Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, parts 1-3 - Introduction to Philosophy

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In this lecture/discussion video from my Spring 2013 Introduction to Philosophy class at Marist College, we start our study of Descartes' Discourse on Method, looking at the first three parts of the work, in which he narrates the story of his education, his resolve to acquire experience through travel and observation, and his decision to turn within and study the human mind. We examine his four rules of method, and we also discuss the implications of his "provisional morality"
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#Method #Philosophy #Descartes

[@oneworld9903]

You’re a great professor, watching this reiterated to me that you not only understood what you were teaching, but you enjoy sowing the seeds of philosophy into those seeking self growth. I’m barely beginning to expose myself to such works and methods of thinking but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it thus far.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yes, Descartes was amazingly bright. Apparently, he could retain an entire speech worth of someone else's arguments in his head -- while hearing it for the first time -- and then afterwords critically examine it point by point

[@KAM1138a]

Another enjoyable lecture. I appreciate your putting these online.

[@SpiritofLaws]

I'm pleased you and your students understand it so well. Good luck.

[@mb9607]

I really appreciate your approach that is based precisely on books so it makes it easier for me to follow the class. I read the book before then I listen to your class then I can compare our understanding of the text.

[@GregoryBSadler]

+mb9607 That's the best way to use the videos, I think

[@sy99939]

Great lecture! Just discovered these videos today and I'll be watching a lot more of them!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad to read it

[@MrAngryman69]

Man I wish I could be able to get to the level of genius this guy achieved.

[@dariusmolark6820]

excellent; great approach!

[@understandunderstand]

Thank you Gregory, almost as good as having a conversation and in some cases much better :)

[@GregoryBSadler]

You're very welcome

[@joelbrandon6807]

You prolly dont care but if you're bored like me atm then you can watch pretty much all the latest movies on instaflixxer. Been streaming with my girlfriend during the lockdown :)

[@torinstanley7289]

@Joel Brandon yea, have been watching on instaflixxer for since december myself =)

[@faust3772]

thank you very much mr Sadler, very great explanation, i understand your explanation much better than my own western philosophy lecturer.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad it was helpful for you

[@moviereviews1446]

Great video. Thank you Dr. Sadler.

[@GregoryBSadler]

you're very welcome

[@MoneyMaking.Technology]

Read this today and wanted to follow up with a lecture. Thanks so much for the extensive recording you've done, I'll be recommending your channel to those interested in philosophy. Something you said previously stuck with me: always seek primary texts. Has been great advice as I've delved into various thinkers. Hope all is well for you in 2024 and beyond!

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you're enjoying the videos, and studying philosophy. Yes, you definitely don't want to deprive yourself of the direct engagement with the primary texts!

[@lalaland746]

I attend SUNY New Paltz! omg I'm watching this for my intro to philosophy class. This video really helps

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad to read that it's helpful for you

[@kaleobreeckner8458]

ayy SUNY New Paltz also brought me here! what a coincidence.

[@adriancline-bailey3301]

Just awesome. Your a really good teacher, wish intro into philosophy had been taught at my uni, I wouldn't have walked around like I knew everything. haha

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you enjoyed the lecture - plenty more over in my channel, organized into playlists

[@jasminhamilton1147]

It was Bacon that died from pneumonia he developed after doing the refrigeration experiment with the fowl. Not Descartes. I enjoy your videos. Very helpful with my Introduction to Philosophy class.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Glad you find the videos useful

[@andrewriggs2910]

Yes, it bas Bacon who died after experimenting with refrigeration and fowl. However, Descartes did die from pneumonia while mentoring Queen Christina of Sweden. Perhaps the professor got details from Bacon's life mixed up with details from Descartes's life.

[@benjaminbenjamin8219]

Descartes tried to explain that reason is the most important thing to development just like Socrates said reason before all.

[@GregoryBSadler]

I suppose those could both be translations of the Regulae. I do not have a lecture on it at present, no

[@SpiritofLaws]

The "Discourse", "a popular work written in French for non-scholars"? The three scientific essays published with the "Discourse" were also written in French. Were they for non-scholars? "Le Monde", which Descartes dropped because of the Galileo incident was being written in French. Was that for non-scholars, also?

