"You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about … You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers you; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you … The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress." –The Philosophy of Literary Form, Kenneth Burke.

"To study the writings of ancients is right, because it is a great boon for us to able to make use of the labours of so many men" - DescartesDescartes
Rene Descartes

Background Info

1596-1650
educated at Univ of Paris
Catholic Christian
not an academic




wrote Descartes, Meditations of First Philosophy from a [[Rationalism
rationalistic]] perspective




claims he is making a whole new start in philosophy
D. arrived at a certain and evident knowledge of the truth. He wants to see if he can persuade others by the same method that he himself used.
..., Rules for the Direction of the Mind, Rule III

Philosophy is spread through story

• Star Wars (Joseph Campbell)
• Plato's Dialogues
• Animal Farm

What does this concept have to do with that concept?

How shall we live? - how important is this question in philosophy?