“Alone and in the dark….”
Patrycja MIKULSKA
Instytut Jana Pawła II, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , PolandAbstract
The author of the essay revisits her reading of René Descartes’s Discourse on the Method, in particular of its opening lines, and reflects on the inspiration one can draw today from this famous 17-th century work, in the face of the present situation of cognitive and moral chaos as well as the ongoing social, cultural, and political conflicts. She also proposes to simultaneously consider the 20th-century Against Method by Paul K. Feyerabend and claims that those two—apparently antagonistic— books have a common, perhaps utopian yet invariably relevant, message: for science, or any other area in which knowledge is pursued, to successfully further their aims, they must be “left alone,” i.e., enjoy freedom from distraction and pressure of any kind.
Keywords:
René Descartes, Paul K. Feyerabend, method, development of science, freedomInstytut Jana Pawła II, Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
