Descartes – Discourse on Method – Ideas

- Good sense = “The power of judging aright and distinguishing Truth from Error”

- Creations – laws, rules, buildings, perspectives on life, from a single person are of better quality than those from more persons.

- “The Method” = The Method of Doubting Everything -> aka Methodological Skepticism: Descartes rejects any ideas that can be doubted, and then reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge.

- The Four Essential Precepts of Logic

- 1. “Never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such.” (To avoid prejudice and precipitation)

- 2. “To divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible”

- 3. “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.”

- 4. “To make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.”

- Nothing is beyond the reach of Knowledge (Paraphrase)

- Each discovered truth makes available the discovery of other subsequent truths. (Paraphrase)

- “The truth on any particular point is one.” -:> “Whoever apprehends the truth, knows all that on that point can be known.”

A Simple Code of Morals One Ought to Follow

- 1. One must obey the laws and customs of his country. -> Have faith in God and keep moderate opinions, stay away from the extremes. “All excess is generally vicious.”

- * “I hoped gradually to perfect my judgments, and not to suffer them to deteriorate”

- 2. One must be as firm and resolute as possible in his actions. -> When in doubt, go for the most probable path.

- 3. One must always endeavor to conquer oneself rather than fortune, so one must change his desires rather than the orders of the world.

- “Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power.”- “If we consider all external goods as equally beyond our power, we shall no more regret

the absence of such goods as seem due to our birth.” (Continuous meditation is required to achieve this.)

- “All that is necessary to right action is right judgment, and to the best action the most correct judgment, that is, to the acquisition of all the virtues with all else that is truly valuable and within our reach; and the assurance of such an acquisition cannot fail to render us contented.”

- !!!“I doubt, therefore I think, I think, therefore I am.” – The first principle of Descartes’ proposed Philosophy

- =:> “I [am] a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking.”Latin: “Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum.”!!!

========:> Explanation: Descartes concluded that if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the very fact that he doubted proved his existence.

He asserts that he can be certain that he exists because he thinks. But in what form? He perceives his body through the use of the senses; however, these have previously been unreliable.

So Descartes determines that the only indubitable knowledge is that he is a thinking thing. Thinking is what he does, and his power must come from his essence. Descartes defines "thought" (cogitatio) as "what happens in me such that I am immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am conscious of it".

Thinking is thus every activity of a person of which the person is immediately conscious.

- !!!Only a thing that is absolutely independent, and therefore unique, can be perfect. Things that are not unique cannot be perfect.!!!

- “All composition is an evidence of dependency.” - “A state of dependency is manifestly a state of imperfection

- Nature has all the possible perfections. Combined, they are God. -> Infinite, Eternal, Immutable, Omniscient, All-powerful.

- Dualism: The mind and the body are distinct from one another. -> “The intelligent nature is distinct from the corporeal.”

- For Descartes Understanding > Senses

- “All the things which we clearly and distinctly conceive are true, are certain only because God is or exists, and because he is a Perfect [Infinite] Being, and because all that we possess is derived from him.”

- Three components of the Method - 1. One cannot doubt that something has to be there to do the doubting (I think, therefore I

am).- 2.The method of doubt cannot doubt reason as it is based on reason itself.- 3. By reason there exists a God, and God is the guarantor that reason is not misguided.

- Since the soul cannot be destroyed it is immortal. (Reiteration of Socrates’ Idea)