Reading a philosophy book that was first published in 1641 was an enjoyable experience. This book is the original source of several philosophical techniques and, as such, very useful and educational. On the other hand, with our modern knowledge of the human body, physics, evolution, information and logic, much of the reasoning doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The final section was quite comical in its description of how nerves work and its explanation of phantom limbs and dropsy. However, Descartes did make me think about how I know I’m awake as opposed to dreaming and it reinforced for me the power of the ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ argument.

I can appreciate that the ideas portrayed here are done so in a very approachable way. I've read a few philosophers and Descartes is one of the easier to read. Though the ideas in this might be a little dated now, you can clearly understand and realize the impact it's had on modern thinking. He presents his logic in a clear and concise way. Brevity is his friend, and brevity is one of my most highly regarded traits in authors. An interesting and relatively short read, if you have a free afternoon, I'd recommend giving it a go. It might not change your perspective on life but it may give you a better understand on the root of philosophical arguments.

While useful for its methodological approach, I think Descartes' argument breaks down in the third meditation where he proves the existence of God by a kind of Platonic leap, claiming that his ability to "innately" conceptualize an omnipotent God proves that such a being must exist. This is no different than if conceptualizing a triangle proved there were ideal geometries hovering in a world of forms. Descartes wrote 2000 years after Plato, so this failure to update him, other than superimposing his philosophy onto Christian theology, is disappointing. Every further claim he makes in Meditations relies on this assumption, which forced me to reject his conclusions.

Descartes is a bit contradictory as a thinker. I admire his originality of thought in coming up with his approach of radical skepticism, as well as his encouragement of others to pursue such a path. But his skepticism doesn't last long enough. Later in his Principles he ends up in the same place as Church doctrine, despite his rationalism. To paraphrase: God necessarily exists and has preordained everything; despite this God isn't responsible for evil because we have free will. These are obvious contradictions, which Descartes doesn't explore. Instead he tells us not to think about it too hard, because it's impossible to understand. To me, this seems to fly in the face of his approach to reject everything that one hasn't empirically established. Despite laying the foundation for rationalism, this is still a religious work.

I do wonder how ingenuous statements like these really are, given his method: "we must believe everything which God has revealed, even though it may be beyond our grasp... such as the mystery of the Incarnation or of the Trinity" (Principles). It's possible this was simply thrown in to avoid excommunication or something. I recognize that this work is from the 17th century. Nonetheless, it infects his conclusions, and I disagree with nearly everything he takes as indisputable.

overthinking heeft zo zijn nare gevolgen

C'était hyper clair, merci pour le 20 au bac de philo, mais ouais douter je sais pas...