Descartes: A Biography

c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

In Search of a Career (–) 

gaveus the best advice, it is almost impossible for our judgments to be as clear and as

well-founded as they might have been had we had the full use of our reason from the

day we were born and had we never been guided by anything else. (vi.–)

The conclusion to which he was drawn was that it would not be reasonable

forhim ‘to reform the body of the sciences or the curriculum established

in the schools for teaching them’ (vi.). That was a task for someone else.

Descartes’ project was to focus on instructing himself. ‘My objective never

extended beyond an attempt to reform my own thoughts and to build on

afoundation that was entirely my own’ (vi.). The appropriate method

to be used in this reform of the self – as it is found in theDiscourse–which

was borrowed from the principles of reasoning that were fundamental to

mathematics, is likely to have been articulated over the following years

rather than in a single epiphany during a dream in, and is best

discussed in Chapter.

Whether he understood this method in detail or merely in outline, it was

evident that its implementation would require a number of years’ work, and

that despite the emphasis on looking inward, the application of the method

to natural phenomena would require observations and experiments.

I thought I should not try to complete it [i.e., to establish some principles of philosophy]

until I had reached a more mature age than twenty-three, as I was then, and until I had

spent a long time preparing myself for it, in advance, by rooting out from my mind

all the incorrect views that I had previously accepted, gaining many experiences that

would later serve as the subject matter of my reasoning, and practising constantly the

method that I had prescribed for myself so as to improve more and more at it.

(vi.)

One of the factors that had led Descartes to travel abroad was the lack of

agreement even among scholastic writers about most of the issues that they

debated. Once he had travelled sufficiently and had read enough, it became

clear that this diversity was compounded by the cultural differences that he

noticed among ‘the French or the Germans...the Chinese or cannibals’

(vi.). However, the recognition of some degree of relativism did not turn

him completely into a narcissistic or sceptical meditator. He anticipated,

sensibly enough, that he would need some input from others.

Since I hoped to finish this task better in discussions with other people than by remain-

ing shut up any longer in the stove-heated room in which I had all these thoughts, I

set off again to travel before winter was completely over. During the following nine

years [i.e.,–]Idid nothing other than wander around the world, trying to be