INTRODUCTION Discourse on the Method is Descartes attempt to explain his method of reasoning through even the most difficult

of problems. He illustrates the development of this method through brief autobiographical sketches interspersed with philosophical arguments. This write up attempts to do a critical review of Descartes Discourse on Methods with special reference to Discourse 1 to 5. We will begin with an exposition followed by an evaluation of the discourse. In reviewing Descartes' discourse, we should remember that what he offers in the Discourse is merely a summary sketch of the argument he presents in much more detail in the Meditations on First Philosophy, published some years later. So those who are tempted to make quick objections should first direct their attention to the later book. Discourse 1 contains various considerations concerning the sciences. Descartes begins by saying that everyone possesses good sense, the ability to distinguish truth from fiction. Therefore, it is not a lack of ability that obstructs people but their failure to follow the correct path of thought. The use of a method can upgrade an average mind above the rest, and Descartes considered himself a typical thinker improved by the use of his method. Descartes benefited from a superior education, but he believed that book learning also clouded his mind. After leaving school, he set off traveling to learn from the great book of the world with an unclouded mind. He comes to the conclusion that all people have a natural light that can be obscured by education and that it is as important to study oneself as it is to study the world. In part 2 of the Discourse, Descartes contemplates on the idea that the works of individuals are superior to those conceived by committee. This for him is because an individuals work follows one plan, with all elements working toward the same end. He considers that the science he learned as a boy is likely flawed because it consists of the ideas of many different men from

various eras. Keeping in mind what he has learned of logic, geometry, and algebra, he sets down the following rules: (1) to never believe anything unless he can prove it himself; (2) to reduce every problem to its simplest parts; (3) to always be orderly in his thoughts and proceed from the simplest part to the most difficult; and (4) to always, when solving a problem, create a long chain of reasoning and leave nothing out. He immediately finds this method effective in solving problems that he had found too difficult before. Still fearing that his own misconceptions might be getting in the way of pure reason, he decides to systematically eliminate all his wrong opinions and use his new method exclusively. In part 3, Descartes puts forth a provisional moral code to live by while rethinking his views: (1) to obey the rules and customs of his country and his religion and never take an extreme opinion; (2) to be decisive and stick with his decisions, even if some doubts linger; (3) to try to change himself, not the world; and (4) to examine all the professions in the world and try to figure out what the best one is. Descartes moral rules demonstrate both his distrust of the material world and his confidence in his minds ability to overcome it. In relation to part 4 of his Discourse, Descartes offers proofs of the existence of the soul and of God. Contemplating the nature of dreams and the unreliability of the senses, he becomes aware of his own process of thinking and realizes it is proof of his existence: I think, therefore I exist (Cogito ergo sum). He also concludes that the soul is separate from the body based on the unreliability of the senses as compared with pure reason. His own doubts lead him to believe that he is imperfect, yet his ability to conceive of perfection indicates that something perfect must exist outside of himnamely, God. He reasons that all good things in the world must stem from God, as must all clear and distinct thoughts.

Finally in part 5, he moves from the discussion of a theory of light to theories about human anatomy. Descartes considers the fact that animals have many of the same organs as humans yet lack powers of speech or reason. He takes this difference to be evidence of humankinds rational soul. He considers the mysterious connection of the soul to the body and concludes that the soul must have a life outside the body. Therefore it must not die when the body dies. Because he cannot conceive of a way that the soul could perish or be killed, he is forced to conclude that the soul is immortal.

STRENGTHS One strength of Descartes discourse is that Descartes is able to break away from the Aristotelian tradition. According to the Aristotelian tradition, the mind proper what is exclusively "inside the head"is limited to reason and understanding. Sensory perception, imagination, will, and so on, make reference to things outside the mind and so are not purely mental. Rather, they are the link that connects us to the outside world. According to Aristotle,

there is no distinction between what I perceive and what is "out there." Thus, sensory experience gives us direct and immediate knowledge of objects in the world. Science, in this worldview, is a matter of taking the immediate evidence of sensory experience and deducing certain conclusions from it. The sensory experience is indubitable, and the deductions are logical, so all scientific knowledge is based on absolute certainty. One of Descartes's most significant contributions to the scientific revolution is his conception of sensory experience, imagination, and will as being just as much subjective mental phenomena as reason and

understanding. His systematic doubting questions how it is that we can be certain about what we perceive.

Descartes draws a sharp distinction between what our senses report to us and what is "out there." This reconception of the mind shakes the foundations of Aristotelian scholasticism. If sensory experience is no longer self-evident, then we can no longer deduce certain scientific truths from these observations. Essentially, Descartes makes us sharply aware of what goes into a scientific observation. It is not a purely neutral and objective act of seeing the world as it is; it is an interpretive act that must be undertaken with great care and circumspection. The scientific paradigm that we have today owes a great deal to Descartes. Today, we have taken Descartes's method one step further. Now, we conclude that we can

never have absolute certainty in the sciences. All we can hope for are sound theories that are supported by careful observations. Secondly, Descartes thought that learning for yourself would be better than learning from someone else, since people tend to have emotional influences. It is probably true that learning from the source when studying human behavior is going to be more efficient than learning from someones interpretation of the source if you use good judgment yourself. In the case of emotional observations this is especially obvious because the people who preach have a tendency to pretend they know more than they actually do, or try to appear to be better than they are. In this emotional prejudice the truth can be

