books as well, and to their histories and fables. For speaking with those from other ages is almost the same as traveling. It is good to know something about the customs of various people, so that we can judge our own more sensibly and do not think everything different from our own ways ridiculous and irrational, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to doing. But when one spends too much time travelling, one finally becomes a stranger in one’s own country, and when one is too curious about things which went on in past ages, one usually lives in considerable ignorance about what goes on in this one. In 7 addition, fables make us imagine many impossible events as possible, and even the most faithful histories, if they neither change nor increase the importance of things to make them more worth reading, at the very least almost always omit the most menial and less admirable circumstances, with the result that what remains does not depict the truth. Hence, those who regulate their habits by the examples which they derive from these histories are prone to fall into the extravagances of the knights of our romances and to dream up projects which are beyond their powers.

I placed a great value on eloquence, and I was in love with poetry, but I thought that both were gifts of the mind rather than fruits of study. Those with the most powerful reasoning and who best process their thoughts in order to make them clear and intelligible can always convince us best of what they are proposing, even if they speak only the language of Lower Brittany² and have never learned rhetoric. And those with the most pleasant creative talents and who know how to express them with the most adornment and sweetness cannot help being the best poets, even if the art of poetry is unknown to them.

I found mathematics especially delightful because of the certainty and clarity of its reasoning. But I was not yet aware of its true use. Thinking that it was practical only in the mechanical arts, I was astonished that on its foundations, so strong and solid, nothing more imposing had been built. In contrast, I compared the writings of the ancient pagans³ which deal with morality to really superb and magnificent palaces built on nothing but sand 8 and mud. They raise the virtues to a very great height and make them appear valuable, above everything in the world, but they do not adequately teach us to know them, and often what they call by such a beautiful name is only insensibility or pride or despair or parricide.⁴

I revered our theology and aspired as much as anyone to reach heaven; however, having learned, as something very certain, that the road leading there is no less open to the most ignorant as to the most learned, and that the revealed truths which lead there are beyond our intelligence, I did not dare to submit them to the frailty of my reasoning, and I thought that undertaking to examine them successfully would require some kind of extraordinary heavenly assistance and to be more than human.

I will say nothing of philosophy other than this: once I saw that it has been cultivated for several centuries by the most excellent minds which have ever lived, and that, nonetheless, there is still nothing in it which is not disputed and which is thus not still in doubt, I did not have sufficient presumption to hope to fare better there than the others. Moreover, considering how many different opinions, maintained by learned people, philosophy could have about the same matter—though no more than one could ever be true—I reckoned as virtually false all those which were merely probable.

Then, as for the other sciences, insofar as they borrow their principles 9 from philosophy, I judged that nothing solid could have been built on such insubstantial foundations, and neither the honor nor the profit which they promise were sufficient to convince me to learn them; for, thank God, I did not feel myself in a condition which obliged me to make a profession of science in order to improve my fortune, and, although I did not, in some cynical way, undertake to proclaim my disdain for glory, nonetheless I placed very little value on the fame I could hope to acquire only through false titles. And finally, as for bad doctrines, I thought I already sufficiently understood what they were worth in order not to be taken in by the promises of an alchemist, by the predictions of an astrologer, by the impostures of a magician, or by the artifice or the bragging of any of those who professed to know more than they know.

That is why, as soon as I was old enough to leave the supervision of my professors, I ceased the study of letters, and, resolving to stop seeking any other science except one which could be found inside myself or in the great book of the world, I spent the rest of my youth traveling, looking into courts and armies, associating with people of various humors and conditions, collecting various experiences, testing myself in those encounters which fortune offered me, and everywhere reflecting on the things I came across in such a way as to draw some profit from them. For it seemed to me that I could arrive at considerably more truth in the reasoning that each person makes regarding matters which are important to them and in which 10 events could punish them soon afterwards if they judged badly, than in the reasoning made by a scholar in their study concerning speculations which produce no effect and which are of no consequence to them, except perhaps that from them they can increase their vanity—and all the more so, the further their speculations are from common sense, because they would have had to use that much more wit and artifice in attempting to make them probable. And I always had an extreme desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see clearly in my actions and to proceed with confidence in this life.

It is true that while I did nothing but examine the customs of other people, I found hardly anything there to reassure me, and I noticed as much diversity among people as I had earlier noted among the opinions of philosophers. Consequently, the greatest profit which I derived from this was that, upon seeing several things which, although they seem really extravagant and ridiculous to us, were commonly accepted and approved by other great peoples, I learned not to believe too firmly in anything which I had been persuaded to believe merely by example and by custom. Thus, I gradually freed myself of numerous errors which can obfuscate our natural light⁵ and make us less capable of listening to reason. But after I had spent a few years studying in this way in the book of the world and attempting to acquire some experience, one day I resolved to study myself as well and to use all the powers of my mind to select paths which I should follow, a task which brought me considerably 11 more success, it seems to me, than if I had never left my own country or my books.

1 The word “science” in Descartes’s vocabulary means any formally organized theoretical knowledge. It does not refer merely to the natural sciences.

2 Descartes is referring to the Breton language, which was more typical among commoners than nobility and may have served as a marker of lower education.

3 In this context, “pagans” refers to non-Christians—thus the ancient Greeks.

4 The word “parricide” may seem odd here, but it refers to acts committed against one’s own family in the name of justice (i.e., a love of justice so strong that one is willing to kill members of one’s own family who have done wrong). Certain pagan moralists considered such acts particularly virtuous.

5 natural light: our innate faculty of rational understanding.

PART TWO

I was then in Germany, summoned by the ongoing wars there.¹ As I was returning to the army from the emperor’s coronation,² the onset of winter stopped me in a place where—not finding any conversation to divert me and, in addition, by good fortune, not having any cares or passions to trouble me—I spent the entire day closed up alone in a stove-heated room, where I had complete leisure to talk to myself about my thoughts. Among these thoughts, one of the first I noticed was how often there is not as much perfection in works created from several pieces and made by the hands of various masters as there is in those which one person has worked on alone. Thus, we see that the buildings which a single architect has undertaken and completed are usually more beautiful and better ordered than those which several people have tried to refurbish by making use of old walls built for other purposes. That is why those ancient cities which were only small villages at the start and became large towns over time are usually so badly laid out compared to the regular places which an engineer has designed freely on level ground. Even though, considering the buildings in each of them separately, we often find as much beauty in the former town as in the latter, or more, nonetheless, looking at them as they are arranged—here a large one, there a small one—and the way they make the streets crooked 12 and unequal, we would say that chance rather than the will of some people using their reason designed them this way. And if one considers that nonetheless there have always been certain officials charged with seeing that private buildings serve as a public ornament, one will readily see that it is difficult to achieve really fine things by working only with other people’s pieces. Thus, I imagined to myself that people who were semi-savages in earlier times and who became civilized only little by little and created their laws only as they were compelled to by the extent to which crimes and quarrels bothered them, would not be so well regulated as those who, from the moment they first assembled, followed the constitution of some prudent legislator. It is indeed certain that the state of the true religion, whose laws God alone created, must be incomparably better ordered than all the others. And, in terms of human affairs, I believe that if Sparta was in earlier times very prosperous, that was not on account of the goodness of each of its laws in particular, seeing that several were very strange and even contrary to good morals, but because they were devised by only a single man and thus aimed at the same end.³ Similarly, I thought that the sciences contained ...