Discourse on the Method Meditations

1 R D was born at La Haye near Tours on March . He was educated at the Jesuit Coll ge de la Fl che in Anjou, and at the University of Poitiers, where he took a Licenciate in Law in . Two years later he entered the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau in Holland, and met a local schoolmaster, Isaac Beeckman, who fostered his interest in mathematics and physics. After further travels in Europe he settled in Paris in , and came into contact with scientists, theologians, and philosophers in the circle of the Minim friar Marin Mersenne. At the end of Descartes left for Holland, which he made his home until ; he devoted himself to carrying forward the mathematical, scientific, and philosophical work he had begun in Paris.

2 When he learned of the condemnation of Galileo for heresy in , he abandoned his plans to publish a treatise on physics, and under pressure from his friends consented to have the Discourse on the Method printed, with three accompany-ing essays on topics in which he had made discoveries. In his Meditations appeared, setting out the metaphysical underpinnings of his physical theories; these were accompanied by objections writ-ten by contemporary philosophers, and Descartes s replies to them. His writings provoked controversy in both France and Holland, where his scientific ideas were banned in one university; his works, however (including the Principles of Philosophy of ) continued to be published, and to bring him notoriety and renown.

3 In he accepted an invitation from Queen Christina of Sweden to settle in Stockholm; it was there he died of pneumonia on February . For over years Oxford World s Classics have broughtreaders closer to the world s great literature. Now with over titles from the , -year-old myths of Mesopotamia to thetwentieth century s greatest novels the series makes availablelesser-known as well as celebrated pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years containedintroductions by Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene,and other literary figures which enriched the experience of the series is recognized for its fine scholarship andreliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry,religion, philosophy and politics.

4 Each edition includes perceptivecommentary and essential background information to meet thechanging needs of Maclean is Professor of Renaissance Studies at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College. Among his publications are The Renaissance Notion of Woman ( , frequently reprinted), Meaning and Interpretation in the Renaissance: The Case of Law ( ), montaigne philosophe ( ), Logic, Signs and Nature in the Renaissance: The Case of Learned Medicine ( ), and an edition of Cardano s De libris propriis ( ).OXFORD WORLD S CLASSICSREN DESCARTESA Discourse on the Methodof Correctly ConductingOne s Reason andSeeking Truth in the SciencesTranslated with an Introduction and Notes byIAN MACLEAN13 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford Oxford University Press is a department of the University of furthers the University s objective of excellence in research, scholarship.

5 And education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Pressin the UK and in certain other countriesPublished in the United Statesby Oxford University Press Inc., New York Ian Maclean 2006 The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published as an Oxford World s Classic paperback 2006 All rights reserved.

6 No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriatereprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproductionoutside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department,Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or coverand you must impose this same condition on any acquirerBritish Library Cataloguing in Publication DataData availableLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataDescartes, Ren , 1596 1650.

7 [Discours de la m thode. English]A Discourse on the Method of correctly conducting one s reason andseeking truth in the sciences / Ren Descartes ; translated with anintroduction and notes by Ian cm. (Oxford world s classics)Includes bibliographical references and Science Maclean, Ian. II. Title. III. Oxford world s classics (Oxford University Press) 2006194 dc222005019297 Typeset in Ehrhardtby RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, SuffolkPrinted in Great Britain byClays Ltd, St. Ives plc., SuffolkISBN 0 19 282514 3978 0 19 282514 81 CONTENTSA cknowledgementsviIntroductionviiA Philosopher s LifeviiiThe Genesis of the Discourse and its DevelopmentxxiiiGalileo, Mersenne, and the Church: Authority and TruthxxviiiThe Publication of the DiscoursexlTheDiscoursexlivPart Six: the Presentation of the ProjectxlvParts One and Two: Intellectual AutobiographyxlviiiParts Two and Three: Precepts in Philosophy and EthicsxlixPart Four: Metaphysics and EpistemologyliiiPart Five: Physics and PhysiologylviiiThe Essays Published With the Discourse .

8 Dioptrics,Meteorology,GeometrylxDescarte s As a WriterlxiiiEnvoi: The Cartesian Philosophical EdificelxixNote on the TextlxxiSelect BibliographylxxiiA Chronology of Ren DescarteslxxivA Discourse ON THE METHODPart One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five Part Six Explanatory Notes Index ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI should like to record my gratitude for the kind assistance I receivedfrom the following colleagues and friends: Robin Briggs, JohnCottingham, Dan Garber, Noel Malcolm, Michael Moriarty, andRichard Parish. I am also very grateful for the support andencouragement I received from Judith Luna of Oxford publication in of an anonymous book in French entitled ADiscourse on the Method of Correctly Conducting One s Reason andSeeking Truth in the Sciences marks one of the pivotal moments ofWestern European thought.

9 It was the work of a formidably clever,radical, rigorous thinker, who in this short, informally presentedintroduction to his work threatened the very foundations of manyprevailing philosophical beliefs, and set an agenda for enquiry intoman and nature whose effects have lasted up to the present day. Inthis introduction to his thought, Descartes set out his novel philo-sophical and scientific 1 programme, and prepared his contemporar-ies to receive it, even though they would be looking at it through theprism of their intellectual expectations, which (for the learnedamong them) had been formed in the traditional framework of Aris-totelian philosophy and its characteristic modes of debate.

10 It is, ofcourse, impossible fully to re-create the sense of reading a work forthefirst time, especially one written so long ago, and in so different acultural climate; as Bernard Williams pointed out in , we canplay seventeenth-century music from seventeenth-century scores onseventeenth-century instruments, but we will hear it with twentieth-century But even though any attempt at reconstruction will beapis aller, I shall nonetheless adopt a historical rather than timelesslyphilosophical approach to the text, and seek to place it in contexts1I shall use science and scientific in this introduction to designate what Descarteswould have known as natural philosophy , that is.