Over the Christmas break, I was finally able to finish Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method . It’s a very short book and I have no excuse for taking half a semester to finish it, except that I usually tried to read it as I waited for my class to begin and was often interrupted or distracted. It was Descartes who first sparked my interest in philosophy as a teenager, and I was excited to finally read his most famous work in its entirety. I read an excerpt of it several years ago but was never able to find the complete work in any bookstores and never bothered to order it. Early last year, my favorite used bookstore added a philosophy section and I eagerly snatched up the only copy of Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Related Writings. True to form, it wasn’t until much later in the year that I actually sat down to read it. I remembered the fascination that Descartes had held for me in high school and I wondered if this book would live up to my expectations, or if, as I was prone ...