On the Method and After Descartes' Meditations

A method, the method, his method, an instrument for action. It alone effective; it alone – in rooting out error and welcoming doubt – leading to certainty; it alone unifying thought, all thought, his thought. Mathematics. The sciences underpinned by it; our structural understanding of the external world governed by it. Descartes, a thinker, spectator rather than actor in the comedies/tragedies played, writing a fable – a moral instruction – to awaken the mind. Examples to perhaps follow, examples to perhaps not copy. Our thoughts, made and unmade by others, informed by observation and experience, entirely our own.

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Certain that he is; he is, he exists. Certain that I am; I am, I exist. He thought he was a man; I think I am a woman. But what is a man, a woman? A 'whole machine made up of flesh and bones'. I am, I exist. He was, he existed. I am, he was, something. A thing that thinks. And feels. But what Descartes asked, I ask now: if I cease to think, will I cease to be, to exist?

What thinks? The mind or the soul? Are they one and the same? Immortal?

Picture credit: Rene Descartes and a Moving Matter, Alexander Roitburd (source: WikiArt).

See Discourse on Method and The Meditations by René Descartes, Penguin Classics.

From journal, March 2023.