okay, so to begin with, i did sort of enjoy his fake modesty, talking about how all minds are equally endowed with reason whilst constantly contradicting himself later. his writing style, at least of this translation, is pretty laid back but also quite bland. his set of rules seem sensible enough, whereas his set of maxims make him sound like a thoroughly boring person.

anyway, so after all that, which seemed more like an autobiography than anything else, he laid down his single knowable truth, "i think, therefore i am". everything else could be reasonably doubted, but this was certain. cool, that's nice. then comes god: if god is conceived as that which is the sum of all perfect things (pretty broad definition, but ok), and because existence is a greater perfection than non-existence (???), then to think of god without believing he exists is a contradiction, and thus he must exist (?????). well, whatever, but it's still cool.

anyway, from the position in knowing god exists, he then claims that he can derive the nature of light, and the earth, and the stars, and even a whole bunch about the circulatory system. that which was all doubted before can now be determined through deduction alone, because god exists.

well, okay. i just get the feeling old rené here just invoked the existence of god so he could rehash what a bunch of other people were already talking about, but because it is ~deductive truth~ it somehow new and groundbreaking.

eh, whatever. this is probably just one big giant misinterpretation. :D ( )