Discours de la méthode
- Sprache:
- Englisch
- Status:
- Vollständiges Werk
- Autorschaft:
- Vom Autor verfasst
- Zustand des Textes:
- Kein Scanrauschen festgestellt (automatische Messung über den ganzen Text, nicht von Hand geprüft)
- Umfang:
- ~23.200 Wörter · 110 Passagen
Dieses Werk zitieren
- APADescartes. (n.d.). Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth [Discours de la méthode]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/de/works/descartes/discourse-on-the-method-of-rightly-conducting-one-s-reason-and-of-seeking-truth
- MLADescartes. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth [Discours de la méthode]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/de/works/descartes/discourse-on-the-method-of-rightly-conducting-one-s-reason-and-of-seeking-truth.
- ChicagoDescartes. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth [Discours de la méthode]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/de/works/descartes/discourse-on-the-method-of-rightly-conducting-one-s-reason-and-of-seeking-truth.
Angabe der Ausgabe, die SigPhi wiedergibt: SigPhi ist ihre digitale Reproduktion, nicht der Verlag. Das Erscheinungsjahr steht nicht in den Metadaten (daher „n.d.“), und der Übersetzer erscheint nur, wenn er verzeichnet ist.
Wovon es handelt
Der Bericht, wie Descartes beschloss, an allem Gelernten zu zweifeln und das Wissen aus der einzigen Gewissheit neu aufzubauen, die standhielt: Ich denke, also bin ich.
Kontext und Geschichte
Erschienen 1637 in Leiden, anonym und auf Französisch — nicht auf Latein, der Sprache der Gelehrten: Descartes wollte, dass es, wie er sagte, selbst Frauen und Menschen ohne Bildung lesen könnten. Es war das Vorwort zu drei wissenschaftlichen Abhandlungen (Optik, Meteore, Geometrie), doch das Vorwort hat das Buch verschlungen. Geschrieben aus Holland, wo Descartes mit der Vorsicht eines Mannes lebte, der vier Jahre zuvor gesehen hatte, was Galilei widerfahren war. Es ist die Geburtsurkunde der modernen Philosophie: das zweifelnde Ich als Fundament von allem.
Redaktioneller Kontext, keine zitierfähige Quelle: anders als die Passagen des Werks lassen sich diese Angaben nicht am Korpus überprüfen.
curious in the customs of the past are generally ignorant of those of the present. Besides, fictitious narratives lead us to imagine the possibility of many events that are impossible; and even the most faithful histories, if they do not wholly misrepresent matters, or exaggerate their importance to render the account of them more worthy of perusal, omit, at least, almost always the meanest and least striking of the attendant circumstances; hence it happens that the remainder does not represent the truth, and that such as regulate their conduct by examples drawn from this source, are apt to fall into the extravagances of the knight-errants of romance, and to entertain projects that exceed their powers. I esteemed eloquence highly, and was in raptures with poesy; but I thought that both were gifts of nature rather than fruits of study. Those in whom the faculty of reason is predominant, and who most skillfully dispose their thoughts with a view to render them clear and intelligible, are always the best able to persuade others of the truth of what they lay down, though they should speak only in the language of Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of the rules of rhetoric; and those whose minds are stored with the most agreeable fancies, and who can give expression to them with the greatest embellishment and harmony, are still the best poets, though unacquainted with the art of poetry. I was especially delighted with the mathematics, on account of the certitude and evidence of their reasonings; but I had not as yet a precise knowledge of their true use; and thinking that they but contributed to the advancement of the mechanical arts, I was astonished that foundations, so strong and solid, should have had no loftier superstructure reared on them.…