Sparks Commentary: A review of “Descartes, Bacon, and Modern Philosophy” (audiobook)

Thursday, March 31, 2022

A review of “Descartes, Bacon, and Modern Philosophy” (audiobook)

“Cogito, ergo sum.” (“I think, therefore I am.”)

– René Descartes, in his works “Discourse on the Method” (1637) and “Principles of Philosophy” (1644) – both works give the Latin version, although the earlier work also gave a French version (“Je pense, donc je suis”) that is actually the original

People know René Descartes more for his mathematics than for his philosophy. If you’ve ever taken algebra, you’ve probably seen two-dimensional equations graphed on what is still called a “Cartesian” coordinate plane. It is named after him for good reason, for he pioneered this “merging together” of algebra and geometry. But Descartes was also a very influential philosopher, who took part in the age-old debates over what is the most reliable basis of human knowledge. He answered that it was “reason,” and many in the Western world have since followed his lead in this regard.

On the other side of the debate were the empiricists, many of whom were British. Empiricists believed that our five senses are the most reliable way of obtaining knowledge. Their emphasis was upon induction and the gathering of data. But René Descartes disagreed with the empiricists. To him, the evidence of our senses is unreliable, and only reason can be a proper foundation for human knowledge. This audiobook agrees with him, and presents his “Continental Rationalism” sympathetically. Continental Rationalism is the name for proponents of reason, who believe that reason is more important than the evidence of one’s senses.

René Descartes

It is important to remember that René Descartes was a mathematician, and thus was quite used to establishing truths through mathematical proofs (which are essentially a kind of logic). It should be acknowledged that he was very good at this method, and helped to prove many mathematical truths through its use. But some things cannot be established simply through logical proofs. Sometimes we must also use data as the premises of an argument, before we can draw any logical conclusions from them. Rather than choose between them, we often have to rely upon both of these foundations, and cannot progress without a combination of both.

René Descartes

Some truths can indeed be established by reason alone – such as those in mathematics, statistics, computer science, and (of course) logic itself. But others – such as the natural sciences – must be based upon observation as well. Logical deductions without empirical data behind them are an unreliable way of establishing truth. This is a truth that escapes this audiobook. They do a good job of presenting Descartes’s arguments as he conceived them, but they don’t do a good job of critically evaluating whether they do indeed work as he conceived them.

René Descartes at work

The coverage of Francis Bacon is added almost as an afterthought, as a brief tribute to his contributions to the natural sciences. Since Francis Bacon was an empiricist (and a British empiricist at that), he forms an interesting contrast to the rationalism of Descartes. I think that this audiobook should simply have been entitled “Descartes” – or, if they wanted to use his full name, “René Descartes.” They seem not to have enough coverage of Bacon, to warrant including his name in this audiobook’s title. Nonetheless, I learned some things from their coverage of Francis Bacon, so this treatment may still be good as an introduction, despite its painful brevity.

Francis Bacon

It is ironic that they talked about Bacon near the end of this audiobook, after their discussion of Descartes – when Bacon was born long before Descartes, and died long before Descartes died. Nonetheless, there is some overlap in their lives, since they both lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Thus, it may make some sense to cover them together here, even if their coverage is skewed towards a focus on Descartes. The coverage of Descartes is certainly interesting, and merits an examination of this audiobook all by itself – at least, if you’re interested in the “rationalism-empiricism debate,” as I am.