Classic Philosophy Book Collection
Selections from the Principles of Philosophy-René Descartes
This episode appears to contain dynamically inserted ads. Transcript timestamps may be approximate.
Preface two selections from the principles of philosophy. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by phone. Selections from the principles of philosophy by René Descartes, translated by John Weige. Letter of the author to the French translator of the principles of philosophy serving for a preface. Sir, the version of my principles, which you have been at pains to make, is so elegant and finished as to lead me to expect that the work will be more generally read in French than a Latin, and better understood. The only apprehension I entertain, as less the title should deter some who have not been brought up to letters, or with whom philosophy is in bad repute, because the kindly retaunt has proved unsatisfactory. And this makes me think that it will be useful to add a preface to it for the purpose of showing what a matter of the work is, what end I had in viewing, writing it, and what utility may be derived from it. But although it might be my part to write a preface of this nature, seeing I ought to know these particulars better than any other person, I cannot nevertheless prevail upon myself to do anything more than merely to give a summary of the chief points that fall, as I think, to be discussed in it. And I leave it to your discretion to present to the public such part of them as usual judge proper. I should have desired in the first place to explain in it what philosophy is, by commencing with the most common matters, as for example, that the word philosophy signifies the study of wisdom, and that by wisdom is to be understood not merely prudence in the management of affairs, but the perfect knowledge of all that man can know, as well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation of his health and the discovery of all the arts, and that knowledge to subserve these ends must necessarily be reduced from first causes, so that in order to study the acquisition of it, which is properly called philosophizing, we must commence with the investigation of those first causes which are called principles. Now these principles must possess two conditions. In the first place, there must be so clear and evident that the human mind, when it attentively considers them, cannot doubt with their truths. In the second place, the knowledge of other things must be so dependent on them, as that though the principles themselves may indeed be known apart from what depends on them, the latter cannot nevertheless be known apart from the former. It will accordingly be necessary thereafter, to endeavor so to deduce from those principles the knowledge of the things that depend on them, as that there may be nothing in the whole series of deductions which is not perfectly manifest. God is in truth the only being who is absolutely wise, that is, who possesses a perfect knowledge of all things, but we may say that men are more or less wise as their knowledge of the most important truths is greater or less. And I am confident that there is nothing, and what I have now said, in which all the learned do not concur. I should, in the next place, have proposed to consider the utility of philosophy, and at the same time have shown that, since it embraces all that the human mind can know, we also believe that it is by it we are distinguished from savages and barbarians, and that the civilization and culture of a nation is regulated by the degree in which true philosophy nourishes in it, and accordingly, that to contain true philosophers is the highest privilege a state can enjoy. Besides this, I should have shown that, as regards to individuals, it is not only useful for each man to have intercourse with those who imply themselves to the study, but that it is incomparably better he should himself direct his attention to it. Just as it is doubtless to be preferred that any man should make use of his own eyes to direct his steps, and enjoy by means of the same, the beauties of color and light, and that he should blindly follow the guidance of another, though the latter course is certainly better than to have the eyes closed with no guide except oneself. But to live without philosophizing is in truth the same as keeping the eyes closed without attempting to open them, and the pleasure of seeing all that side discloses is not to be compared with the satisfaction afforded by the discoveries of philosophy. And finally, the study is more imperatively requisite for the regulation of our manners and for conducting us through life than is the use of our eyes for directing our steps. The brutes, which have only their bodies to conserve, are continually occupied and seeking sources of nourishment. But men, of whom the chief part is the mind, ought to make the search after wisdom your principal care, for wisdom is the true nourishment of the mind, and I feel assured moreover that there are very many who would not fail in the search if they would but hope for success in it, and knew the degree of their capabilities for it. There is no mind how ignable so ever it be, which remains so firmly bound up in the objects of the senses, as not some time or other to turn itself away from them in the aspiration after some higher good, although