Descartes Method
From reading Descartes' discourse on the method, I felt like the first part was genial: how we should build truth on a chain of certainties, but felt like the rest was a confused mess.
At first I felt like Descartes' completely mis-applied his own method... Then I wondered if he wrote his God is real thesis just in order to save himself from Galileo's fate? Knowing that if one properly understands the point of the method, he shall not be convinced by the second part of the book?
At first I felt like Descartes' completely mis-applied his own method... Then I wondered if he wrote his God is real thesis just in order to save himself from Galileo's fate? Knowing that if one properly understands the point of the method, he shall not be convinced by the second part of the book?
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THE VERY SAGE AND ILLUSTRIOUS
THE DEAN AND DOCTORS OF THE SACRED
FACULTY OF THEOLOGY OF PARIS.
This is the greeting Descartes used in his “Meditations on First Philosophy” in 1641. Seems the church was pretty much the go-to outfit to get anything put in print, whether or not he was aware of Galleo’s problems or not.
Given the pre-French Revolution era absolute power of the church, and the pervasive beliefs of the day among the general population, I would think what was written by early modern philosophers was really the way they viewed their world.
As far as following his own method, I think he had to simply just draw the uncrossable line somewhere,
So he had to admit, or he had to write as if, the method worked up to a point and no further.
I find it strange there is so much discussion over Cartesian dualism or the proof of God's Existence if those theories were just a clever(?) censorship coating wrapping the true treasure of this book, which I feel teaches man to doubt the church.
@Mww: I feel like the first paragraph of Part 6 is exactly a reference to Galileo's fate... And as printing, I thought he had printed in very liberal Amsterdam, thus freer than in France?
Part 6 of what? Meditations? I don’t know Galileo’s works well enough to comment on their respective similarities.
Holland before 1638, at least, I think. His major works after that were done in Latin, published by a friend in Paris, and were directed at French nobility and academia.
“The World” was pulled out of consideration for Galileo’s predicament, but Descartes didn’t suffer the “heresy” of his contemporary.
Oh, yeah. Sorry. Title of the thread is sort of a clue, huh?
Part. 6 does include some thoughts on maybe not publishing right away. He doesn’t mention Galileo by name, of course, but that was the big news cycle of the day, and they were contemporaries, so....
I can’t find anything definitive on publishing, but I kinda pieced together that Discourse was written in French in 1634, put aside for three years, published in the Netherlands in 1637, translated into Latin and published in Amsterdam six years after his death, in 1656.
Nobody likes being the butt of a cruel joke.