Discorso sul metodo
- Lingua:
- inglese
- Stato:
- Opera completa
- Autorialità:
- Scritta dall'autore
- Stato del testo:
- Nessun rumore di scansione rilevato (misura automatica su tutto il testo, non verificata a mano)
- Estensione:
- ~23.200 parole · 110 passi
Cita quest'opera
- APACartesio. (n.d.). Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth [Discorso sul metodo]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/it/works/descartes/discourse-on-the-method-of-rightly-conducting-one-s-reason-and-of-seeking-truth
- MLACartesio. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth [Discorso sul metodo]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/it/works/descartes/discourse-on-the-method-of-rightly-conducting-one-s-reason-and-of-seeking-truth.
- ChicagoCartesio. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth [Discorso sul metodo]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/it/works/descartes/discourse-on-the-method-of-rightly-conducting-one-s-reason-and-of-seeking-truth.
Riferimento dell'edizione che SigPhi riproduce: SigPhi ne è la riproduzione digitale, non l'editore. L'anno dell'edizione non figura nei metadati (da qui «n.d.») e il traduttore compare solo quando è noto.
Di che cosa tratta
Il racconto di come Descartes decise di dubitare di tutto ciò che aveva appreso e di ricostruire il sapere dall'unica certezza che resistette: penso, dunque sono.
Contesto e storia
Pubblicato nel 1637 a Leida, anonimo e in francese — non in latino, la lingua dei dotti: Descartes voleva che potessero leggerlo, disse, perfino le donne e la gente senza studi. Era la prefazione a tre saggi scientifici (diottrica, meteore, geometria), ma la prefazione si è mangiata il libro. Scritto dall'Olanda, dove Descartes viveva con la prudenza di chi aveva visto cos'era accaduto a Galileo quattro anni prima. È l'atto di nascita della filosofia moderna: l'io che dubita come fondamento di tutto.
Contesto editoriale, non una fonte citabile: a differenza dei passi dell'opera, questi dati non si possono verificare sul corpus.
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.…