Key Arguments

• Husserl states that Descartes’ demand for radical grounding “gives rise to a philosophy turned toward the subject himself,” marking the methodological shift from object-centered to subject-centered philosophy.
• He formulates Descartes’ requirement that “anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must ‘once in his life’ withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting,” making the meditative withdrawal a necessary initiation for philosophy.
• He characterizes philosophy as “the philosophizer’s quite personal affair,” which “must arise as his wisdom, as his self-acquired knowledge tending toward universality,” stressing that genuine philosophy is not second-hand doctrine but personally validated insight.
• Husserl insists that this knowledge must be such “for which he can answer from the beginning, and at each step, by virtue of his own absolute insights,” showing that personal responsibility for evidence is central to the Cartesian model.
• He explains that deciding to live with this philosophical aim means choosing “to begin in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge,” thereby repudiating all ungrounded presuppositions.
• From this starting point, “one of the first things I ought to do is reflect on how I might find a method for going on, a method that promises to lead to genuine knowing,” which frames the Meditations as a methodological search rather than a mere exposition of doctrines.
• On this basis Husserl argues that the Cartesian Meditations “are not intended to be a merely private concern of the philosopher Descartes” or just “an impressive literary form,” but rather “draw the prototype for any beginning philosopher’s necessary meditations,” making Descartes’ procedure paradigmatic.

Source Quotes

Hence the need for a radical rebuilding that satisfies the idea of philosophy as the all-inclusive unity of the sciences, within the unity of such an absolutely1 rational grounding. With Descartes this demand gives rise to a philosophy turned toward the subject himself. The turn to the subject is made at two significant levels.

The turn to the subject is made at two significant levels. First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must “once in his life” withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting. Philosophy — wisdom (sagesse) — is the philosophizer’s quite personal affair.

First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must “once in his life” withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting. Philosophy — wisdom (sagesse) — is the philosophizer’s quite personal affair. It must arise as his wisdom, as his self-acquired knowledge tending toward universality, a knowledge for which he can answer from the beginning, and at each step, by virtue of his own absolute insights. If I have decided to live with this as my aim — the decision that alone can start me on the course of a philosophical development — I have thereby chosen to begin in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge.

It must arise as his wisdom, as his self-acquired knowledge tending toward universality, a knowledge for which he can answer from the beginning, and at each step, by virtue of his own absolute insights. If I have decided to live with this as my aim — the decision that alone can start me on the course of a philosophical development — I have thereby chosen to begin in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge. Beginning thus, obviously one of the first things I ought to do is reflect on how I might find a method for going on, a method that promises to lead to genuine knowing.

If I have decided to live with this as my aim — the decision that alone can start me on the course of a philosophical development — I have thereby chosen to begin in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge. Beginning thus, obviously one of the first things I ought to do is reflect on how I might find a method for going on, a method that promises to lead to genuine knowing. Accordingly the Cartesian Meditations are not intended to be a merely private concern of the philosopher Descartes, to say nothing of their being merely an. impressive literary form in which to present the foundations of his philosophy.

Accordingly the Cartesian Meditations are not intended to be a merely private concern of the philosopher Descartes, to say nothing of their being merely an. impressive literary form in which to present the foundations of his philosophy. Rather they draw the prototype for any beginning philosopher’s necessary meditations, the meditations out of which alone a philosophy can grow originally.2 When we turn to the content of the Meditations, so strange to us men of today, we find a regress to / the philosophizing ego1 in a second and deeper sense: the ego as subject of his pure cogitationes. The meditator executes this regress by the famous and very remarkable method of doubt.

Key Concepts

• With Descartes this demand gives rise to a philosophy turned toward the subject himself.
• First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must “once in his life” withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting.
• Philosophy — wisdom (sagesse) — is the philosophizer’s quite personal affair. It must arise as his wisdom, as his self-acquired knowledge tending toward universality, a knowledge for which he can answer from the beginning, and at each step, by virtue of his own absolute insights.
• I have thereby chosen to begin in absolute poverty, with an absolute lack of knowledge.
• Beginning thus, obviously one of the first things I ought to do is reflect on how I might find a method for going on, a method that promises to lead to genuine knowing.
• Rather they draw the prototype for any beginning philosopher’s necessary meditations, the meditations out of which alone a philosophy can grow originally.

Context

Central portion of §1, where Husserl highlights the personal, subjective, and methodological dimensions of Descartes’ project and presents the Meditations as a universal model for how philosophy must begin.