Discourse on Method, Optics, Geometry, and Meteorology

by René Descartes

This volume preserves the format in which Discourse on Method was originally published: as a preface to Descartes's writings on optics, geometry, and meteorology. In his introduction, Olscamp discusses the value of reading the Discourse alongside these three works, which sheds new light on Descartes’s method. Includes an updated bibliography.

Genres: Philosophy, France, Science, Mathematics, Nonfiction, Physics, Academic

400 pages, Library Binding

First published June 8, 1637

About the author

Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644), main works of French mathematician and scientist René Descartes, considered the father of analytic geometry and the founder of modern rationalism, include the famous dictum "I think, therefore I am."

A set of two perpendicular lines in a plane or three in space intersect at an origin in Cartesian coordinate system. Cartesian coordinate, a member of the set of numbers, distances, locates a point in this system. Cartesian coordinates describe all points of a Cartesian plane.

From given sets, {X} and {Y}, one can construct Cartesian product, a set of all pairs of elements (x, y), such that x belongs to {X} and y belongs to {Y}.

Cartesian philosophers include Antoine Arnauld.



René Descartes, a writer, highly influenced society. People continue to study closely his writings and subsequently responded in the west. He of the key figures in the revolution also apparently influenced the named coordinate system, used in planes and algebra.

Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul , a treatise on the early version of now commonly called emotions, he goes so far to assert that he writes on his topic "as if no one had written on these matters before." Many elements in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or earlier like Saint Augustine of Hippo provide precedents. Naturally, he differs from the schools on two major points: He rejects corporeal substance into matter and form and any appeal to divine or natural ends in explaining natural phenomena. In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of act of creation of God.

Baruch Spinoza and Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz later advocated Descartes, a major figure in 17th century Continent, and the empiricist school of thought, consisting of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume, opposed him. Leibniz and Descartes, all well versed like Spinoza, contributed greatly. Descartes, the crucial bridge with algebra, invented the coordinate system and calculus. Reflections of Descartes on mind and mechanism began the strain of western thought; much later, the invention of the electronic computer and the possibility of machine intelligence impelled this thought, which blossomed into the Turing test and related thought. His stated most in §7 of part I and in part IV of Discourse on the Method .

Reviews

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read Descartes' Optics as part of a course on perception in early modern philosophy; Descartes' process of reasoning and the beauty that often lies in his argumentation is what made the work worth reading - even if, of course, many of the ideas and conclusions about 'optics' (how perception, and more specifically visual perception, works) are outdated.

[Tyler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Caution: this review is simply for Meterologie, one of Descartes' three treatises showing his process expounded within Discourse on the Method. As a mathematician, Descartes was truly incredible and searching, developing propositions and theorems JUST from ones that were previously shown to be infallibly true to an unprecedented level of truthhood, which at that time was rare. Lets face it, almost everything in the Optics and Geometry is still true to this day, almost no other knowledge supersedes what is in those books. I believe this shows that his method is good: it works. What he proceeded from is what were undoubtedly known principles. Rene Descartes proceeded from what he knew to be the case: and he proceeded to what he did not know. In short, through intuition and prior intuitions, Descartes gets to show your average layperson, or anyone acquainted with reading, how one brings together what one needs to in order to make sure 100% truthful intuitions and deductions concerning the external environment, or just purely thought-based matters. The first book, Optics, takes principles which were studied for thousands of years in Optics, takes points on hyperbolas/ellipses which necessary reflect the rays coming to an edge in a single point, and then necessarily shows how one can determine this point to create some of the best lenses. He then proceeds to show and illustrate the engineering behind the machine which is to create these lenses, be they for people, for telescopes, or microscopes. Next up, Mathematics, Geometry starts with complex, abstruse concepts in geometry and mathematics, that you might need to brush up on Euclid and Apollonius to observe, and it gets more layered from there, even been limited necessarily by the grasp of human understanding. But, however, both were good examples of the method he expounded in Discourse on the Method and Rules for the Direction of the Mind. However, this last book, Meteorology, I consider to be a poor example of how to utilize his method. The subject matter, the material principles described, everything, lines up to be a poor example of the method. He almost did this on purpose, seeing as it is the last treatise, but I must say I thought it was a bad example, and the other two were very good examples of the veracity of his method. You will learn very little truthhoods from this last treatise, and if you do, it will be based on the principles of refraction and reflection, something he already has shown that he knows a lot in regard to.

[Joshua Nomen-Mutatio · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read "Optics". It was interesting. Mostly incorrect as time has shown, but interesting nonetheless.