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132 reviews for:
Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy
René Descartes, René Descartes
3.44 AVERAGE
132 reviews for:
Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy
René Descartes, René Descartes
3.44 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
Descartes was a brilliant mathematician and philosopher (amongst other things). I admire how committed he was to truth and to the goal of believing things on an unshakeable foundation. I think his method (doubt everything until you can prove something, and then work from there) is a good one that even the layman can apply.
There are definitely issues, but overall a good philosophical read. You will have to read it more than once to really understand his arguments, as with all philosophical texts.
There are definitely issues, but overall a good philosophical read. You will have to read it more than once to really understand his arguments, as with all philosophical texts.
Required read for a philosophy class and I was not a fan of the writing style. I probably would like it more if I read it out of an educational mindset so I will read it again in a few months to give my updated opinion.
challenging
reflective
informative
reflective
slow-paced
fast-paced
Definitely an arrogant guy, but I appreciate Descartes's humility in asking for help from his contemporary society, how he acknowledges his own limits, and his willingness to accept criticism. His ultimate telos? To prove the existence of God to man.
Descartes exemplifies an overly confident version of lowly wise. He is great at rational reasoning and his famous "I think therefore I am" philosophy. It's pretty amazing to see how such an iconic statement was developed. Overall, there are still a lot of parts within his writing that apply to modern society and Christian thought.
In today's modern society, Descartes has some ideas that are pretty irrelevant and can come off as dumb (even though it was not as well understood at the time), specifically his description of how a heart functions.
Descartes exemplifies an overly confident version of lowly wise. He is great at rational reasoning and his famous "I think therefore I am" philosophy. It's pretty amazing to see how such an iconic statement was developed. Overall, there are still a lot of parts within his writing that apply to modern society and Christian thought.
In today's modern society, Descartes has some ideas that are pretty irrelevant and can come off as dumb (even though it was not as well understood at the time), specifically his description of how a heart functions.
Cred că s unii filosofi care se fac înțeleși în scris mai bine decât alții și dpmdv Descartes e unul dintre ei
I had already read large chunks maybe a decade ago. I think therefore I am is great, but I lose him at the ontological argument. Granting from the first cause argument that a creator does exist, why shouldn’t a perfect god be perfectly deceitful too? Or at least perfectly mischievous? Thinking about this sort of thing tends to get me to the simulation argument -- is there anything we can infer about the nature of the creator of existence from the raw qualia of our instantaneous existence (the only thing we can know for certain)? It's sort of hard to say. It seems like the only thing we can infer is that the creator isn't strictly opposed to this consciousness (although I suppose it is impossible to rule out the idea that our cosciousness is some waste-product of the thing the demiurge truly wants). So I don't think the project of building up to common sense from radical skepticism gets far past the first checkpoint.
There's lots of other great stuff to like though. The insight that things should be characterized by their not directly detectable essences has certainly been a very powerful one for science. Things actually did turn out to be made out of Atoms! (of course one might then point out that Atoms are themselves composite...). And his confidence in learning about the world through reproducible experiment is a fantastically powerful one!
I love that he's writing as a Catholic to the Princess of Bohemia -- the intellectual who's father famously CAUSED THE 30 YEARS WAR BY UNITING ALL PROTESTANTS AGAINST AUSTRIA and then LOST -- and still he's writing to her super respectfully. And it's all possible because of the quiet military camp-like town on the edge of the battleground in Germany!
I love how he's all about super intense, doubt everything, skepticism in the essays themselves, but in the framing letters use all sorts of rhetorical fleurishes against the Scholastics and Aristotelians he despises -- showing them he's going to do analytic philosophy not because scholastic rhetoric is too hard for him (he's mastered that already) but because it's better and deeper.
I love how certain he is of both his hard won 'knowledge' and the infinite capacity of any human to continue learning and developing an infinite amount. It's intamately tied to his mind-body dualism. Had this guy never met someone with a head injury or developmental disorder?
At the end of this, and after reading some essays (one scientific realist and one anti-realist) about pan-psychism, I find my metaphysics becoming more and more idealist... maybe the simplest thing really is to cut the knot on the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" by denying the existence of anything except mind!
There's lots of other great stuff to like though. The insight that things should be characterized by their not directly detectable essences has certainly been a very powerful one for science. Things actually did turn out to be made out of Atoms! (of course one might then point out that Atoms are themselves composite...). And his confidence in learning about the world through reproducible experiment is a fantastically powerful one!
I love that he's writing as a Catholic to the Princess of Bohemia -- the intellectual who's father famously CAUSED THE 30 YEARS WAR BY UNITING ALL PROTESTANTS AGAINST AUSTRIA and then LOST -- and still he's writing to her super respectfully. And it's all possible because of the quiet military camp-like town on the edge of the battleground in Germany!
I love how he's all about super intense, doubt everything, skepticism in the essays themselves, but in the framing letters use all sorts of rhetorical fleurishes against the Scholastics and Aristotelians he despises -- showing them he's going to do analytic philosophy not because scholastic rhetoric is too hard for him (he's mastered that already) but because it's better and deeper.
I love how certain he is of both his hard won 'knowledge' and the infinite capacity of any human to continue learning and developing an infinite amount. It's intamately tied to his mind-body dualism. Had this guy never met someone with a head injury or developmental disorder?
At the end of this, and after reading some essays (one scientific realist and one anti-realist) about pan-psychism, I find my metaphysics becoming more and more idealist... maybe the simplest thing really is to cut the knot on the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" by denying the existence of anything except mind!