Rene Descartes was a French 17th century
philosopher famous above all for saying
I think therefore I am
but worthy of our attention for many
reasons beyond this what makes him stand
out is that he was a fierce rationalist
in an age when many philosophers still
backed up their arguments with appeals
to God Descartes trusted in nothing more
than the human power of logic this is
how he defiantly kicked off his book
rules for the direction of the mind I
shall bring to light the true riches of
our souls opening up to each of us the
means whereby we confined within
ourselves without any help from anyone
else all the knowledge that we may need
for the conduct of life Descartes had
immense faith in what introspection
guided by definition sound argument and
clarity of thought could achieve
he believed that much of what was wrong
with the world was caused by misusing
our minds by confusion bad definition an
unconscious illogicality his life was an
attempt to make our minds better
equipped for the task of thinking to
solve key questions Descartes proposed
that one always had to divide large
problems into small understandable
sections by way of incisive questions
this is what he called his method of
doubts we get muddled by certain
questions like what's the meaning of
life for what is love because we're not
careful enough about how we break these
big inquiries down
he described the method of doubts as
akin to having a large barrel of apples
we're good ones are mixed with bad ones
to be a philosopher means a commitment
to sorting out the entire barrel to
inspecting each Apple individually and
throwing away all the bad ones to ensure
only those are the best quality left
another way to think about Descartes and
this explains why he would among other
things turn out to be such a hero to the
leaders of the French Revolution is that
he believed in grounding all of our
ideas in individual experience and
reason rather than Authority and
tradition in his greatest book discourse
on the method published in 1637 he
explained how he had come to write it a
long time ago I entirely abandoned the
study of letters resolving to seek no
knowledge of the
that which could be found in myself or
else in the great book of the world
I spent my youth traveling visiting
courts and armies mixing with people of
diverse temperaments and ranks gathering
various experiences testing myself in
situations which fortune afforded me and
at all times reflecting personally upon
whatever came my way so as to derive
some profit from it Descartes spent a
large part of his adult life away from
his native France in the Dutch Republic
since he held the belief not entirely
unwisely that the mercantile Dutch would
as a people be far too concerned with
earning money to pester a free-thinking
man like himself
however it turned out that the Dutch
were a little less materialistic than
he'd hoped and the philosopher ended up
moving 24 times to keep ahead of spies
and government agents Descartes
subjective approach to philosophy
reached its climax when he arrived at
the famous phrase cogito ergo sum I
think therefore I am
the phrase first appeared in French drew
vos donk Juicery in the discourse on the
method before then appearing in Latin in
the principles of philosophy of 1644 it
was intended to be de cartes ultimate
answer to a question that philosophers
sometimes get perhaps unreasonably
interested in namely how can one know
that anything including oneself actually
exists rather than being some sort of
dream or phantasm on his quest was
certainty around this question of
whether it might all be a dream
Descartes began by observing that our
human senses are deeply unreliable he
couldn't for example he said be trusted
to know whether he was actually sitting
in a room in his dressing-gown next to a
fire or merely dreaming of such a thing
but there was one thing he could know
for sure he could trust that he was
actually thinking his existence could be
proved by a neat tautological trick he
could not be thinking and wondering if
he existed if he did not exist therefore
his thinking was a very basic proof of
his being or to return to the maxim I
think therefore I am this might not
sound like a huge insight but Descartes
used it as an Archimedean point in an
epistemological a unsteady world with
this certainty safely banked Descartes
argued that his mind could go
to discover other similarly irrefutable
truths some of the charm of des cartes
work comes through his in twining of
personal details along with more arid
philosophical passages he tells us for
example that his revolutionary idea came
to him during the winter of 1619 when
he'd escaped the fierce cold of the Low
Countries by hopping into a stove and
spending the whole day meditating inside
Descartes epitomizes the solitary end of
philosophy one can in his eyes solve the
most profound problems by searching deep
within oneself teams of individuals or
ideas pass through the generations as
they are in universities are deeply
suspect for Descartes philosophers don't
need gangs of scientists using expensive
equipment unheard of terminology and
huge datasets they just need a quiet
room and a rational mind at another
point Descartes recounts that he mocked
friends of his who once showed up at his
home at 11:00 in the morning and was
surprised to find him still in bed what
are you doing they inquired skeptically
thinking Descartes replied the group was
stunned but Descartes criticized them in
turn for privileges of two nonsensical
practical tasks over the beauty of pure
quiet reflection in bed in 1649
Descartes finished another great work
passions of the soul
it was the outcome of six years of
correspondence with a royal acquaintance
the Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia who
was a keen amateur philosopher and a
rather emotional and turbulent soul she
had written to Descartes begging him to
write about passions in order that she
might get to know and control her own
more clearly Descartes obliged thinking
that the ancient philosophers had done a
poor job of analyzing the passions and
that ordinary and not so ordinary people
would benefit immensely from another
look at the topic he therefore opened
the passions of the soul with a
characteristic claim I shall be obliged
to write just as if I were considering a
topic that no one had dealt with before
me the word provides a beautiful
taxonomy of pretty much any passion one
might feel as well as descriptions of
that causes effects and functions this
is followed by another section called
that discipline of virtue a manual of
advice on how we can control our
passions and enjoy a virtuous
life Descartes identified six
fundamental passions wander love hatred
desire joy and sadness from these
they're followed in his eyes an
unlimited number of specific passions
combinations of the original ones
Descartes didn't believe in vanquishing
passions as the ancient stoic
philosophers had proposed merely in
learning how to identify them in oneself
and understand their impact on one's
behavior he would have been very
sympathetic to psychotherapy
he believed that a key task of being a
philosopher was to help people
understand and therefore control their
passions that is become a little less
anxious status driven scared or inclined
to fall head over heels in love with
inappropriate people he was optimistic
about how much progress we could make
psychologically even those who have the
weakest souls can acquire absolute
mastery over their passions if they work
hard enough at training and guiding them
Descartes psychological and
philosophical work attracted ever more
powerful admirers in 1646 Queen
Christina of Sweden got interested in
sorting out issues in her mind and began
a correspondence with Descartes she even
persuaded the philosopher to move to
Sweden to tutor her in passion and
philosophy in 1649 however the early
working hours required the Queen could
only make time for lessons at 5:00 a.m.
and the harsh cold soon made Descartes
ill he died of pneumonia in 1650 at the
age of 53 to remember Descartes by I
think therefore I am is perhaps not as
shallow as one might initially have
presumed the sentence does truly capture
something important about him and the
task of philosophy in general it signals
a commitment to working through
emotional confusion prejudice and
unhelpful tradition in order to arrive
at an independent rationally founded
vision of existence
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