Abstract
On the developmental reading, Descartes first praised his method in
the first instance of Rule VIII of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, but then
demoted it to provisional in the “blacksmith” analogy, and then found his
discrete method could not resolve his “finest example,” his inquiry into the essence
and scope of human knowledge, an event that, on this reading, resulted
in him dropping his method. In this paper, I explain how Rule VIII can be
read as a coherent title and commentary that is a further development of the
method of the Regulae.