"When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable"
About this Quote
A clean little concession from the patron saint of certainty: sometimes you do not get certainty. Descartes is famous for trying to rebuild knowledge on foundations so solid they could survive radical doubt. That ambition makes this line sting in a useful way. It admits a daily, lived limitation inside a grand philosophical program: even the most rigorous mind still has to act before the proof is in.
The intent is practical ethics for the intellect. When truth is out of reach - because the evidence is incomplete, the time is short, the situation is too complex - Descartes recommends a disciplined fallback: probability, not whim. The subtext is an argument against paralysis. Doubt, for Descartes, is a tool, not a lifestyle. If you wait for absolute certainty in politics, medicine, or even personal decisions, you end up letting chance make your choices for you.
Context matters. In the early modern period, inherited authority was cracking, religious certainty was contested, and new science was emerging without today’s statistical machinery. Descartes is trying to protect reason from two enemies at once: dogma that claims certainty without warrant, and skepticism that denies we can know anything at all. "Most probable" is his compromise position, a temporary bridge between ignorance and demonstration.
Why it works rhetorically: the sentence shifts from the impossible ("follow what is true") to the doable ("follow what is most probable") without lowering the stakes. It turns epistemology into a rule for living: when you cannot possess truth, at least choose as if you respect it.
The intent is practical ethics for the intellect. When truth is out of reach - because the evidence is incomplete, the time is short, the situation is too complex - Descartes recommends a disciplined fallback: probability, not whim. The subtext is an argument against paralysis. Doubt, for Descartes, is a tool, not a lifestyle. If you wait for absolute certainty in politics, medicine, or even personal decisions, you end up letting chance make your choices for you.
Context matters. In the early modern period, inherited authority was cracking, religious certainty was contested, and new science was emerging without today’s statistical machinery. Descartes is trying to protect reason from two enemies at once: dogma that claims certainty without warrant, and skepticism that denies we can know anything at all. "Most probable" is his compromise position, a temporary bridge between ignorance and demonstration.
Why it works rhetorically: the sentence shifts from the impossible ("follow what is true") to the doable ("follow what is most probable") without lowering the stakes. It turns epistemology into a rule for living: when you cannot possess truth, at least choose as if you respect it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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