Descartes’ Method: Rules for a Universal Philosophical System

Rules of Descartes’ Method

Creating a universally valid and irrefutable philosophical system. It uses a scientific method. This is the mathematical method (inductive-deductive method) or mathematical method, also known as analytical. The ability to reason is the same for all men, and the diversity of opinions originates from the different ways of guiding and the diversity of the objects to which it applies (human reason, wisdom).

Descartes defines the procedure as “a set of rules that make certain and easy as possible, to whom the notes, take the false for the true”.

Descartes identifies four fundamental rules:

• The Evidence: Clear (easy, I understand perfectly) and distinct (different, not to be confused with something else). Do not accept anything that is doubtful. The evidence is opposed to the conjecture (any system that allows me to reach the evidence other than intuition), which is something whose truth does not appear to the mind in an immediate way. The act by which the soul comes to the evidence is intuition (mental faculty that allows me to grasp the thing at first). Descartes intuitively understands “a concept of spirit (mind) pure and attentive, so easy and distinct, that it is not at all doubt as to what we think.”
• The Analysis: Involves dividing each of the difficulties that have been considered into the greatest possible number of parts to better understand them. Analysis means to divide the complex into simple ideas.
• The Synthesis: Is to lead the thoughts in order starting with the simplest objects and easy to learn, to ascend gradually to more complex knowledge. This rule is a procedure, the deduction, simple resolution of each part starting with the easiest to the most complex.
• The Determination: It is through the entire process to be sure or omit anything. “We are doing such complex enumerations and reviews so general that we are sure not to omit anything.” The listing notes the analysis and synthesis review.

All these rules are reduced to the evidence. Evidence must be achieved first to find a truth from which all others are deducted.

Doubt brings you near to the instrument par excellence, certainty. No wonder Descartes conceived the idea of building a supreme science, which he calls first philosophy.

This destruction of the ancient opinions is done by Cartesian doubt. Doubt is not a skeptical doubt, it is a habit of thought, a time when we cannot say whether something is true or false. A tool to develop a philosophy, so-called methodical doubt.

We can certainly say it is a universal doubt, which is a theoretical question, it does not extend to the level of beliefs or moral standards, only the level of theory.

Descartes doubts:

• The Senses: “If ever I have been deceived, I must be cautious and assume that I can be fooled forever.” Sometimes when we see something from afar it seems one thing but when it is near, it is another, so the senses deceive us. So we eliminate the senses and everything that relies on them.
• The Outside World: Due to the lack of criteria for distinguishing between reality and dream, and because it is captured by the senses.
• His Own Reasoning: My understanding may be wrong when he reasons. “Descartes eliminates the trials as true knowledge.”
• Himself: “There may be a ‘goblin’ or ‘evil genius’ within me that prompts me to error continuously.” Thus, all the truths that may have been left standing with the above criteria are destroyed. Descartes intends to reach a truth that can be believed in itself, irrespective of any prior knowledge.

The Existence of God

To prove the existence of God, he searches his own conscience for the clear idea of the perfect and infinite. God means perfection and infinity. God for him is a perfect, immutable, infinite substance, the supreme unification point at which all things tend. This God is the cause of all beings, the creator and preserver of all. The author of nature. It will be the guarantee and cause of all our innate ideas. It is a supreme unity toward which all created beings tend. He is the creator of the world and conservative causes. He is the author of nature and the immutable laws. It is the cause and guarantee of all our innate ideas. This will be Descartes’ idea of God. He sees everything, you see perfection and maximum suction. This idea may come to nothing about the man. So he has all the qualities that man has and will ever have, and also why going to be the aspiration of every man.

The World Outside

Descartes begins a new path, supported by the success of the mathematical works of the new science, but that model successfully achieves its simplicity and because it is part of the reason. Descartes suspected that human subjectivity is understood as the source because that will overcome the uncertainty and open the way of knowledge, capable of mastering nature. It will therefore be important not to ask what things are, but as my reason represents things, relations, and orders, as Descartes believed that reason is universal in two ways: it is common to all men, but also that external reality is governed by rational laws. So I thought that mathematics is a party of great knowledge, the great order that everything is rational subject, if there is a universal rational order, must be able to establish a universal science with a single method which only mathematics. On application are more extreme doubt reaches a first evidence on which there is no doubt: I exist as a thing that thinks, and thinking substance (res cogitans) this intuition deducted then the existence of God (res infinite) and the existence of God can finally infer and draw skepticism the existence of the world (res extensa). With God is guaranteed: – That my reason works well, provided that the used correctly, i.e. using the method. – That the world exists.

Mechanistic World