The discourse of the method is a work that seeks to publicize the method to reach true knowledge and find the truth, it was written by RENATO DESCARTES in 1637, this treatise is one of his most important works, considered one of the first works of modern philosophy.
Its content is divided into 6 parts which I will briefly analyze below:
- First: lay the foundations of the Cartesian method and talk about a new theory of knowledge. Second part: it is the most interesting contribution of the work, here Descartes talks about his method which is capable of perfecting knowledge, which has as Doubt at first as reflected by his maxim »he thinks, then I exist«. Third part: here, discards, he talks about his »provisional moral» which would help him not get lost in the search for the truth, while restructuring his reason with The method he had discovered. Part Four: Here, he claims to demonstrate the existence of God as the guarantee of all perfect knowledge. Part Five: Descartes exposes his theory about the earth and the universe, although he does not openly declare that it agrees with the theories of Galileo for fear of being persecuted by the church, part six:talks about the usefulness of science, how it can benefit man and what should or should not be disclosed.
Descartes sets the tone through the discourse of the method for pedagogy that is applied in current teaching, awakening the spirit of research. Pedagogy not always exercised, but declared and broken down in all the texts in force as a general objective of the teaching.
What Descartes has inherited from us is something very valuable and as he explains his way of thinking, his method of arriving at real reasons, I am my own notes, respecting first of all the great philosopher RENATO DESCARTES.
He presents to us in a not very deep way some rules that are found inside this work to which I will make some observations:
«… not to receive as true what with all evidence it recognized as such, carefully avoiding precipitation and damages, and not accepting as true if not what I present to my spirit in such a clear and different way, that near its certainty I do not there could be the slightest doubt «.
I am only sure that one is sure of nothing, considering these words as absolute truths, it is true for all things and all people, since we cannot know everything and since everything is infinite, we cannot understand absolute truths because these they are infinite. We could not speak of absolute truths, because everything changes, our truths are relative since we could not say that they are true for all because of how limited we usually are, also not everyone perceives reality in the same way, and one can never have certainty absolute of our relative truths.
Descartes said each thing has a single truth, an absolute truth, but this is unattainable.
This statement implies that truths will always be relative, and will never become absolute, each person is a world, and relative truths can always be fulfilled until said truth is proven or false.
Today's truths are not the same as yesterday's, everything changes and the truths also change, the truths of a person from the 30s are not the same that I perceive today.
I accept the truths that others accept and do not discuss. This statement is disproved by saying that we should not rush into accepting a preposition as true if we doubt that it is somehow true, we should not accept something as true just because it is what we want to hear.
"….. the division of each one of the difficulties that intelligence encounters when investigating the truth in as many parts as necessary to resolve it."
It is true that if a problem is large it must be attacked in parts, but it is necessary to keep a guideline of those parts so as not to lose the essence of the problem. An example would be to present a big problem to a first semester student of the university who would lose the understanding of the system would take it with a reductionism "to the gross" would end up turning the system into a smaller or more complex one, but not because of the student but for the mediocrity of teaching today.
To solve a problem it is necessary to do it in an orderly way, we must find out what is needed and what possible response will be necessary to solve it.
The systems theory widely studied in our career suggests that a system is a set of subsystems interacting with each other to achieve a common goal. If we take a problem in parts, each part is related to each other to solve it, we should not lose this principle to avoid distortion of the problem.
"… order the knowledge, always starting with the most ashtrays, rising by degrees until reaching the most complex and assuming an order in those who had it by nature."
Analyzing we observe that the most composite knowledge from the point of view of the evolution of thought is the product of the simplest, of course it is necessary to take into account where things come from, Descartes proposes to go from the simplest to the most difficult or complex, process that allows us to adapt and then face the bigger things. We can consider this process as an inverted pyramid that the simplest is at the base and the most complex at the top, but we must analyze how strong that base is so that it can support the full weight of complex knowledge that every human being can bear..
In order to better understand this, we could go to mathematics rather complex matter, where to solve a mathematical problem it is necessary to start with the easiest and then solve the most difficult, in order not to get lost and not achieve an erroneous result, or We get so confused that we get stuck at a crossroads.
"… make enumerations so complex and general, that they would give me the assurance of not having made any omissions."
Descartes knows that he can never say that there is no longer any omission.
