R ene Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of modern western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. He spent about 20 years of his life in the Dutch Republic.
Hayagriva dasa: In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes writes: "The power of forming a good judgement and of distinguishing the true from the false, which is called good sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men.... God has given to each of us some light with which to distinguish truth from error." Is he speaking of the Supersoul, or another form of intellection?
Srila Prabhupada: The Supersoul is one thing, and reasoning is another. Still, reasoning should be there. For instance, through reasoning, we can understand that the body is just a lump of matter composed of skin, bone, muscle, blood, stool, urine, and so forth. Through our reasoning power, we can ask if a combination of these ingredients can bestow life, and we can come to understand that life is different from a lump of matter.
Syamasundara dasa: For Descartes, all truth can be derived from reason, which is superior to and independent of sense experience. Knowledge is deductible from self-evident concepts, or innate, necessary ideas. In other words, he disagrees with those empiricists who believe that truth can be derived only from sense experience.
Srila Prabhupada: We cannot understand God through sense experience, but through our reason we can understand that there is God. We can reason, "I have my father, and my father also has a father, who has a father, and so on. Therefore there must be a Supreme Father." God is the supreme and original Father, and by reasoning we can understand that He exists. Similarly, we can also understand by reasoning that God is the creator. We see that everything has a maker, a creator, and we can conclude that this great cosmic manifestation also has a creator. This is reasoning, but rascals speculate that in the beginning there was a big chunk of matter and an explosion, or whatever, that started the universe. But if there were an explosion, there must have been some explosive, and if there were some explosive, there must have been some worker to set it off. Otherwise, how did the chunk of matter explode? Through our reason we can perceive that everything has some creator or cause.
Hayagriva dasa: Descartes claims that good sense or reason is by nature equal in all men, but doesn't the reasoning power differ?
Srila Prabhupada: Yes, otherwise why is one man intelligent and another ignorant? When, through reasoning, one concludes that the living force within the body is different from the body itself, he is on the human platform. If he considers life to be nothing more than a combination of material ingredients, he remains an animal. That is the verdict of the Vedas.
yasyatma-buddhih kunape tri-dhatuke
sva-dhih kalatradisu bhauma ijya-dhih
yat-tirtha-buddhih salile na karhicij
janesv abhijnesu sa eva go-kharah
"A human being who identifies this body made of three elements with his self, who considers the by-products of the body to be his kinsmen, who considers the land of birth worshipable, and who goes to the place of pilgrimage simply to take a bath rather than meet men of transcendental knowledge there, is to be considered like an ass or a cow." ( Bhag. 10.84.13) If one thinks that he is the body, he is no better than an animal. So through reasoning, we can conclude that the soul is not this and not that. This is the neti-neti process. We then have to continue our search and ask, "What is soul? What is Brahman?" We can then conclude that Brahman is the origin of matter and that matter is developed by the soul. That is the Vedic conclusion in the Vedanta- sutra. The act of sex, for instance, cannot bring about pregnancy unless a soul is present. People may have sex many times, and no pregnancy may result. You may sow a seed, and a tree may develop, but if you fry that seed before sowing it, it will not fructify because it is unsuitab