René Descartes’ Discourse on
Method (Com plete Notes)
Par t On e
Sum m ar y
Descartes opens Discourse on Method by asserting that everyone is equally well
endowed with reason. Following scholastic philosophy, he claims that we are essentially
rational animals, and while we may differ with respect to our accidental, or non-
essential, properties, we must all share the same form, or essential properties. Since we
are all equally human, we must all be equally rational. People have different opinions
and arrive at the truth with varying degrees of success not because some people are
better equipped with reason than others but because different people apply their reason
in different ways.
Descartes proposes to share a method that he discovered in his youth that he believes
has helped him increase his knowledge to the greatest possible extent given his own
limitations. While he does not feel his reason is any better than anyone else's he does
feel he's discovered a very effective method of applying it. Some people may not find this
method useful, but he proposes to put it forth not as a guideline that all must follow, but
merely as a description of the path he has followed in the hope that some might
similarly profit from it.
Because his method is so tied up with the manner in which he's lived, his account is of
necessity autobiographical. He begins with his youth, growing up in one of the finest
schools in Europe. The education he gained there, he was told, would provide him with
certain knowledge of everything useful in life. But at the end of his education he only
found himself riddled with doubts, feeling he'd learnt nothing but an awareness of his
own ignorance. He had been a strong student at one of the finest schools in one of the
most enlightened ages in history, so he doubts that his disappointment was a result of
not learning this certain knowledge that he'd been promised. Rather, he suggests, there
was no such knowledge to be learned.
He did not discard the works he had learned in school, but he resolved not to study any
further. He lauds the virtues of studying ancient texts, fables, history, oratory, poetry,
mathematics, morality, theology, philosophy, and the other sciences, but also explains
why they do not prove ultimately satisfying. Too many texts from or about other times
can distance one from one's own time, while oratory and poetry seem to rely on innate
skill rather than careful study. He deeply admired mathematics, but did not perceive its
higher uses since it was mostly applied in engineering. Morality was usually poorly
reasoned and studying theology was not likely to unlock the secrets of heaven.
,Philosophy has been disputed over for millennia without any real agreements, and
Descartes doubts that he could settle what the greatest minds of past generations have
failed to achieve. Lastly, the sciences are built upon the premises of philosophy and so
are as uncertain as their foundations.
Instead, Descartes decided to abandon his books and see what he could learn in
traveling the world. He learnt that people have all sorts of different customs, and what
might seem strange in his native France is well accepted in great nations abroad. This
helped him to mistrust anything that he had learned simply through custom and
example and to trust his reason above all. One day, Descartes resolved to pursue studies
within himself rather than in the world, to look inward and see what he could dig out by
means of his reason. In this study, he feels he has had far greater success than anything
he has learned from books or traveling.
An alysis
Descartes was educated at the Jesuit college of La Fleche—considered one of the finest
schools of the age—from the age of ten to eighteen or nineteen. He then took a doctorate
in law at the University of Poitiers. The travels he describes after his years of study took
place mostly in Holland and Germany, serving in the armies of Maurice of Nassau and
then Maximilian of Bavaria. He left France in 1618, at the age of twenty-two, and
returned in 1622.
Descartes describes a growing trend in the youth of his generation, something that
Thomas Kuhn calls a "paradigm shift." There was a growing dissatisfaction with, and
skepticism toward, the scholastic philosophy that had been inherited from Aristotle.
This is not so much to say that people stopped being interested in the things that
previous generations had been interested in. Rather, people grew dissatisfied with a
paradigm of knowledge, of an understanding of what knowledge was, of how it could be
learned, and of what value it could have.
Aristotelian logic, and hence Aristotelian science, works according to a method of
syllogism and demonstration. One starts with a premise that one knows with certainty
by means of intuition, and then one deduces consequences from it by means of a
syllogism. A syllogism is a kind of logical argument with three steps and three terms. For
example, "All y's are z; x is a y; therefore, x is a z." If we are certain about the first two
statements, then we can deduce the third statement with equal certainty.
According to Aristotle, and to the two thousand-year old tradition that used his ideas,
scientific knowledge is certain knowledge deduced from certain premises. This is the
kind of knowledge that Descartes was promised as a part of his education and that he
came to find unsatisfying. We might be inclined to sympathize with Descartes on this
one. Among the irrefutable demonstrations of Aristotelian philosophy are the assertions
, that the earth is the center of the universe, that women are naturally inferior to men,
and that the world is made up of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water.
