Discourse on the Method

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences is a <a href="/facts/Philosophy/zAH5PVD6">philosophical</a> and <a href="/facts/Autobiographical/Exfxc4VW">autobiographical</a> <a href="/facts/Treatise/ED3heHjb">treatise</a> published by <a href="/facts/Ren%25C3%25A9_Descartes/ohqj6DMf">René Descartes</a> in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous <a href="/facts/Quotation/dm2uTzGV">quotation</a> "Je pense, donc je suis" ("<a href="/facts/I_think%2c_therefore_I_am/43EhppDy">I think, therefore I am</a>", or "I am thinking, therefore I exist"), which occurs in Part IV of the work. A similar argument, without this precise wording, is found in <a href="/facts/Meditations_on_First_Philosophy/Ue3TX3Xj">Meditations on First Philosophy</a> (1641), and a Latin version of the same statement <a href="/facts/Cogito%2c_ergo_sum/43EhppDy">Cogito, ergo sum</a> is found in <a href="/facts/Principles_of_Philosophy/0mdPwM29">Principles of Philosophy</a> (1644).
Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the development of natural sciences. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of <a href="/facts/Skepticism/qXAgbbVT">skepticism</a>, which had previously been studied by other philosophers. While addressing some of his predecessors and contemporaries, Descartes modified their approach to account for a truth he found to be <a href="/facts/Incontrovertible_evidence/nquhygXe">incontrovertible</a>; he started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions.
The book was originally published in <a href="/facts/Leiden/rs70mHlG">Leiden</a>, in the Netherlands. Later, it was translated into Latin and published in 1656 in <a href="/facts/Amsterdam/Xdd393bz">Amsterdam</a>. The book was intended as an introduction to three works: <a href="/facts/Dioptrique/4PN9knCp">Dioptrique</a>, Météores [fr], and <a href="/facts/La_G%25C3%25A9om%25C3%25A9trie/ELdb057s">Géométrie</a>. Géométrie contains Descartes's initial concepts that later developed into the <a href="/facts/Cartesian_coordinate_system/lkTqvMmB">Cartesian coordinate system</a>. The text was written and published in French so as to reach a wider audience than Latin, the language in which most philosophical and scientific texts were written and published at that time, would have allowed. Most of Descartes' other works were written in Latin.
Together with Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy and <a href="/facts/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the_Mind/hzAkvhvK">Rules for the Direction of the Mind</a>, it forms the base of the <a href="/facts/Epistemology/NsDwpcYH">epistemology</a> known as <a href="/facts/Cartesianism/N2ujCbyL">Cartesianism</a>.

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Discourse on the Method