The main goal of this paper is to present a historical description of the attitude towards the reader that appeared in Rene Descartes’ “Discours de la methode” (1637). In his famous writing, Descartes appealed to learned women together with the doctors of Sor-bonne and other intellectuals. Following the method of the “history of ideas”, which assumes a particular attention to the cultural context of the studied period, the author reveals the connections that existed between Descartes and a number of literary institutions of the first half of the 17th century - from the French Academy, whose duty was to regulate the “noble use” of the French language, to various literary salons, which established the canons of a “proper taste”. We note that Descartes indulged the well-known weaknesses of the fair sex, namely a developed taste for fine arts and liberal arts, which became widespread in the so-called salon culture, preciosite literature and the gallant literary life of the 18th century Franc