Descartes seeing that the ways of thinking that were taught to him are not reliable, he sets out to create his own. Take a skeptical position and start doubting »everything». it should be noted that Descartes never doubts his faith (wouldn't they burn it?). This leads you to think that you are sure. Therefore he is sure that he thinks, and therefore he exists.
These are the principles of its primary (metaphysical) cause, the basis for reason. It should only be noted that each one has a different composition from the others, Descartes distinguishes very well in that he must constitute a metaphysics: they are the principles that do not need to be demonstrated.
In order for the solution of a problem to be as complete and general as possible, it needs to be reviewed and tested so that it cannot be contested or questioned by someone else, thereby achieving accurate knowledge..
From these four steps Descartes mentions that it was impossible for him to increase his knowledge and even manage to understand things that seemed complicated to him.
Now focusing on his maxim "think, therefore I am" is the fundamental premise on which Descartes strengthens his method, since according to him this reasoning is so solid and truthful that it cannot be contested or ignored.
So doubt is the first principle of Cartesian philosophy. It is impossible to pretend that we do not exist since our nature is based on the fact of thinking, if we do not think we do not exist, Descartes mentions that it is possible to pretend that one does not have a body, that one is not permanently somewhere, but by denying the This existence is immediately reaffirmed, so Descartes believed that that part of the being that can continue to exist is the soul, which does not depend on any place or on any material thing.
In this part Descartes demonstrates the existence of God, according to what we have in mind, so to speak, the idea of perfection, even though we ourselves are not perfect, so somehow or somewhere we have adopted that idea.
What exists is what is presented to our senses. But we cannot really know if what we perceive is what exists, reality can be deceptive.
For us as beings and with the doubt introduced to us by Descartes we can be or not be, what I want to refer to is that there is no absolute truth therefore we cannot say that something is or is not with absolute certainty, and in As for what it is not, its validity will be given in the context in which it has been raised, each one is unique and accepts reality in his / her opinion.
We can say that reason is based on existence and existence on reason; I think, therefore I exist, I think if and only if I exist. We can say that Descartes with his phrases "I think, therefore I am" makes a valuable contribution to philosophy, on which we can work to get closer to being.
Descartes thus concludes that there must be something or someone from which that idea comes, since it would be illogical to say that it came from nothing and more logical would be to say that the most perfect comes from non-being.
So for Descartes the idea of God is an innate idea, in which God is eternal, has all the qualities that we can imagine but cannot possess.
So many discussions and criticisms about Descartes occur precisely because we have different beliefs and we are in different contexts, no one is the same as another, even though they are brothers of the same womb.
If Descartes had lived in our times he would have thought very differently "the reason depends on experience" and these two on the beliefs of being.
After having made an analysis of the work of the method discourse, I want to complement this essay with an example to see how much I learned and understood from the work.
Let us suppose that someone appears before us and tells us that the knowledge we acquire has always been in our minds and therefore we are born knowing everything. The first thing that we must do according to the Cartesian method is to hesitate to be able to reason, that is to say to ask ourselves if that is true or not, since we do not have certain evidence that this is true. reasoning: if we knew everything because we do not remember it ?, what case would it be wise to know it ?, then why do we learn ?.
The third would be to order the thoughts: it is not possible that we are born knowing everything, in such a case we would not need to learn, our existence is continuous learning, we always have something to learn because all things constantly change and therefore it is impossible to know everything.
The fourth would simply be to recap to be sure that what we say is completely true and we do not overlook any point of view that could make our answer uncertain: man is endowed with reason and sense that allow him through experience to learn, it is not possible to know everything because we are not eternal and things change constantly.
I think this book is varied and I found it quite interesting. I believe that reason is the basis that allows us to build a happy life and that it must be exercised since it is not always easy for us to distinguish something good from something bad, I do not agree with the demonstration of the existence of God by Descartes because according to him nothing can come from nothing, this would be something wrong and yet God is uncreated and eternal, perhaps the limitations of our mind do not allow us to imagine what God really is, perhaps he is or was like us.
I find Cartesian morality very interesting since it summarizes basic ethical principles such as being moderate, respectful and having confidence in oneself, this also teaches us how Descartes was with other people.
Lastly, I think that the method that proposes discards is something very personal and should not be used as a rule, since it serves very well to learn things from them, but it cannot serve if we ask ourselves a question of something that we do not know, if we want to learn some chemical components using the Descartes method as a management student, we are not going to get very far, we would have to inform ourselves first.
