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READINGS
FROM DESCARTES’ PRIMARY WORK
In which are demonstrated the existence of a theory of everything and the distinction of a philosophy from its works
SYNOPSIS
FIRST READING
Of That which may need Interpreting
SECOND READING
Of the Reflexive Nature of This Work;
and How Its Self-Reference is more meaningful than Its Interpretation of Descartes
THIRD READING
Of the Theory; that it is being Expounded
FOURTH READING
Of Sense and Nonsense
FIFTH READING
Of Descartes’ philosophy; and how we might contribute to Expounding the Theory
SIXTH READING
Of the Interpretation of Descartes’ Meditations;
and the Real Distinction between the Meditations and This Work
Note: A pair of numbers in normal brackets at the beginning of a paragraph is a reference to the original Latin text of Meditationum de Prima Philosophia. Thus (2.5) means the Second Meditation, fifth paragraph.
SYNOPSIS
OF THE SIX READINGS FROM DESCARTES
FIRST READING
I explain how you may doubt your understanding of the philosophy of Descartes in general, so long as you have not found a secure basis of meaning for it. Now, although such a comprehensive doubt about the philosophy of Descartes may seem to divorce you completely from the topic I am setting out to discuss, nevertheless it is the best way for you to approach it, for in distancing yourself from Descartes you are treading the easiest pathway by which you can adopt an independent attitude towards his philosophy.
SECOND READING
Having persuaded you to put aside any understanding of Descartes you thought you had, I extend your doubt even to everything in what I write here of which the meaning is in any way unclear. But we observe that my words must mean what they appear to you as you read them. The situation in which my words are read is such that my words form a bond of comprehension between us. This is important in giving this script a stance which is independent of Descartes.
THIRD READING
I unfold an argument for the necessity of an infinite exposition of a theory. But in this reading I avoid mentioning or alluding to ideas from Descartes, or referring to the work entitled Regenerating Philosophy, so as to avoid, as much as possible, dependence for meaning on anything not necessarily presupposed in this work (Reading Descartes) for its meaning.
FOURTH READING
I show how you can proceed in general to make sense of things, and I explain the nature of error; these two things require to be understood, not just for their application to the interpretation of Descartes, but also for their application to the arguments of these six Readings.
FIFTH READING
Besides outlining the general method of interpreting Descartes, I argue for the necessity of referring to the exposition by name, i.e. to Regenerating Philosophy. I also show how the interpretation of Descartes in these Readings will be re-interpreted.
SIXTH READING
The scholarly reconstruction of the thought of Descartes is distinguished from the philosophic assessment of it; the marks of this distinction are described; the position I am taking I show to be able to maintain itself independent of the philosophy of Descartes and yet so closely conjoined with it as to be in a sense no more than an interpretation of Descartes. The errors which arise from being tied to Cartesian terminology are brought under review, while the means of avoiding them are demonstrated; and, finally, I direct you to the means of interpreting Descartes; not, however, because I deem Descartes important to Philosophy, something which few philosophers would seriously doubt; but because, from a close consideration of his Meditations, it is perceived that the reasoning in them is neither so strong nor clear as the reasoning which leads me to complete this work and direct us all to Regenerating Philosophy; and so you may accept that, of all philosophic works that have ever been written or will ever be written, none can be more certain and manifest in exposition - a conclusion which it is my single aim in this work to establish.
NOTE TO THE SYNOPSIS
Since some of you may perhaps expect arguments in the second reading for the relevance of Descartes to Philosophy now and in the future, I should warn you that I try not to say anything out of line with the work being itself an interpretation of Descartes. Hence the only order which I can follow in the work is the one which mimics the order followed by Descartes in his Meditations, which in its interpreted form for the work is the establishment of a basis of meaning before developing a way of interpreting Descartes.
Now the first and most important prerequisite for understanding the perennial relevance of Descartes is for us to re-express his philosophy in ways which are as immediate and clear as possible to us and not needing to refer back to the original texts; and in the First Reading I am directing attention to the gulf which any such interpretation of Descartes must bridge.
A further requirement is that we should understand that something remains meaningful only in so far as it is repeatedly re-affirmed, but it is not possible to explain this properly before the Fourth Reading.
In addition, we need, after distancing ourselves from Descartes in the First and Second Readings, to work out our relation to Descartes in the Fifth and Sixth Readings.
The inference to be drawn from these results is that all the things which we must sustain as distinct concepts or ideas (as in the case of the mind and body of some person, or the case of a text and its interpretation) are distinctions made in the theory; and this conclusion is drawn in the Sixth Reading. This conclusion is confirmed in the same Reading by the fact that we cannot understand the philosophy of Descartes except as something interpreted, whereas the work, at least in its immediacy, needs no interpretation.
But I do not pursue these topics any further in the work, firstly, because the arguments I give are enough to show that a lack of reference back to Descartes does not necessarily imply that the ideas of Descartes have been lost or neglected, and are hence enough to give the hope of drawing life from every philosophy; and secondly, because to pursue them would be to deviate so much from the pattern set by Descartes that it would no longer be readily recognizable and the work would not illustrate so clearly the notion of interpretation in its own structure.
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