Rene Descartes' "Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meterology"

Descartes begins his discourse by actually giving it the title "Discourse on the Method for Rightly Directing One's Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences." Descartes is really laying out his purpose here in the lengthy title. Then, further, he describes what he is going to do in six parts. If we, as readers were to be convinced that Descartes was going to give us the method to follow in order to "rightly" direct our reason and search for truth, we would be disappointed. For, Descartes then states that his intention, "is not to teach here the method which everyone must follow in order to direct his reason correctly, but only to show the manner in which I have tried to direct mine" (5). So, is Descartes claiming that his method is the method that one should use? It seems that this first part reads more like an autobiographical story of his search for truth.

Descartes describes his journey - he first began by reading books, because "the reading of good books is like a conversation with the greatest gentlemen of past ages" (6). He read poetry, mathematics, theology, philosophy, and etcetera. Then, he gave up reading to go traveling. Everywhere he would reflect upon the things that occurred to him so that he might find truth in each man's reasoning. He wanted to distinguish the true from the false. He then took all this information to study within himself, and was most successful. Descartes sets up his own journey in order to give some foundation to his findings.

In the fourth part of Descartes' discourse is when he really struggles with his search for truth. His truth is his most famous phrase: "I think, therefore I am" (27-28). His soul - the "me" is separate from the body. Descartes really struggles to define himself in relation to God and truth and reason. Would I use the same "method" that Descartes used to discover truth? Most definitely not. While he claims that not everyone must use this method, I think he believes most differently. Otherwise, he would have titled his essay, "Discourse on the Method for How I Rightly Directed My Reason and Searched for Truth in the Sciences." There are quite a few traces of Descartes' self in his writing for it to be so generalized.