Blackwell Reference Online

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Doubtless Descartes belongs in the rationalist tradition. Stating why is not so easy. He nowhere characterizes the view we call “rationalism,” nor does he describe himself as a rationalist. His express commitment to a doctrine of innateness is suggestive though not sufficient, for some philosophers (e.g., Kant) accept such a doctrine while rejecting rationalism. Further suggestive is that he links innateness with the achievement of knowledge:We come to know them [innate truths] by the power of our own native intelligence, without any sensory experience. All geometrical truths are of this sort-not just the most obvious ones, but all the others, however abstruse they may appear. Hence, according to Plato, Socrates asks a slave-boy about the elements of geometry and thereby makes the boy able to dig out certain truths from his own mind which he had not previously recognized were there, thus attempting to establish the doctrine of reminiscence. Our knowledge of God is of this sort.(CSMK 222–3; AT 8b: 166–7)Clarifying a precise account of rationalism is not the aim of this chapter. I shall instead assume that we're on the rationalist track and attempt to develop central rationalist themes that figure prominently in Descartes' epistemology. The themes I develop center on methodist concerns. Distinguish two sorts of epistemological questions for which one might identify characteristic ... log in or subscribe to read full text