[@davidholt1250]

Professor: Is the technique of doubting what could be called "Cartesian Meditation?" So when the French talk about a "formal meditation" are they actually talking about applying Descarte's method to any subject? I ask because I am interested in the concept of meditation as applied to Western thinking rather than Eastern-style meditation. So, in the Western tradition, "meditation" really means thinking in a methodical way about something. Am I on track do you think?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Is the technique of doubting what could be called "Cartesian Meditation?" No

[@GregoryBSadler]

reputedly -- I remember my prof telling us that story back in a grad school class on Descartes -- but I don't remember the reference

[@GregoryBSadler]

new Intro to Philosophy class video

[@GregoryBSadler]

Water, lemon juice, and sugar

[@willsisco5352]

Hi Professor, nice lecture. I had a question about a quote from early in the discourse: on classical philosophers: "[...] but they give us no adequate criterion of virtue, and frequently that which they designate with so fine a name is but apathy, or pride, or despair, or parricide." Why does he include parricide? Was it a topic that classical philosophers were pre-occupied with for some reason?

[@GregoryBSadler]

No, parricide wasn't a topic they were particularly interested in. That's just Descrartes being clever as a rhetorician.

[@willsisco5352]

Gregory B. Sadler Thanks for the response. What point is he trying to make with that rhetoric?

[@GregoryBSadler]

The Ancients and Medievals didn't really develop genuine philosophy -- if he can give that impression (as Hobbes tries to do as well), then his own project looks better

[@jessicamand3113]

It seems that Virtue is a worthy art to master. It is a word that signifies greatness, and appears to be overall beautiful. Great Men have sought virtue and regretted it, and even wrote books about it. The suffrage, that one must endure to achieve this art of greatness is anything but beautiful. The apathy that one must practice, while remaining humble. To deny oneself, at any cost, creates a feeling of despair. Virtue is not easy to define, nor is it easy to obtain. Just ask Benjamin Franklin.

[@willsisco5352]

Is it just me or does the video not load past the 14:48 mark? I have tried multiple accounts and wifi networks. Could you possibly reupload it, assuming I'm not the only one? I'd really like to watch the rest.

[@GregoryBSadler]

KZbin can be glitchy sometime. We'll see if it resolves itself. I don't generally re-upload videos that already have links to them

[@willsisco5352]

Are you experiencing the same thing, or is it just on my end somehow?

[@GregoryBSadler]

I get it as well. I've seen this happen before. It's always turned out to be a KZbin glitch that worked itself out

[@LincolnBohn]

Gregory B. Sadler It has been 2 months, and I still cannot get past the 14:48 mark. I was very much enjoying the lecture, can you email someone at KZbin to resolve the issue? I will send something to KZbin in regards to it

[@GregoryBSadler]

Lincoln Bohn Sure, I can try to contact them. You probably ought to realize, though, that it's pretty unlikely I'll actually get a response from them . . . .

[@MrAngryman69]

Wow! Decartes had that great of a memory!?

[@chauncysilva3068]

14:48 killed me. I'm dead.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Contacted KZbin support -- should be fixed now

[@jessicamand3113]

Facts; is hard fiction, waiting to be disproved. If we become so sure of ourselves that we believe that for which we know is certain, then we cheat ourselves the ability to disprove, and it is like us to challenge one who stands a ground to a hard fiction, for which he stands to lose.

[@pintoloyce]

well basically you have taken a Sophistic approach, where there is no truth and therefore, even your statement Facts is hard fiction basically is not a fact but just hard fiction. We know that there is truth cause when our minds achieves it, it rests in it. Just like how we know 2+2=4, which is a fact. But yes what you said is true, at the ending we must be like Socrates and know that we don't know. But once we have know something is true, it would be foolish to have anyone talk us out of it. The whole goal of philosophy is to be a lover of wisdom but not a possessor of it.

[@GregoryBSadler]

No, you've missed the point. If you want to argue this at length, shoot a video response, and I'll approve it. The Discourse is not "astonishingly difficult", particularly if you compare it to the Meditations or the Principles. I've had first year students work their way through it and write good papers without too much difficulty.

[@johndoe-km5st]

Yea. Stops at 14:48 for me too.

