Rene Descartes, Discourse On Method - Academic Subjects & Foundations Of Knowledge

Sadler's Lectures

English - September 12, 2022 21:18 - 14 minutes - 21.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 70 ratings
Education Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed

Previous Episode: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book 6 - Understanding And Consideration - Sadler's Lectures

Next Episode: Rene Descartes, Discourse On Method - The Four Rules Of Method - Sadler's Lectures

This lecture discusses the 16th century philosopher Rene Descartes' work The Discourse on Method, and focuses on his evaluation in book 1 of the academic subjects that he studied, and their capacities to provide us with genuine knowledge. He considers languages, history, literature, poetry, rhetoric, theology, philosophy, and mathematics.

The only subject in which he is able to find certain and incontrovertible proofs - agreement among its practitioners - is mathematics. Philosophy up to his time - in Descartes' view - cannot provide proper foundations for the other disciplines, because philosophers disagree with each other and their principles.

To support my ongoing work, go to my Patreon site - www.patreon.com/sadler

If you'd like to make a direct contribution, you can do so here - www.paypal.me/ReasonIO

You can find over 2000 philosophy videos in my main YouTube channel - www.youtube.com/user/gbisadler

Purchase Descartes' Discourse on Method - https://amzn.to/3qudsio