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A Discourse on the Method (Oxford World's Classics)
Get Free Ebook A Discourse on the Method (Oxford World's Classics)
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About the Author
Ian Maclean, Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of Oxford.
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Product details
Series: Oxford World's Classics
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (June 15, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780199540075
ISBN-13: 978-0199540075
ASIN: 0199540071
Product Dimensions:
7.6 x 0.4 x 4.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
5.0 out of 5 stars
7 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#73,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
gift for grandson--he really lied it
Even more than the Meditations, this work can be used to introduce undergraduates to the thought of Descartes. The basic parts of the Cartesian revolution are here--the Cogito, mind/body duality, starting philosophy anew--without the detailed justifications that have been proven wrong by later developments.Cartesianism is obviously, as a system, fraught with errors and so this work is of real interest only in the history of ideas. Wittgenstein answered the Cogito in one sentence, "But how does Descartes know that there is such a thing as a personal I if he doubts everything?" And modern developmental psychology understands the rudiments of knowledge in a way impossible in Descartes' time. A fortiori mind/body dualism. Nobody can now assert the separation between the body and the mind that Descartes makes.Yet, the doubt was not only important in philosophy but also in the development of science. Descartes, along with others, had to eliminate the pseudoscientific part of Aristotle's physics if the scientific revolution was to begin. Thus, even though Cartesianism is of interest only in the history of ideas, this work should be read by every undergraduate simply to understand the course of Western civilizationAs an aside, it's interesting to speculate on why the Cogito found such contemporary success. For centuries Europeans had been willing to submit their reason to divine authority, both that of the Bible and the Church, and suddenly a meme spreads that everything should be doubted and only that which is in conformity with reason should be obeyed.Perhaps the wars of religion, the Inquisiton's persecution of Galileo and the celebration in Rome of the St. Bartholemew's day massacre had sufficiently eroded trust in the divine authority of the Church that a new civilization was able to emerge founded not on faith but on reason. if the Catholic Church had recognized this new civilization coming into being and not fought the new ideas with the old tools of the Inquisition and military force the need to doubt everything might not have spread like it did. But since the new ideas were met with nothing but force the authority of the Church was obviously itself open to question.In other words, if the Church had allowed the most outstanding minds of the pre-enlightenment era to think and write freely within the Church universal doubt might not have found such success and Western thought would not have been burdened with such false premises.
This is a review of this particular edition/translation, not of the original work.This is an excellent edition to study with if you're just coming to the Discourse, for several reasons:--The translation is very readable and flows nicely. In some places I even found the translation made more sense than the translation in Cottingham, et al. (which is also good)--The explanatory notes are enormously helpful, and there's usually at least one note about something said in each paragraph. (They don't summarize the whole paragraph, btw, so don't be expecting that.)--There's a sizable & informative introduction.
This is quintessential Descartes, and a concise, eloquent and candid expression of the main themes of his philosophy.In my review I wish to stress a particular aspect of Descartes's method which is neglected in most commentaries, including that of the present translator, namely the fact that it is directly modelled on the axiomatic method of Greek mathematics, and Euclid's Elements in particular. Descartes makes it quite clear that his intention is to widen the scope of the mathematical method to philosophy in general:"I was most keen on mathematics, because of its certainty and the incontrovertibility of its proofs; but I did not yet see its true use. Believing as I did that its only application was to the mechanical arts, I was astonished that nothing more exalted had been built on such sure and solid foundations." (9 = AT 7)Indeed, Descartes's definitive statement of his method is such an apt description of the Elements that it could easily have been written by Euclid himself as a preface to this work. Here I quote it in its entirety and point out the obvious parallels with Euclid."The first [principle of my method] was never to accept anything as true that I did not incontrovertibly know to be so; that is to say, carefully to avoid both prejudice and premature conclusions; and to include nothing in my judgements other than that which presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly, that I would have no occasion to doubt it." (17 = AT 18) This is of course a perfect description of the way Euclid bases his entire work on a few evident postulates and common notions."The second was to divide all the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as many as was required to solve them in the best way." (17 = AT 18) Just as, e.g., Euclid's proof of the Pythagorean theorem relies on some 28 previous propositions, and so on for all other theorems."The third was to conduct my thoughts in a given order, beginning with the simplest and most easily understood objects, and gradually ascending, as it were step by step, to the knowledge of the most complex; and positing an order even on those which do not have a natural order or precedence." (17 = AT 18) Again it is hard to imagine how any work could fit this description more perfectly than Euclid's Elements. The last point in particular is something of a peculiarity of mathematics. In mathematics, when faced with two equivalent statements, one picks arbitrarily which to prove first and which to derive as a corollary, and this has nothing to do with any kind of causal hierarchy between them."The last was to undertake such complete enumerations and such general surveys that I would be sure to have left nothing out." (17 = AT 19) Cf., for example, Euclid's exhaustive and systematic treatments of "geometric algebra" in Book II and beyond, irrational magnitudes in Book X, and regular polyhedra in Book XIII.Descartes immediately goes on the emphasise again that his method is modelled on mathematics:"The long chains of reasonings, every one simple and easy, which geometers habitually employ to reach their most difficult proofs had given me cause to suppose that all those things which fall within the domain of human understanding follow on from each other in the same way, and that as long as one stops oneself taking anything to be true that is not true and sticks to the right order so as to deduce one thing from another, there can be nothing so remote that one cannot eventually reach it, nor so hidden that one cannot discover it. And I had little difficulty in determining those with which it was necessary to begin, for I already knew that I had to begin with the simplest and the easiest to understand; and considering that of all those who had up to now sought truth in the sphere of human knowledge, only mathematicians have been able to discover any proofs, that is, any certain and incontrovertible arguments, I did not doubt that I should begin as they had done." (17-18 = AT 19; cf. 16-19 generally)
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