Rene Descartes: Discourse on Method

I have decided to keep the thread in perspective with the quotes that will follow, and only the quotes that will follow. I don’t think a literary analysis is beneficial nor interesting to the rest of the posters. I do hope that I can keep the topic entertaining enough even for those who have never read a single thing of Descartes.

I hope you all enjoy, I believe Descartes views to be essential to human beings, regardless of origin, race, color, creed, belief, sex, or circumstances of life.

On with the analysis…

On Judgement…

This is one of Descartes fundamental principles that lead him to his ingenius discoveries. As with most people the greatest errors are found in the foundations of peoples beliefs. Unlike most people, Descartes, despite the foundational errors, journey’s into some of the greatest conceptual findings our human race has come upon throughout our existance.

As contradictory as this sounds, my personal belief is that as he was delving further and further into his ideology certain truths became realized to him. I guess a comparison to the saying “two wrongs make a right” could be emphasized here. It could also be seen that if one wishes to find the Golden Mean, they must first throw themselves into the extremes. Only from truly learning about right and wrong, can one come to understand people and life. Once a person comes to understand people and life, they find out that there is truly no such thing as right and wrong, only the perception of it.

I digress back to the topic, with nothing being equal in people, other than our membership to the human race; can we say that we are all born with the exact same capacity to reason? I think maybe what Descartes is talking about is that people are capable of acting in the same way, ie. Returning stolen money to the rightful owners, but it can’t be said that all people who return stolen money to the rightful owners did so through the same reasoning.

What’s your take?

I would have to agree with you. Our society has so much, and we don’t always do what we perceive as right. I’ve felt guilty for somethings that I couldn’t change. I think as Americans we are indoctrineated fast to a way of thinking.

As social beings, though we have to remind people of rules, but I feel sometimes we shove it in people’s faces and act foolish. It is good to be a child sometimes. Many see though the eyes of the old, before they ever see through the eyes of the young. We should remember this, but not always turn to books, government, or even people to solve all our problems.

ooops, sorry if I insulted you by calling you American.

Here and there, past and present.

This brings up a valid point about people believing that any way to do things other than their own is ridiculous. I believe it important because I mentioned in one of my previous posts that most don’t figure out that there really is no right and wrong until they are very old. Knowing more cultures than one’s own, will show one that there are other ways of doing the same things, some have one type of advantage while others too have advantaguous, but in different ways. So it comes down to what you prefer. One who prefers leaves his mind open to all else the world wishes to show them, since preferring doesn’t block out anything else, and preferring leaves the person open to feel free to change their preference as they wish, as there is no personal promise or problem of speech that binds them to a previous preference. I like words like ‘prefer’, or when one says ‘I believe’ or ‘I think’, they are unbinding statements. There is much power in them that most see as weakness. Other like to say ‘I know’, ‘this is the way it is’, ‘it is only your imagination, reality is truly like this…’, ‘I want’, etc. Very binding statements, as well as, very forceful and blinding.

There is something to watch out for though…

And so we are left with Aristotles Golden Mean.

What’s your take?

“Aristotles Golden Mean”?

pardon me asking but eh…what is it? and if you don’t want to go through the bother of explaining, I wouldn’t mind using google.com
I haven’t read much of the great philosophers (not much time these days)
so pardon my ignorance

FrozenViolet,

Polemarchus stated:

He is quite right. Without going into great detail and fishing out my philosophy book on Aristotle and quoting it directly from the book, the above definition is good enough. I will only add that the Golden Mean is to be acted upon from habit/instinct not from reasoning, although, the habit is attained primarily from reasoning. Once it has become a habit it stops to be reasoned on and just acted upon. Ie. A person who sees a house on fire and hears a baby crying from the inside will instinctively run into the house without reasoning about it first.

I hope this helped.

Doubt is Descartes’ most powerful tool. He uses it in his attempt to strip away all apparent truths until he is left with only his “Cogito,” although it has been suggested that instead of “Cogito, ergo sum,” his method actually leads one to declare, “Dubito, ergo sum.”

My skepticism is strong enough that I’m content to travel alongside this great man as he discards one apparent truth after another; until at the end of the line he reaches his “Cogito.” But there he takes a “U” turn and starts coming back, building his edifice on the strength of his “God-given” reason. He gives two arguments, both of medieval origin, for the existence of this God who kindly supplies him with reason.

The first argument has been attributed to St. Anselm. This is the so-called “ontological” argument: I think of God, therefore he exists. It would be generous to characterize this as an argument, let alone to think it compelling. I can think of blue cows; but does it necessarily follow that blue cows exist?

