Discussion Starter: An Equal Access to Wisdom

Descartes challenges the understandings proposed or which were held by his contemporaries of Aristotle and Plato. Strongly affirming that all, given the right means, will be able to reach an understanding of the principles he sets forth, and will be able to use those to further uncover truths, Descartes fundamentally questions the notions that only few are capable of reason, and contemplation (proposed by both Plato and Aristotle). He goes farther, enough to suggest that those already within schools of philosophy, or aware of Aristotle’s and Plato’s writings, will have a more difficult time understanding his writings.

For Descartes it is vital to affirm even “those who are over diffident about their powers that there is nothing in [his] writings which they are not capable of completely understanding provided they take the trouble to examine them” (185). Once recognized that all are capable to gain the knowledge Descartes describes and given that such knowledge, of the principles and means to seek truth will enable “one to reach the highest degree of wisdom which constituted the supreme good of human life,” it can be understood that Descartes staunchly believes that all are able to reach supreme good (183). Rather than supporting Plato and Aristotle’s suggestion that only a few or an elite will be able to achieve highest good—whether that be contemplation, or active contemplation—Descartes contends the very suggestions. 

To further affirm the equal ability to learn from and understand his writings,  Descartes denies that exposure to previous philosophical methods grants an advantage. Not straying, Descartes submits, “a fault which may be observed in the majority of disputes…that since the truth lies midway between two positions which are being maintained, the disputants on each side move further and further away from it as their desire to contradict the opposing view increases” (182). Descartes criticizes debate, a logic his sees as supported by his contemporary schools of philosophy and which is “nothing but a dialectic which teaches ways of expounding to others what one already knows or even of holding forth without judgment about things one does not know… corrupts good sense rather than increasing it” (186). Demanding that the method of discovery or learning not be the dialectic, or debate and recognizing that such methods are detrimental, Descartes distinguishes the methods he outlines as leading towards wisdom—doubt, an awareness some knowledge lives outside experience, etc.—from the dialectics seen as key by previous philosophers.

Descartes argues that the truths of his principles will even “eliminate all ground for dispute, and so will dispose people’s minds to gentleness and harmony” being the “opposite result to that produced by the debates in the Schools, which—slowly and with out their noticing it—make the participants more argumentative and opinionated” (188). Ironically, positioning himself against previous philosophers to convince readers, Descartes affirms that one, all are capable of understanding his writing and thence reach highest good, and that two, previous emphasis on debate and dispute is mistaken. Descartes’ belief in an equal access to reach knowledge and wisdom, and his stand against the dialectic and debate, profoundly challenges previous methods and means of philosophy. Descartes levels ground, and affirms no one has an advantage to attain an understanding of his writings and that of how to use the principles he offers to continue to attain wisdom and knowledge.