Aristotelian scholasticism was not overthrown by a set of scientific discoveries. Rather,
these discoveries were a result of a revolution in the way we think about science. Galileo
and Descartes were two of the early exponents of a new scientific method that relies on
hypothesis and experiment rather than on demonstration and syllogism. This method
does not pretend to provide certainty, but only proposes theories and models that fit the
facts and provide plausible explanations of natural phenomena. It took a long while
before people came to accept that a sound theory, and not certainty, was the highest
possible aspiration of science. For instance, one of the main arguments the Inquisition
made against Galileo was that his claim that the earth went around the sun was not
demonstrated knowledge. They were perfectly happy to accept that it was a plausible
theoretical model, but they were trapped in an ancient worldview according to which
theoretical models and demonstrations of certainty were two very different things.
Galileo was accused of claiming that his model was a demonstration of certainty rather
than a theoretical model.
The Discourse on the Method is thus a rather tricky book, because it is part of a
revolution in its early stages. Descartes not only must pay lip service to Aristotelian
philosophy, but he also has not entirely freed himself from that mindset. For instance,
we find him arguing early on that we are all equally rational because reason is a form,
and not an accident, of human nature. The distinction between form and accident is
quintessentially Aristotelian. The idea is that we have essential properties—like reason—
without which we would not be what we are. A human being without reason is not a
human being. We also have accidental properties—like legs—without which we could
still be human beings. As humans we can only differ with respect to our accidental
properties, but not with respect to our form (our essential properties). Thus, we must all
have reason, and have it to an equal extent.
This assertion also identifies Descartes as a rationalist philosopher. The early modern
period in philosophy, of which Descartes is the founding father, was split roughly into
two camps: the British empiricists and the Continental rationalists. Empiricists, such as
John Locke, asserted that the mind is a blank slate at birth, and all knowledge comes
from experience. Descartes, on the other hand, maintains that there is a certain
something—our native intellect or reason—that we are born with and all share.
Par t Tw o
Sum m ar y
The turning point in Descartes's intellectual development occurred on November 10,
1619. He had attended the coronation of Ferdinand II in Frankfurt, and was returning to
Method (Com plete Notes)
Par t On e
Sum m ar y
Descartes opens Discourse on Method by asserting that everyone is equally well
endowed with reason. Following scholastic philosophy, he claims that we are essentially
rational animals, and while we may differ with respect to our accidental, or non-
essential, properties, we must all share the same form, or essential properties. Since we
are all equally human, we must all be equally rational. People have different opinions
and arrive at the truth with varying degrees of success not because some people are
better equipped with reason than others but because different people apply their reason
in different ways.
Descartes proposes to share a method that he discovered in his youth that he believes
has helped him increase his knowledge to the greatest possible extent given his own
limitations. While he does not feel his reason is any better than anyone else's he does
feel he's discovered a very effective method of applying it. Some people may not find this
method useful, but he proposes to put it forth not as a guideline that all must follow, but
merely as a description of the path he has followed in the hope that some might
similarly profit from it.
Because his method is so tied up with the manner in which he's lived, his account is of
necessity autobiographical. He begins with his youth, growing up in one of the finest
schools in Europe. The education he gained there, he was told, would provide him with
certain knowledge of everything useful in life. But at the end of his education he only
found himself riddled with doubts, feeling he'd learnt nothing but an awareness of his
own ignorance. He had been a strong student at one of the finest schools in one of the
most enlightened ages in history, so he doubts that his disappointment was a result of
not learning this certain knowledge that he'd been promised. Rather, he suggests, there
was no such knowledge to be learned.
He did not discard the works he had learned in school, but he resolved not to study any
further. He lauds the virtues of studying ancient texts, fables, history, oratory, poetry,
mathematics, morality, theology, philosophy, and the other sciences, but also explains
why they do not prove ultimately satisfying. Too many texts from or about other times
can distance one from one's own time, while oratory and poetry seem to rely on innate
skill rather than careful study. He deeply admired mathematics, but did not perceive its
higher uses since it was mostly applied in engineering. Morality was usually poorly
reasoned and studying theology was not likely to unlock the secrets of heaven.
,Philosophy has been disputed over for millennia without any real agreements, and
Descartes doubts that he could settle what the greatest minds of past generations have
failed to achieve. Lastly, the sciences are built upon the premises of philosophy and so
are as uncertain as their foundations.