The second argument is based upon the idea that “the lesser cannot give rise to the greater.” Since no finite being can conceive of an infinite being, the idea of God must have been placed in our minds by God himself. If his premise is correct, then how is it that I can conceive of the mathematical notion of infinity? Was this idea similarly put into my head by the God of Mathematics? Descartes never says that he understands the idea of God, only that has conceives of this idea. Likewise, I might not entirely understand all the implications of mathematical infinity, but I do have a conception of the idea. So, this argument doesn’t work for me either.

Again, I’ll travel down the path of doubt with Descartes but I’d rather not return by his chosen route, with God as his co-pilot.

Besides his “Cogito,” Descartes is as well known for his formulation of the “mind-body” dualism. I won’t both to go into this (though I’d comment on it if pressed), but will simply note that the trend in modern philosophy is to reject dualism altogether. Even in his day critics wondered if the mind and the body were distinct phenomenon, how is it then possible for the mind to act upon the body? Descartes never produced an acceptable answer to this criticism. If I remember correctly, when the Queen of Sweden asked him this very question he replied that it’s best if one didn’t think of such things. This is rather an odd reply for a philosopher to make!

To his credit, Descartes is considered to be the founder of modern analytic philosophy.

Michael

Polemarchus stated:

Most eloquantly said, I agree. Aside: I think there is more to Descartes methods than there is to what he finds. Personally, in my experiences with people they come to dogmatic thinking through school and never think to doubt anything they are told. As Descartes states…

(theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine et al)

…for I believe that each one of us has but out subjective and personal truth to use and mend as best we can to the actual way things are. It is by our own reason that there is progression, a vision that has been reasoned out to be better than what is at present - is what causes rebellions. Ofcourse, there is the fallibility of reason that sways people to believe some things that are worse but thought to be better, but it is also that which makes of think of better things when we thought they just couldn’t get any better. It is also true, that reason creates a better understanding then one of just memorization, and it is people who’s knowledge has been attained through reason that understand things well enough to explain them in such a way that even the most lay man understands.

~ Descartes

This is ever so true when a scholar is asked why something is, and after a few repetative why’s he is left answering ‘because’. I believe it is those people who can take you to the deepest why’s that are of the most knowledgable, while also being the type that when the time comes to the last question of ’ why?’ that they can’t answer, they simply answer ‘I don’t know’.

As doubtful as Descartes was, he was not open-minded or doubtful enough. He too was taken in with dogmatic thinking and could not leave it to himself to answer the real puzzlers with ‘I don’t know’ but instead like many others stated ‘it’s because of God’. For I disagree wholeheartedly with Descartes when he states…

…quite the contrary, and I’m surprised he never saw it, answering puzzling questions with ‘God’ has only slowed down our journey to understand ourselves and our environment. It is quick and easy, takes no time to think, analyse, doubt, or question to answer with ‘God’, but it is difficult and time consuming to find out the ‘true’ answer. I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s protagonist, Sherlock Holmes lends a hand in this situation.

What’s your take?

I think that many of the thought process errors people have in their lives are first attained in their youth. As kids we always ask ‘why?’ but one of the greatest errors lies in childrens habit of taking what they hear to be absolute truth. Enough of this habit flattens a persons habit of asking ‘why’ and they habitually take what is given to them to be undeniable truth. No one asks “why 1+1=2”, just as no one asks “why the sun comes up in the morning and goes down at night”. But it is in this childish wonder that all the answers to our most complicated questions lies. Aristotle devised a system that starts from child like questions and leads into the most complicated concepts humans are capable of.

It appears that for those of us who are close minded we need to digress back to our childhood and question all the things we never had a chance too but are still curious about and lead our way to present time with a clearer head.

As Descartes stated:
“And I firmly believed that by this means I would succeed in conducting my life much better than if I were to build upon old foundations and if I were to rely only on the principles of which I had allowed myself to be persuaded in my youth without ever having examined whether they were true.”

What’s your take?

magius, are you a teacher?

TheIdiot,
No I am not a teacher. Atleast not in the sense that I assume you mean it in. Otherwise I honestly think us all to be teachers. But no I don’t teach in any school. I have been told I would make a good teacher in my past, but out of all the things that I can do, I can honestly say I do not wish to be a teacher; of the kind we are talking about, you know, either elementary school, highschool, college, or university. I would not enjoy it.

What’s your take?

sorry, its just that you seem to answer all posts in a kind of teacherish kind of way, like you are marking the posts is if they are essays…or maybe i just have a fetish about teachers and i’m projecting my fantasies on you

No offence taken TheIdiot,
I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. By the way, telling me about your fetishes is giving me information I don’t need nor want. It probably seemed that way to you because I have a habit of dissecting posts, or any other form a statement may be made in. You were just making an observation, you proceeded to ask a question to see if I confirm your curiosity, I answered, and you have your conclusion. You only did what any normal human being should do. I stress this because you would be surprised how many people just assume, there is a power and a wonder within asking questions that has not been fully actualized by our species.

