Descartes' Discourse (1637)
Commentary
Descartes' Discourse (1637)
Descartes, Discourse on Method
OUTLINE
The significance of an extended philosophical source cannot be properly understood without a clear sense of its overall structure. This outline is provided both as an aid in understanding Descartes’ Discourse and as a model for the kind of outline students might wish to develop for the other extended sources prescribed for SS 14. Page references to The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch, vol 1 (CUP, 1985), 111-51.
Part One: critique of received learning
- Intellectual autobiography:
- Schooling (112):
- disciplines studied (113)
- Critique of established learning (113): the classics, oratory, rhetoric, mathematics, theology, philosophy
- Alternative sources of knowledge:
- travelling (115)
- customs (115)
- introspection (116)
Part two: youthful vision: need for destruction and rules for reconstruction
- Need for demolition (116)
- analogies: buildings, cities, laws ... the sciences (116)
- on the individual scale (117)
- (dislike of reformers: no intention that others should imitate him 118)
- autobiography again: origins of his doubts 118)
- Means of reconstruction:
- mathematical model (119)
- four basic rules (120)
Part three: provisional moral code (122)
- four maxims
Part four: crash course in Cartesian metaphysics:
- Radical doubt (127): first epistemological principle
- Cogito ergo sum (127)
- Metaphysics: mind-body dualism introduced (127)
- Clarity and distinctness (127): second epistemological principle
- Proof of the existence of God: from perfection (128)
- Epistemological consequences:
- innate ideas (129)
- God’s existence guarantees he truth of clear and distinct ideas (130)
- rationalism (130)
Part five: summary of Le monde (physics, cosmology, physiology, psychology)
- Light, sun and fixed stars, planets, earth, terrestrial bodies (132)
- (fiction of imaginary world)
- Cosmology and cosmogony (132)
- God, creation and sustaining power (133)
- Physiology (134) and psychology
- Illustrated by the motion of the heart (134)
- Physiology (134) and psychology
- illustrated by the motion of the heart (134)
Harvey
- Respiration, nutrition, animal spirits (138), nerves and muscles, internal passions (139)
- Animals are without minds / souls (139
- Distinction between men and animals (140)
- The rational soul (141)
Part six: to publish or not to publish
- Reasons for publishing:
- utility for the general good (142)
- need for more observations (143)
- methodological twist: need for more particulars (144)
- Reasons against publishing:
- need to avoid distraction (and therefore controversy and even reputation)
- controversies of little use (146)
- premature communication does not benefit others (146)
- collaboration with others and collection of past observations of little use (148)
- therefore only financial contributions useful (148)
- Overriding reasons to publish something if not the whole thing (149):
- to prevent hostile speculation (149)
- need for innumerable observations (149)
- Ultimate decision: to publish examples on uncontroversial subjects (149)
- (described as ‘suppositions’ because demonstrations from first principles are lacking: can’t give these away without revealing system)