«Discourse on Method» by Descartes as a Project of Modern Age Anthropological Metaphysics

Abstract

The context of extinction of technocratic illusions makes it actual the problem of the nature of radical changes in metaphysics that were initiated in the modern age. The most profound forms of their disclosure include the Descartes doctrine, which increasingly attracts the attention of modern researchers. Appeal to this doctrine testifies the central role of anthropological problems deliberately masked in the published texts behind the screen of science. The pages of private correspondence reveal anthropological nature of philosophical searchings. In the above mentioned perspective, the text of the unfinished «Rules» appears as a searching for an adequate form of their comprehension. It is rightfully to include the texts «Treatise on Man» and «Discourse» to the forms of expressiveness of anthropological project. This is attested to by the first title of the latter, where the key character of the human perfection problem is emphasized. In the course of the critical analysis of the technocratic and religious versions of Cartesian metaphysics, their inadequacy is argued and the thesis of expediency of reading the text «Discourse on the method» as anthropological metaphysics is argued.