Instead, Descartes decided to abandon his books and see what he could learn in
traveling the world. He learnt that people have all sorts of different customs, and what
might seem strange in his native France is well accepted in great nations abroad. This
helped him to mistrust anything that he had learned simply through custom and
example and to trust his reason above all. One day, Descartes resolved to pursue studies
within himself rather than in the world, to look inward and see what he could dig out by
means of his reason. In this study, he feels he has had far greater success than anything
he has learned from books or traveling.
An alysis
Descartes was educated at the Jesuit college of La Fleche—considered one of the finest
schools of the age—from the age of ten to eighteen or nineteen. He then took a doctorate
in law at the University of Poitiers. The travels he describes after his years of study took
place mostly in Holland and Germany, serving in the armies of Maurice of Nassau and
then Maximilian of Bavaria. He left France in 1618, at the age of twenty-two, and
returned in 1622.
Descartes describes a growing trend in the youth of his generation, something that
Thomas Kuhn calls a "paradigm shift." There was a growing dissatisfaction with, and
skepticism toward, the scholastic philosophy that had been inherited from Aristotle.
This is not so much to say that people stopped being interested in the things that
previous generations had been interested in. Rather, people grew dissatisfied with a
paradigm of knowledge, of an understanding of what knowledge was, of how it could be
learned, and of what value it could have.
Aristotelian logic, and hence Aristotelian science, works according to a method of
syllogism and demonstration. One starts with a premise that one knows with certainty
by means of intuition, and then one deduces consequences from it by means of a
syllogism. A syllogism is a kind of logical argument with three steps and three terms. For
example, "All y's are z; x is a y; therefore, x is a z." If we are certain about the first two
statements, then we can deduce the third statement with equal certainty.
According to Aristotle, and to the two thousand-year old tradition that used his ideas,
scientific knowledge is certain knowledge deduced from certain premises. This is the
kind of knowledge that Descartes was promised as a part of his education and that he
came to find unsatisfying. We might be inclined to sympathize with Descartes on this
one. Among the irrefutable demonstrations of Aristotelian philosophy are the assertions
, that the earth is the center of the universe, that women are naturally inferior to men,
and that the world is made up of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water.
Aristotelian scholasticism was not overthrown by a set of scientific discoveries. Rather,
these discoveries were a result of a revolution in the way we think about science. Galileo
and Descartes were two of the early exponents of a new scientific method that relies on
hypothesis and experiment rather than on demonstration and syllogism. This method
does not pretend to provide certainty, but only proposes theories and models that fit the
facts and provide plausible explanations of natural phenomena. It took a long while
before people came to accept that a sound theory, and not certainty, was the highest
possible aspiration of science. For instance, one of the main arguments the Inquisition
made against Galileo was that his claim that the earth went around the sun was not
demonstrated knowledge. They were perfectly happy to accept that it was a plausible
theoretical model, but they were trapped in an ancient worldview according to which
theoretical models and demonstrations of certainty were two very different things.
Galileo was accused of claiming that his model was a demonstration of certainty rather
than a theoretical model.
The Discourse on the Method is thus a rather tricky book, because it is part of a
revolution in its early stages. Descartes not only must pay lip service to Aristotelian
philosophy, but he also has not entirely freed himself from that mindset. For instance,
we find him arguing early on that we are all equally rational because reason is a form,
and not an accident, of human nature. The distinction between form and accident is
quintessentially Aristotelian. The idea is that we have essential properties—like reason—
without which we would not be what we are. A human being without reason is not a
human being. We also have accidental properties—like legs—without which we could
still be human beings. As humans we can only differ with respect to our accidental
properties, but not with respect to our form (our essential properties). Thus, we must all
have reason, and have it to an equal extent.
This assertion also identifies Descartes as a rationalist philosopher. The early modern
period in philosophy, of which Descartes is the founding father, was split roughly into
two camps: the British empiricists and the Continental rationalists. Empiricists, such as
John Locke, asserted that the mind is a blank slate at birth, and all knowledge comes
from experience. Descartes, on the other hand, maintains that there is a certain
something—our native intellect or reason—that we are born with and all share.
Par t Tw o
Sum m ar y
The turning point in Descartes's intellectual development occurred on November 10,
1619. He had attended the coronation of Ferdinand II in Frankfurt, and was returning to
