René Descartes Quotes

Je sais combien nous sommes sujets à nous méprendre en ce qui nous touche, et combien aussi les jugements de nos amis nous doivent être suspects, lorsqu’ils sont en notre faveur.

The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.

When it is not in our power to determine what it true, we ought to follow what is most probable.

Sonra ne olduğumu dikkatle inceleyerek ve hiçbir bedenim olmadığını, içinde olabileceğim hiçbir dünyanın ve hiçbir yerin var olmadığını tasarlayabileceğimi, ama yine de bu yüzden kendimin var olmadığını tasarlayamayacağımı, tam tersine başka şeylerin doğruluğundan kuşku duymayı düşünmem olgusundan pek açık ve pek kesin biçimde var olduğum sonucunun çıktığını, oysa yalnızca düşünmeyi bıraksaydım, tasavvur ettiğim tüm başka şeyler doğru olsalardı bile var olmadığıma inanmam için elimde hiçbir neden bulunmadığını görerek, tüm özü ya da doğası yalnızca düşünmek olan, var olmak için herhangi bir yere gereksinmeyen, herhangi maddi bir şeye bağımlı olmayan bir töz* olduğumu anladım; öyle ki bu ben, yani beni ben yapan ruh bedenden bütünüyle ayrıdır ve hatta onu tanımak bedeni tanımaktan daha kolay olup beden var olmasaydı bile ruh ne ise o olmaya son vermezdi.

* Descartes'ın verdiği töz tanımı ıçin bkz. Felsefenin İlkeleri, 1, mad. 51: “Var olmak için sadece kendisine ihtiyaç duyacak şekilde var olan bir şey.” Bu tanıma göre düşünen tözün etkinliği çeşitli düşüncelerden oluşur, ancak düşünceler kendi başlarına değil, sadece düşünen şeyin değişkeleri olarak vardırlar.

Daha zor olanı, daha güzel olarak addetmek ölümlülerin ortak kusurudur.

For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me,

Thus the perception of the infinite is somehow prior in me to the perception of the finite, that is, my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself. For how would I understand that I doubt and that I desire, that is, that I lack something and that I am not wholly perfect, unless there were some idea in me of a more perfect being, by comparison with which I might recognize my defects?

regarding speculative matters that are of no practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther, perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable.

El esquema de la demostración es el siguiente: la existencia es una perfección; Dios tiene todas las perfecciones; luego Dios tiene la existencia. Como se ve, Descartes considera la existencia de Dios tan segura y evidentemente demostrada como la propiedad del triángulo de tener tres ángulos.

Finally, if there still are men who have not been sufficiently persuaded
of the existence of God and of their soul by means of the reasons I have
brought forward, I very much want them to know that all the other things
of which they think themselves perhaps more assured, such as having a
body, that there are stars and an earth, and the like, are less certain. For
although one might have a moral assurance about these things, which is
such that it seems one cannot doubt them without being extravagant, still
when it is a question of metaphysical certitude, it seems unreasonable for
anyone to deny that there is not a sufficient basis for one's being completely
assured about them, when one observes that while asleep one can, in the
same fashion, imagine that one has a different body and that one sees
different stars and a different earth, without any of these things being
the case. For how does one know that the thoughts that come to us in
dreams are any more false than the others, given that they are often no
less vivid and explicit? And even if the best minds study this as much as
they please, I do not believe they can give any reason sufficient to remove
this doubt, unless they presuppose the existence of God. For first of all,
even what I have already taken for a rule, namely that the things we very
clearly and very distinctly conceive are all true, is assured only for the
reason that God is or exists, and that he is a perfect being, and that all
that is in us comes from him.

To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.

thought I had said enough respecting them to show that there is nothing observable in the heavens or stars of our system that must not, or at least may not appear precisely alike in those of the system which I described.

Να μην εμπιστευόμαστε ποτέ ολοκληρωτικά εκείνους που μας έχουν εξαπατήσει έστω και μια φορά.

For I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther in all my attempts at learning, than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance.