Descartes & Stupidity

Trevor Pateman asks: stupidity - essence, or accident?

- Trevor Pateman

René Descartes opens his Discourse on the Method of Rightly Directing One’s Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences (1637) with a breathtakingly other-worldly statement:

“Good sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed...”

No doubt many of the original readers back in 1637 werenrelieved when he immediately went on to undercut that wild claim with what appears to be some very this-worldly irony:

“...for everyone thinks himself so abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisfy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger measure of this quality than they already possess.”

The reader now put into a good mood, Descartes promptly doubles down on his original claim:

“And in this it is not likely that all are mistaken; the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that the power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from error, which is properly what is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men.” 

Can he really be serious? It seems so, for he immediately continues:

“The diversity of our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this, that we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects. For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; the prime requisite is rightly to apply it.”

After a diversion, to which I will return, he concludes his opening remarks by re-stating for the third time (this guy is nothing if not persistent) his initial claim: