Descartes' "Method" is known as the source of the famous quote "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I think, therefore I exist"), which can be found in the fourth work. A similar Latin saying, "Cogito, ergo sum", is found in Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644).
The bottom line is
Descartes' treatise "Discourses on Method" is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy and important for the development of the natural sciences. In this work, Descartes solves the problem of skepticism previously studied by Sextus Empiricus, Al-Ghazali and Michel de Montaigne. The philosopher changed it to explain an axiom he considered irrefutable. Descartes began his line of reasoning by doubting that the world can be judged by any preconceived notions.
History of the book
The book was originally published in Leiden, The Netherlands. It was later translated into Latin and published in 1656 in Amsterdam. The book was supplemented by three appendices, named in Greek and corresponding to the philosopher's research:"Dioptrics", "Meteors" and "Geometry". The first volume contains the original concepts of Descartes, which later evolved into the coordinate system of the same name. The text was written and published in French, rather than in Latin, which at the time was the most commonly written and published philosophical and scientific text. Most of Descartes' other works were written in Latin.
Meaning
Together with Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy, and Rules for the Direction of Reason, it forms the basis of the epistemology known as Cartesianism. The paper substantiates the importance of rationalism in the process of research and the basic rules of cognition, which later became widely known as the scientific method of Descartes.
Structure
The book is divided into six parts described in the author's preface:
- Various considerations in the sciences.
- Basic rules of the method that the author discovered.
- Some of the morals he deduced from this method.
- Motives by which he establishes the existence of God and the human soul.
- The order of the physical issues that he investigated, and in particular the explanation of the movement of the heart, as well as the differences between the soul of man and animal.
- What, according to the author, is required for greater progress in the study of nature.
Important thoughts
Descartes starts with a warning:
"It is not enough to have an energetic mindknow a lot. The greatest minds, since they are capable of the highest perfections, are also open to the greatest aberrations, and those who travel very slowly can make much more progress if they always keep to the straight road than those who rush and stray from the true path. ".
Descartes' philosophy of method is largely based on his personal experience. He describes his youthful disillusionment with education: "Once I completed the entire course of study … I found myself involved in so many dubious deeds and mistakes that I was sure I had gone no further … than the discovery of my own ignorance." He notes his particular delight in mathematics and contrasts his strong foundations with "the dogmas of the ancient moralists, which are towering and splendid palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud."
The path of the philosopher
Descartes traveled through Germany, drawn there by the wars. He describes his research as "the metaphor of a building". Notes that buildings and cities that have been planned by one hand are more elegant and comfortable than those that have grown on their own. He decides not to rely on the principles that he took on faith in his youth. Descartes seeks to discover the true method by which everything that lies within his reach can be known. He highlights four axioms:
- Never take anything for granted, because no one knows for sure. Carefully avoid prejudice.
- Separate and analyze each of the considereddifficulties into the maximum possible number of parts that will be needed to solve it adequately.
- Formulate thoughts in a special order, starting the process of understanding with objects that are the simplest to understand, rising step by step to more complex phenomena.
- Make the most complete listings of subjects and facts of interest.
Maxims
Rene Descartes' "Discourses on Method" does not end there. The philosopher uses the analogy of rebuilding a house on a solid foundation and links it to the idea of the need for temporary residence when one's own house is being rebuilt. Descartes adopted the following three maxims to function effectively in the real world by experimenting with his method of radical doubt. They formed a rudimentary belief system from which to operate before he developed a new system based on the truths he discovered through his method.
The first maxim was to obey the laws and customs of one's country, firmly adhering to the faith in which, by the grace of God, he was brought up from childhood and regulated his conduct in all other matters in accordance with the most moderate requirements. Descartes advises to be as decisive as he was, especially in his doubts. Always try to conquer yourself, not luck, and change your desires, not the order of the world, and in general accustom yourself to the conviction that, apart from our own thoughts, nothing is absolute in our power. So when wewe will do our best, any result cannot be considered a failure.
Cosmogony
Applying the method to himself, Descartes challenges his own reasoning and thoughts. But the philosopher believes that the three things are unquestionable and support each other to form a stable basis for knowledge. The method of doubt cannot lead to doubt of the cause, since it is based on the cause itself. According to the logical conclusions of the philosopher, God still exists, and He is the guarantor that the mind is not mistaken. Descartes provides three different proofs for the existence of God. Among them there is even what is now called ontological.
His work on such physical and mechanical laws, however, is projected into the "new world". A theoretical place that God created somewhere in imaginary spaces from a special primary matter, turning the initial chaos into something ordered, with its own laws, rules, structure. Further, Descartes says that based on these circumstances, he was not atheistic and confident that God created the world.
Despite this recognition, it seems that Descartes' project for understanding the world is a recreation of creation, that is, a real cosmological system, which, following the model of Descartes' experimental method, aims to show not only its own possibilities, but also to make it clear that this way of looking at the world is the only one. No other assumptions about God or nature can be made, as they do not provide a realistic and rationalisticexplanation of the universe. Thus, in Descartes' work, we can see some of the fundamental assumptions of modern cosmology through logical proof - a project to study the historical construction of the universe through a set of quantitative laws describing interactions that would allow an ordered present to be built from a chaotic past.
Anatomy basics
Further in "Discourses on Method" Descartes goes on to describe the movement of blood in the heart and arteries, approving the conclusions of English doctors about blood circulation, referring to William Harvey and his work De motu cordis. But at the same time, he strongly disagrees with the function of the heart as a pump, attributing the driving force of circulation to heat, and not to muscle contraction. He describes how these movements seem completely independent of what we think and concludes that our bodies are separate from our souls. This conclusion is logically derived from Descartes' method of cognition.
He does not seem to distinguish between mind, spirit and soul, which are identified as our capacity for rational thinking. This is why Descartes made his famous statement: "I think, therefore I am." All three of these words (especially "mind" and "soul") can be identified by one French term "mind".
Conclusion
Descartes' method is the beginning of rational knowledge of the surrounding reality, which is generally accepted today. His book, described in this article, marked the beginningmodern scientific thinking. In this regard, she played a very important role in the formation of modern science and civilization as such. Everyone who is interested not only in philosophy, but also in science as such should get acquainted with the ideas of Descartes.
