Descartes Discourse on the Method

Descartes -- Discourse on the Method

Rene Descartes was firmly rooted in the idea that all questions could be answered through mathematical or scientific means. His approach to constructing solutions, verifying knowledge, or establishing truths was methodical and based in the principles that had been established by others in relevant disciplines and were believed at the time to be reliable. He was the consummate introvert, believing that answers existed within and were achievable if he resolutely followed the methods he set out for himself.

Descartes' pursuit of the nature of truth and error -- indeed, the origin of truth and error -- began with his belief that people can come to a knowledge of things through their knowledge of God. He held the conviction that God is perfect and that a perfect being would find it impossible to be deceptive. Contrarily, Descartes was fully in tune with his own capacity for error; he believed that the place to start was to examine his own nature -- a nature that was capable of error.

This was the point at which I believed that Descartes would not be able to sustain his argument. The perfect-imperfect dichotomy seemed laden with reasoning pitfalls; add to that dichotomy the notion that a person can understand the nature of God through pure reasoning, and a recipe has been established for rational thought to overextend its capabilities. It seemed the ultimate hubris.

Below is the point in the discussion where my belief that Descartes' reasoning was going to derail follows. The issue, it seemed to me and I discuss below, was that Descartes was of two minds.

Since, as Descartes logic went, God is perfect, if he -- Descartes -- was capable of error, this attribute was a purposeful creation of God. In creation, then, imperfect beings have an intended purpose and place. The problem with this line of reasoning is that Descartes simultaneously held the belief that the cause of his errors was not his nature -- as created by God -- but was instead his own inability to perfectly use his method to understand the knowledge that God had provided for him.

As Descartes gave himself over to the process of trying to understand whether physical things do actually exist, he came to a full stop. He trusted that his God-given senses that permit him to perceive the physical world do, in fact, convey truth about the physical world. Descartes' senses verified for him that he has a physical presence in the form of his body. He spent considerable time and effort thinking about the mind-body relationship and determined that they are different entities. His belief that the mind continues to exist longer than the body provided him some comfort and reduced his cognitive dissonance. Finally, Descartes reached the point where he asserted that he could, in fact, trust his senses.

In the Discourse on the Method, Descartes set out to explain how he uses reasoning to work through even the most puzzling and difficult questions or problems. In addition to his frequently used philosophical arguments, he did resort briefly to autobiographical conceit. Descartes begins with the presumption that everyone is in possession of good sense, which he determines is the ability to differentiate fiction from truth. With this inherent capability, when people go awry in their thinking, Descartes assumed that they had allowed their thought to misconstrue ideas and thoughts that should have led them to the truth. Moreover, Descartes believed that with his unclouded mind -- presumably made all the more acute in nature -- and the natural light that was the inheritance of all people, his resolute thinking would lead him to truthful thoughts. Indeed, Descartes took a more rigorous approach to reasoning than did the Aristotelians -- he began by doubting everything that he was unable to deduce through pure reason.

Descartes' reasoning developed to the point where he asserted "Cogito Ergo Sum," and he coupled this conclusion with the idea that God was permitting him to conceptualize the heavens. This was a powerful idea. If God was allowing Descartes to think about heaven and the existence of God, then surely Descartes could have confidence in his capacity to reason and to draw conclusions about his own theories. Descartes could be free from doubts about his reasoning because his capacity for thought came from God, a perfect being.