[@GregoryBSadler]

No idea what's going on with that -- KZbin gets glitchy sometimes

[@GregoryBSadler]

Contacted KZbin support -- should be fixed now

[@GregoryBSadler]

Yep, but the three scientific essays are precisely that, i.e. scientific essays. They're actually believed to have been pieces from Le Monde

[@balgurirajendraprasad3329]

In this I am following the common opinion of the philosophers, who say that a quality that admits of differences in degree can’t be one that marks the difference between one species and another-it can only be an ‘accident’, a relatively trivial and superficial property, of anything that has it, says Descartes....So, if one couldn't take in to account to study, means, are they ultimately guarding the one and only alone GOODNESS not to vary?

[@GregoryBSadler]

Are you following the "common opinion of the philosophers" on this? No. That's not the "common opinion of the philosophers" -- philosophers differ on these matters

[@balgurirajendraprasad3329]

Firstly, I want to know how my thought was? I mean Philosophy must give a good medicine of prescriptions if not it could be dangerous? So, I read and understand myself alone under no guidance in India, for which I wanted to know whether my thought process is valid or not? Moreover, I don't follow? We must take into account to study not to make invalid instead to guard the alone GOOD???

[@GregoryBSadler]

No idea what you're writing here, unfortunately. The grammar is very confusing.

[@jessicamand3113]

Balguri Rajendra Prasad Your last name is different from the belonging to the first and second. What part of India are you from?

[@jessicamand3113]

Balguri Rajendra Prasad Your speech is like that of Farsi. Am I wrong?

[@SpiritofLaws]

You've missed the point. You claimed the Discourse was written in French for non-scholars. The three essays are clearly not written for non-scholars and they are certainly not popular works, yet they are written in French. The Discourse turns out to be astonishingly difficult and anything but a "popular work," although it is made to appear that way.

[@petermartin2321]

It's been a long time since I saw someone erase a blackboard, LOL.

[@GregoryBSadler]

+Peter Martin Yep, I'm old school

[@petermartin2321]

+Gregory B. Sadler Well I was last in school about 40 years ago.

[@fu886]

how can you know your starting point is true or false to begin with if you are skeptic? his argument beforehand on how we limited by default because of that due to being bound to what we were taught in the past, go directly against the notion. Its also seems to me that his take religion is not going that its not helpful, in the same argument he try to prove the existence of god in the sense of laws, meaning, proving the base assumption in his method:"Reality have well established laws". In terms of rhetoric tools I don't agree that its deceitful in the same sense you talked , the whole discourse reminds me a lot of Maimonides's Guide for The Perplexed, which Maimonides tell two opinion to base his laws(mishne tora) , one for the simple believer and one for the philosopher of sort that can see behind the facade. its not that he deceit the reader but talk in two different tongues that in the end will lead to close enough conclusion. explanation on why every reader can use his method as well. Interestingly enough Maimonides does use similar argument to base his reading and method to read the bible through Aristotelian logic to how Descartes proving the basis of the method.

[@GregoryBSadler]

fu886 "how can you know your starting point is true or false to begin with if you are skeptic?" You don't. If you read Descartes, he views his starting point in the Discourse, and in the fuller Meditations as probably a good one. and, then of course, he will get rid of probability. Religion, or rather theology, is not the same as God. So, Descartes can reject the already existing theology as a basis, and also still argue for and using God

[@fu886]

I can get the first part, though I would probably want another reading, to really see it more clearly. In terms of god argument, in what you say its doesn't take into consideration on the shift of power in the Catholic church during his time which created the need to fill the gap and justify religion more, and the nature of the education he had. this points can be combined with textual elements such as the back story he give about the army revelation at the start of the part, which can be conceived as some deceitful nice story to politicize his message but also can be read in the simple manner to give basis describe how his idea developed with the known tongue at the time through biblical rhetoric or the whole point of the part which was how to identify laws and actually start with laws of society, not of natural phenomenon. it seems to me that it does give ground to possible political or theological argument that is connected to his time and the way its described just as well.

[@GregoryBSadler]

Indeed, many interpretations of Descartes are possible to create. Best of luck with that one

[@marioivanovic4096]

Learn on ur mstakes and never say a word