DESCARTES’ DISCOURSE

IN 1637 RENE Descartes published his discourse (Discours de la Methode). In this he established the principle that metaphysical demonstrations should be based on mathematical certainty, not on scholastic subtleties. Descartes argued that the proper way to reason is to doubt everything systematically until only the clear and simple ideas that are beyond doubt are left. Then you have arrived at the truth. This method of thinking became known as the ‘Cartesian’ method.

Descartes wanted to be able to doubt everything, but he vehemently affirmed his certainty in his own existence: I think, therefore I am. Whatever else the sceptic may doubt, he should not doubt his own existence. The saying entails believing that mind is more real than matter. This idea was not entirely new: St Augustine said something similar but did not give it the emphasis that Descartes did. He also adopted as a general rule that all things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are true.

Descartes’ view of the world was rigidly deterministic. Dead matter and living matter are equally governed by the laws of physics, so there is no need to follow Aristotle in thinking in terms of a soul, or some equivalent to a soul, to explain the growth of organisms. This got Descartes, a devout Christian, into some difficulties. If all organisms, people included, were simply following predetermined laws of physics, how could free will exist? The Bible taught him that people did have free will, and that making the wrong choice resulted in the exclusion from Eden. In the end, Descartes was unable to resolve a fundamental problem in his philosophical system, because he had one foot in the scholasticism of the middle ages and one foot in contemporary science. If he had been able to leave his religion behind, he could have achieved philosophical consistency, and planted both feet in the modern world. Descartes’ philosophy is all the more interesting because it stands on the division between two mindsets. It stands at a particular moment in human history, a particular threshold.

Descartes is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy. He was the first man of high philosophical capacity to be affected by the new physics and the new astronomy. He was bold in not accepting foundations that had been laid down by earlier philosophers; he tried to set out a complete philosophic edifice from scratch, something which had not really been attempted by anyone since Aristotle. He developed a simple, direct and clear literary style, one that could be understood by intelligent men of the world; he did not try for an obscure or jargon-ridden style that would impress without really communicating.