The brutes, which have only their bodies to conserve, are continually occupied in seeking sources of nourishment; but men, of whom the chief part is the mind, ought to make the search after wisdom their principal care, for wisdom is the true nourishment of the mind; and I feel assured, moreover, that there are very many who would not fail in the search, if they would but hope for success in it, and knew the degree of their capabilities for it.
rené Descartesquotes
1596 - 1650
In a time when original thinking could get one burned at the stake, French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes (1596-1650) persisted in his “hope for a revolution in science.” Considered the father of modern philosophy, Descartes also influenced the scientific revolution as he promoted research firmly rooted in observation and experiment. He is the inventor of analytic geometry, as well as methodological skepticism, and known for the quote, “I think, therefore I am.”
Raised by his maternal grandmother until age 8, Descartes then attended a Jesuit boarding school. In college he studied theology, medicine, mathematics and philosophy but earned a law degree. He joined the army and traveled the globe where he, as he later explained, studied the “book of the world” to find truth.
His treatise, Discourse on Method, was published in French instead of Latin to broaden its accessibility. While known for its ground-breaking philosophical views, it also reveals Descartes true goal: To help both men and women learn to think for themselves.
Descartes moved to the more tolerant Netherlands to find solitude as well as safety for his sometimes heretical thinking. In Meditations on First Philosophy, in Which Is Proved the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul, Descartes offers two proofs for the existence of God. Descartes was unattached to the emotions of religion, but held that a belief in God was necessary to live a moral life. He believed if man wanted change rather than pray to God, he must to learn to change himself.
For indeed when painters themselves wish to represent sirens and satyrs [20] by means of especially bizarre forms, they surely cannot assign to them utterly new natures. Rather, they simply fuse together the members of various animals. Or if perhaps they concoct something so utterly novel that nothing like it has ever been seen before (and thus is something utterly fictitious and false), yet certainly at the very least the colors from which they fashion it ought to be true.
For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me.
I fear being shaken out of them because I am afraid that my peaceful sleep may be followed by hard labour when I wake, and that I shall have to struggle not in the light but in the imprisoning darkness of the problems I have raised.
All that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment.
It is useful to know something of the manners of different nations, that we may be enabled to form a more correct judgment regarding our own, and be prevented from thinking that everything contrary to our customs is ridiculous and irrational, a conclusion usually come to by those whose experience has been limited to their own country.
It is not my design to teach the method that everyone must follow in order to use his reason properly, but only to show the way in which I have tried to use my own.
I had become aware, as early as my college days, that no opinion, however absurd and incredible can be imagined, that has not been held by one of the philosophers.
The last rule was to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I should be certain of omitting nothing.
The destruction of the foundations necessarily brings down the whole edifice.
