One should reject any belief accepted merely by example and custom, because such beliefs produce errors that obscure natural intelligence and hinder the capacity to listen to reason.
By René Descartes, from Discours de la méthode
Key Arguments
- Beliefs adopted from example and custom are unreliable bases for truth.
- Such beliefs lead to "many errors" that are "powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence."
- These errors "incapacitate us in great measure from listening to reason," undermining rational judgment.
Source Quotes
decided a belief in regard to nothing of the truth of which I had been persuaded merely by example and custom; and thus I gradually extricated myself from many errors powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence, and incapacitate us in great measure from listening to reason. But after I had been occupied several years in thus studying the book of the world, and in essaying to gather some experience, I at length resolved to make myself an object of study, and to employ all the powers of my mind in choosing the paths I ought to follow, an undertaking
Key Concepts
- decided a belief in regard to nothing of the truth of which I had been persuaded merely by example and custom;
- and thus I gradually extricated myself from many errors powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence, and incapacitate us in great measure from listening to reason.
Context
Author narrates his methodological resolution in Part 1, rejecting beliefs grounded only in social habit.