altered from reality, or the source. As Descartes said, Those who set about giving precepts must esteem themselves more skillful than those to whom they advance them. In other words, someone might alter the truth solely so they could come up with something to say, while the real truth might not be capable of being expressed so easily, it can only be observed. Some things in life are too complicated to express, but however there are going to be people who believe they can express those things, even though they cannot accurately do so. Thirdly, the main purpose of Descartes method of doubting is to arrive at a certainty or truth. In all his method of doubting everything around him, he cannot help but notice that there is one thing that cannot be

doubted and that is himself. This is because in order for him to succeed in doubting, he the one doubting has to exist to do the doubting. With this, he arrives at one truth and that leads him to say that I think therefore I am. In the following quotation, Descartes clearly explains his concept of truth and certainty. I considered in general what is necessary for a proposition to be true and certain, for since I had just found one idea which I knew to be true and certain, I thought that I ought also to understand what this certitude consisted of. And having noticed that in the sentence "I think; therefore, I am" there is nothing at all to assure me that I am speaking the truth, other than that I see very clearly that in order to think it is necessary to exist, I judged that I could take as a general rule the point

that the things which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true. But that left the single difficulty of properly noticing which things are the ones we conceive distinctly. Hence, while he is capable of doubting or being deceived about nature around him (including his own body), he has something within him, the "I", which he identifies with the soul, the existence of which is for him absolutely certain, because, even in the process of doubting everything, he cannot deny that he is thinking. Finally, in the Discourse, Descartes proposes the important consequences for the vital role mathematics must play in our understanding of nature. For the clarity and directness which, thanks to God, reveal the truth to us are, above all, conveyed in mathematical deductions.

Hence, this Discourse launches the strong demand that modern science must follow mathematic logic, and the truth of its claims emerges from the mathematic foundations upon which those are based. Science, in other words, needs to rely upon equations rather than verses cited from scripture or traditional interpretations of Aristotle. This emphasis is significantly different from early 17th century science in England, where, under the energetic leadership of Francis Bacon, the stress is much more on experimental evidence, the collection of observed facts, and the inductions one might draw from repeated observation and testing. And for some time, there was a lively dispute between English science (based on

experiments)

and

Continental

science

(based

on

mathematics). In fact, however, one should not overemphasize these differences. Descartes makes clear in the Discourse how important experiments are, and Bacon repeatedly called attention to the imperfections of sense experience.

WEAKNESSES Though his philosophy of science may be a bit askew, the philosophical method Descartes uses in part four of the Discourse has proven extremely valuable. His method of skeptical doubt has raised important philosophical questions concerning how we can be certain of, or even know, anything at all. His re-conception of what the mind is has largely defined the shape of Western psychology and philosophy ever since. His assertion that he is essentially a thinking thing and that his mind is distinct from his body has also raised a number of important philosophical questions: what is my relationship with my mind? What is my relationship with my body? If they are distinct, what is the causal connection between the

two? Thus Descartes fails to give an account of how the mind and the body interact with each other. Also, if Descartes argues that the truth of propositions based on sensation is naturally probabilistic and the propositions therefore are doubtful premises when used in arguments, what of his proposition about the existence of a perfect being based on his own sensation of his existence I think therefore I am? Inferring from this statement, one cannot help but realize that Descartes defeats his own argument. Again, in his Discourse 4, Descartes describes the mind and God as substances. The bone of contention here is if a substance is a thing requiring nothing else in order to exist and God is a substance whose existence is his essence, then how can the mind be said to be a substance when it requires Gods concurrence in order to exist? Lastly, also in part 4 of Descartes Discourse, he equates his idea of a perfect mind to God. His own doubts lead him to believe that he is imperfect, yet his ability to conceive of perfection indicates that something perfect must exist outside of himnamely, God. He reasons that all good things in the world must stem from God, as must all clear and distinct thoughts. One cannot help but wonder the relationship that exists between a perfect mind and God. How does Descartes connects his idea of a perfect mind to God? Could this perfect mind have not been something else other than God? What grounds does Descartes stands on to make his claim that this perfect mind he is talking about is God?

CONCLUSION

To sum up, it will be possible to observe that, Descartes advocates that we desist from building on what others have already talked about and set out to do our discoveries and come up with our own ideas. In as much as this sounds the best option for mankind, it is however impossible to abide by since it is always through what we have been exposed to that gives us better ideas to build on what we have already learnt. This is to say that his advice or proposal works perfectly in theory but then in the reality, it is very difficult to adopt. This however is not to say that his work is bogus. In fact if one were seeking to select one text which first ushers in the modern age, one would have to consider Descartes' Discourse on Method, as a uniquely qualified selection. For in this relatively short work Descartes announces an agenda which marks a dramatic and decisive break with past traditions, lays down a project which became the central concern of modern Western civilization and in the process, sets on the table the most important modern metaphor shaping our attempts to understand nature and ourselves. It's no accident that Rene Descartes has so often been hailed as the first and greatest modern thinker.

REFENCES

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST FACULTY OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS AND PHILOSOPHY PHL 304: EARLY MODERN PHILOSOPHY

GROUP MEMBERS AR/BAA/09/0088 AR/BAA/09/ AR/BAA/09/ AR/BAA/09/

QUESTION; DISCUSS RENE DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD PAYING ATTENTION TO DISCOURSES 1 TO 5.