These are undeniably important works. The introduction calls Descartes the "originator of modern philosophy." This is also very lucidly written--I think the arguments are perfectly accessible to the layman, it's just I don't think much of them. The full title of the first treatise of only 54 pages is "Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences" but would more correctly be titled, "A Rehash of Just about the Lamest Philosophical Proof of God Ever." The first three sections of the six section treatise sound pretty commonsensical for the most part, the core of the "method" seems to be detailed in Part II:
The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution. The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence. And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.
It would be nice if Descartes then gave an example of how by such principles he solved a scientific problem, but no. He then proceeds in Part IV to decide that the first principle from which all else is to be deduced is the famous dictum, "I think, therefore I am." Except I'd stop right there and challenge that as a first principle. We think based on our experiences of the world as meditated by the senses. Read Helen Keller's autobiography some time for some appreciation of how impossible it is to think without language, and to get language without association between a discrete experience and means of communication. But that's not all, from that first principle Descartes proceeds to leap to the the conclusion that there must be a God. Why? Because since he has doubts in this thinking he's not perfect, but something must be, and nothing is perfect but God. That is the ontological argument for God, which is not original to Descartes but is attributed to the 11th Century Anselm of Canterbury. Descartes even claims this "proof" is more solid than the experience of our own bodies, and from this deduces the idea of the mind/body dichotomy. The six Meditations are basically an elaboration on this theme.
So why am I even rating it as high as three stars? This isn't a philosophy I can and wish to ascribe to, but yes, given its importance I do recommend reading it--it's not long either, the book containing both treatises is only 143 pages. Descartes treatises were tremendously influential in provoking disparate philosophers from Spinoza to Berkeley to Hobbes to form their own views as they sought to refine or refute Descartes arguments.
