{"id":1183,"date":"2016-12-05T05:50:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-05T05:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/some-words-on-descartes"},"modified":"2019-08-25T06:23:51","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T06:23:51","slug":"some-words-on-descartes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/12\/05\/some-words-on-descartes\/","title":{"rendered":"Some words on Descartes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read a biography of Descartes and re-read his Discourse<\/em>[I]<\/sup><\/a> (I\u2019d already read his Methods<\/em> and excerpts from his scientific slog – optics and harmonics, ergh).<\/p>\n

So how do I feel about this famous Frenchman, the so-called father of modern philosophy? Philosophy-wise, not that much. His real contribution was to abandon the scholastic philosophy that had been the sole academic curriculum for the last millennia or so, and due to which it was forbidden to contradict Aristotle (aka \u201cThe Philosopher\u201d at the time). Which, mind you, was no small feat.<\/p>\n

But look at Descartes\u2019 contemporaries, they were all already doing the same things in different ways: Bruno was burned for suggesting not only that not only was Copernicus right, but the sun was just one star of many, each of which contained their own worlds; then we have people like Hobbes (political writings primarily) and Bacon (who shared the same ideal as Descartes – form a system for determining truth). If anything, it is Bacon, who derived a primitive empirical system for science who deserves more credit, as compared to Descartes\u2019 \u201cfirst principle\u201d rationalizing based system.<\/p>\n

For those curious, Bacon\u2019s system basically involved collecting lists of facts and seeing which ones occur simultaneously consistently. Not quite the same as the modern hypothesis-based system, but still a mighty improvement on all his predecessors. I would add here that it is ironic that Aristotle, who while being famous through the middle ages for his logic and rigour, was nonetheless a greater scientist, with interests in geology, astronomy, mathematics, and biology. In fact, some of his biological works were still considered dogma until a few centuries ago. The most infamous example of which relates to the structure of the human heart. Aristotle based his conclusions on non-human primate dissections, which differ in some significant manner from humans. And yet even this sort of direct evidence would take decades to convince the general medical community.<\/p>\n

That short anecdote (regarding Aristotlean dogma) calls to mind another anecdote and one which again reminds us that Descartes was not the vanguard of the anti-Aristotlean pro-progress movement. During Descartes\u2019 life, a small scientific collaboration announced that they would perform public experiments that clearly and without a doubt disprove a number of Aristotle\u2019s tenants. Their experiments never went ahead, and they were all expelled from Paris.<\/p>\n

So again: why is Descartes\u2019 so famous. He was one of many to disregard Aristotle in building his philosophy, he was one of many in trying to create a system of epistemology (I\u2019d include here not only Bacon whom I mentioned above, but also the mystical Rosicrucianism). The answer, like most historical answers, is I suspect mundane and disappointing: coincidence and concurrent events beyond his control. These combined to make Descartes the first widely known and respected <\/em>modern philosopher. This is probably mostly due to Mersenne who acted as a 17th-century science RSS feed by writing letters to everyone<\/em> who mattered, and who was a big fan of Descartes).
\n

<\/div>\n[II]<\/sup><\/a> “Discourse <\/strong>on the Method of Rightly Conducting One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences (French: Discours de la M\u00e9thode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 dans les sciences) is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by Ren\u00e9 Descartes in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous quotation “Je pense, donc je suis” (English: “I think, therefore I am”, or “I am thinking, therefore I exist”), which occurs in Part IV of the work.” For further details see https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Discourse_on_the_Method<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read a biography of Descartes and re-read his Discourse[I] (I\u2019d already read his Methods and excerpts from his scientific slog – optics and harmonics, ergh). So how do I feel about this famous Frenchman, the so-called father of modern philosophy? Philosophy-wise, not that much. His real contribution was to abandon the scholastic philosophy that had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,302,275,154,20],"tags":[],"metadata":[171],"class_list":["post-1183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-classicalphilosophers","category-descartes","category-google-drive","category-philosophy","metadata-editors-footnotes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":954,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/12\/12\/apology\/","url_meta":{"origin":1183,"position":0},"title":"Apology","author":"Pala","date":"December 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My motivation to express and communicate my thoughts on these things is curtailed on one side by an awareness of the immensity of my ignorance, and on the other side by my fear that I have no right to promote such substantial claims given my absent credentials. What follows is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2425,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/02\/06\/philosophy-readings-through-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":1183,"position":1},"title":"Philosophy readings through time","author":"Pala","date":"February 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In February 2013, Shai adds\u00a0Evernote\u00a0to his suite of repositories. This is an application designed specifically for note-taking, organising, task lists and archiving. This proves to be the ideal tool for him to better control his ever-growing research notes, stored primarily up to this point, in handwritten notebooks and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4030,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/06\/21\/lockes-theory-of-knowledge\/","url_meta":{"origin":1183,"position":2},"title":"Locke’s theory of knowledge","author":"Pala","date":"June 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: Shai documents his interpretation of\u00a0Locke\u2019s Theory of Knowledge[I]\u00a0which, he explains, \u201cis famous for being based on the principle that the mind is a blank slate\u201d and that the mind is \u201cgaining everything it knows by experience\u201d. The need to acquire experience in order to gain knowledge is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2915,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/01\/13\/philosophy-bites-podcast-a-person\/","url_meta":{"origin":1183,"position":3},"title":"Philosophy bites Podcast- A Person","author":"Pala","date":"January 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: This is Shai\u2019s first reference to the French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas\u2019 ideas appear to have made an impact on Shai\u2019s outlook as he refers to him 11 more times in the following three and a half years, most notably in a post entitled\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2886,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/10\/07\/hegel\/","url_meta":{"origin":1183,"position":4},"title":"Hegel","author":"Pala","date":"October 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Life: Born 1770 Stuttgart Cf. 1789 fall of Bastille Cf. 1806\u00a0Napoleon's\u00a0Battle of Jena Cf. French dominion over Germany (1806-1814) included substantial reform (incl. abolishment of serfdom, proto-revolutionary attempts) 1799\u00a0inheritance\u00a0(father's death) allowed him to stop being a family-tutor and join the University of Jena, where previously Fichte and Schilling had been,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1689,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/09\/30\/the-story-of-thales-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":1183,"position":5},"title":"The story of Thales","author":"Pala","date":"September 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: In September 2010, Shai begins the first phase of his intellectual journey with an\u00a0essay\u00a0dedicated to the Greek mathematician, astronomer and pre-Socratic philosopher, Thales of Miletus. 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