I believe that in A Discourse on the Methods, René Descartes is showing how self-intellect is very important to him. He is concerned about people having a strong foundation for their beliefs. He states “I concluded that nothing solid could have been built on such shaky foundations” (10). He is describing how many disciplines just take knowledge and ideas from philosophers and use them as fact, without any further thought of their own.

Descartes comments how “I learned not to believe too firmly in anything that only example and custom had persuaded me of” (11). This is a similar ideal to that of Socrates when he was questioning Euthyphro. It is important to both Socrates and Descartes that people understand the things that they put so much faith in. they urge people not to follow philosophers with blind loyalty, but to think for yourself and discover on your own terms what is true. In part 1, Descartes tells how, no matter how much literature he read, he never really learned anything for himself, he was just accepting other’s words as fact. Thusly, he abandoned all this reading and literature and set out for 9 years of traveling to experience things for himself.