What’s your take?

Descartes: But I admit that long excercise is needed as well as frequently repeated meditation, in order to become accustomed to looking at everything from this point of view; and I believe that it is principally in this that the secret of those philosophers consists, who in earlier times were able to free themselves from fortune’s domination and who, despite sorrows and poverty, could rival their gods in happiness. For occupying themselves ceaselessly with considering the limits prescribed to them by nature, they so perfectly persuaded themselves that nothing was in their power but their thoughts, that this alone was sufficient to prevent them from having any affection for other things, and they controlled their thoughts so absolutely that in this they had some reason for reckoning themselves richer, more powerful, freer, and happier than any other men who, not having this philosophy, never thus controlled everything they wished to control, however favored by nature and fortune they might be.

I wonder if what Descartes is advocating is fairly called ‘the simple life’. I do agree that those who have control over their mind are richer, more powerful, freer, and happier than other man who don’t have the same control and go about reacting to desires and emotions. I try not to read too much into his words here, but it seems to me that Descartes isn’t saying we shouldn’t desire things, he is just saying WHAT we should desire; that being to control and understand our thoughts. Whether this is the right way to live life is uncertain to me, but I think it a pertinent lesson for humanity. Let’s ask ourselves how often we question our desires “Why am I pissed off right now?”, “Why am I happy right now?” - may sound silly, you would simply answer “I am pissed off because my friend was subtly hitting on my girlfriend” or “I am happy because I got a raise at work”, but do we ever take it any deeper, or do we ever try to see if our emotion is leading us on a certain path? For instance, many people would shoot their friend dirty looks in order to get the message across that he is not to hit on your girlfriend, some wouldn’t say anything, while others would go and punch him out. But the most important aspect of your desire hasn’t been viewed, the REASON you are pissed off is cause you are jealous. You are jealous because you FEAR your girlfriend may be taken away from you by your friends flirtation. So the girlfriend becomes a property issue. If this is so, I would re-evaluate one’s conception of love. But it could be that you are not jealous and just upset that your friend is hitting on your girlfriend…either one of the choices or one that I have not mentioned above are fine, but the real issue appears to have been missed again. We have friends because we are social creatures that look for advantage. In seeking advantage we need honesty, respect, trust, loyalty, etc from our friends - when one is lacking we become upset but never take the idea to it’s logical end. Maybe I am being overly pessimistic but to me that friend is not truly a friend if they are flirting with your girlfriend. So whether you hit your friend, tell him off, or don’t say anything, all of these should be followed by a discontinuation of friendship. Let’s also get something else clear, when I say flirtation I mean obvious interest in the other person in a sexual way. I don’t mean catching your friend smiling a little more than usual whenever he is talking to your girlfriend, some people may not even realize they do this. I am clarifying this, cause I don’t want to get it into anyones head that I drop all my friends the minute they cross me once, you would be surprised how forgiving I am, I also don’t want anyone getting it in their head that I meant something else and they agree and will now go and break all their friends faces and drop them as friends each time it appears that they have flirted with their girlfriend in any way. With everything I have said in this long drawn out paragraph is suppose to imply that the pertinent lesson is to understand and control our thoughts as civilized people should.

Maybe now I’m being overly optimistic, but I will let you decide.

What’s your take?

People are all looking down into the same diamond of life…just with different perspective angles with sometimes differnt shapes…some people have the perception to see the true shine of the diamon of life and all of its reflections…some may be colorblind…or choose not to look…but we are all looking at the same diamond side by side as one…no matter how you argue it.
~JL

Sometimes people are looking too far inside or too high into the sky to see what is there in plain view in front of them.

And so we are left with Aristotles Golden Mean.

I always though that one persons golden path was another persons road of spikes…common good …hmm
~JL

More of the “Middle Way”

Polemarchus stated:

Too many people feel the presence of some form of god in far too many instances for the idea of such a deity to be wittled away with logic and reason…I know …I tried

If 90%+ of the wolds population felt the presence of “blue cows” youd have to at least take their possibilty into your forumla of reason.

As much as I hate the idea of a god…and trust me i hate the idea…I have seen and felt too many things personaly to deny the possibility.

Now is there really a god? Are these feelings and experiences of mine nothing more then a forced absorption of kenetic belief?

Try going to a place of faith with hundreds and thousands of people…you can practily smell god in the air…
~JL

Standing overbearing applause
Amen to that!
~JL

…quite the contrary, and I’m surprised he never saw it, answering puzzling questions with ‘God’ has only slowed down our journey to understand ourselves and our environment. It is quick and easy, takes no time to think, analyse, doubt, or question to answer with ‘God’, but it is difficult and time consuming to find out the ‘true’ answer. I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s protagonist, Sherlock Holmes lends a hand in this situation.

What’s your take?
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