René Descartes- Discourse on the Method and the Meditations

Discourse on Method and the Meditations

René Descartes
1637 & 1641

"The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts."

Although I really enjoy dabbling in the odd bit of philosophy, picking up famous titles by legendary authors and waving them about in other people's faces so I can make myself look smarter than I am, I'm by no means any kind of expert on the subject. In the past I've picked up some famous titles that I happened to find on the shelves; essays by  Nietzsche, Spinoza and Plato and philosophical fiction from Satre, Camus and Kundera, but if anybody ever tried to quiz me on the possible deeper meanings etcetera of these texts I think I'd crawl up into a ball of tears and embarrass them into going away. I'm explaining this now so when this review fails to tell you anything relevant about René  Descartes and Discourse on Method and the Meditation you can't really complain.

This Penguin Classics edition contains Descartes two most famous pieces, along with a typical haughty introduction and a personal letter from Descartes. The first essay, published in 1637 and fully-titled Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences, is one of the most important and influential works in the history of philosophy and scientific thought, and essentially involves Descartes attempting to address the world of scientific thought in relation to skepticism; by first stripping his thoughts of any preconceived established knowledge so he can tackle the title topic through a supposedly entirely clear and unbiased perspective. Much of this involves the existence of god, and Descartes elegantly argues the proof of the existence of god, though thankfully without the inclusion of typical dogma. Did he convince me? Not really, but I'm a very skeptical person.

The second essay, full and unwieldy title of Meditations on the First Philosophy in which the existence of God and the Real Distinction Between the Soul and the Body of Man are Demonstrated, published in 1641, is a metaphysical exploration summed up by its title- a thematic sequel to Discourse on the Method, Descartes explores through a series of six meditations the logical existence of god as demonstrated by the nature of the human condition. It's a lot more complicated than I can really sum up here in my clumsy prose, and, to tell you the truth, my attention on the subject completely wavered after reading so much concentrated personal logic. Anybody expecting some sort of insight into the subject please refer to the opening paragraph of this review.

Someone who went into this book looking for brilliant insight and mind-opening concepts might find them if they read it about five times alongside an open page of Sparknotes, but otherwise it's certainly not a quick read. While I find it fascinating to explore the extravagant prose and impeccably organized mental thoughts, I wasn't interested enough in the overtly religious and archaic social scientific topics, and therefore didn't really get much out of it and have very little to say here. However, since I'm on a mission to review every prose book I read, I had to do this one as well for some reason.