not knowing frequently wherein that good consists. The greatest favorites of fortune, those who have health, honors, and riches in abundance, are not more exempt from aspirations of this nature than others. Nay, I am persuaded that these are the persons who cite them most deeply after another good, greater and more perfect still than any they already possess. But the supreme good, considered by natural reason without delight of fate, is nothing more than the knowledge of truth through its first causes, in other words, the wisdom of which philosophy is to study. And as all these particulars are indisputably true, all that is required to gain the sense of their truth is that they be well stated. But as one is restrained from ascending to these doctrines by experience, which shows that they who make pretensions to philosophy are often less wise and reasonable than others who have never applied themselves to the study, I should have here shortly explained where in consists all the science we now possess, and what are the degrees of wisdom at which we have arrived. The first degree contains only notions so clear of themselves that they can be acquired without meditation. The second comprehends all that the experience of the senses dictates. The third, that which the conversation of other men teaches us, to which may be added as the fourth, the reading, not of all books, but especially of such as have been written by persons capable of conveying proper instruction, for it is a species of conversation we hold with their authors. And it seems to me that all the wisdom we in ordinary possess is acquired only in these four ways, for I do not class divine revelation among them, because it does not conduct us by degrees, but elevates us at once to an infallible faith. There have been indeed in all ages great minds who endeavor to find the fifth road to wisdom, incomparably more sure and elevated than the other four. The path they assayed was to search the first causes and true principles, for which might be deduced the reasons of all that can be known by man, and it is to them the appellation of philosophers has been more especially accorded. I am not aware that there is any one of them up to the present who has succeeded in this enterprise. The first and chief whose writings we possess are Plato and Aristotle, between whom there was no difference, except that the former, following in the footsteps of his master Socrates, ingeniously confessed that he had never yet been able to find anything certain, and that he was contented to write what seemed to him probable, imagining for this end certain principles by which he endeavored to account for the other things. Aristotle on the other hand, characterized by Leskander, although for twenty years the disciple of Plato, and with no principle beyond those of his master, completely reversed his mode of putting them, and proposed as true and certain whether it is probable he himself never esteemed to such. But these two men had acquired much judgment and wisdom by the four preceding means, qualities which raised their authority very high, so much so that those who succeeded them were willing rather to acquiesce in their opinions than to seek better for themselves. The chief question among their disciples, however, was asked whether we ought to doubt if all things are wholesome as certain, a dispute which led to him on both sides into extravagant errors. For a part of those who were for doubt, extended it even to the actions of life, to the neglect of the most ordinary rules required for its conduct. Those on the other hand, who maintained the doctrine of certainty, supposing that it must depend upon the senses, trusted entirely to them. To such an extent was discouraged by Epicurus, that it is said he ventured to affirm, contrary to all the reasonings of the astronomers, that the sun is no larger than it appears. It is a fault we may remark in most disputes, that as truth is the mean between the two opinions that are upheld, each dispute and departs from it in proportion to the degree in which he possesses the spirit of contradiction. But the error of those who lent too much to the side of doubt was not followed for any length of time, and that of the opposite party has been to some extent corrected by the doctrine that the senses are deceitful in many instances. Nevertheless, I do not know that this error was wholly removed by showing that certitude is not in the senses, but in the understanding alone when it has clear perceptions, and that while we only persist the knowledge which is acquired in the first four grades of wisdom, we ought not to doubt with the things that appear to be true in what regards the conduct of life, nor esteem them as so certain that we cannot change our opinions regarding them, even though constrained by the evidence of reason. From ignorance of this truth, or if there was anyone to whom it was known, from neglect of it, the majority of those who in these later ages aspire to be philosophers blindly followed Aristotle, so that they frequently corrupted the sense of his writings, and attributed to him various opinions which he would not recognize as his own,
Transcription truncated.
Selections from the Principles of Philosophy by René Descartes.
This episode includes AI-generated content.
This episode includes AI-generated content.