The Cartesian Tradition

Descartes is often regarded as the father of Modernity, not merely in Philosophy, but in Western culture in general. His famous phrase, 'I think, therefore I am', establishes the experiencing subject as not merely the ultimate arbiter of knowledge, but as the cornerstone of society. Somewhat surprisingly, that expression does not appear in his most prominent work, The Meditations, a staple of college introductory Philosophy courses. His relevant line of thought in that work is that in demonstrating all that can be doubted, the act of doubting itself cannot be doubted, in which case that he exists as a doubter is unshakeable. From there, he further infers that since doubting is a form of thinking, it is unshakeable that he exists as a thinking being. So from The Mediations, at least, 'I doubt, therefore I am' would seem to be the fundamental principle. But the famous phrase does appear verbatim in an earlier work, Discourse on Method, and in French, not Latin, as it is sometimes taken to originally be. Again, it does so as a result of a process of doubting, and, indeed, the 'method' that he presents is explicitly just that--radical doubting. So, while modern Philosophers who seek the foundation of knowledge in the knower are descendants of Descartes, so too are the deniers of Knowledge, i. e. modern sceptics. Yet, neither of these traditions characterises what is truly seminal in his Philosophy. Rationalism, Empiricism, Critique, Dialectics, Phenomenology, Experimentalism, etc. all have in common what Descartes perhaps most fundamentally pioneered--a method.