Descartes_Aim and Methodology

Aim

Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the
highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once
in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to
establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last.

Ideal Scientist: She wants her representation of the world to be ample and accurate.

Imagine a computer program that generates well-formed sentences then presents you with them. You are set
the task to sort any such sentence into one of three classes: believe (one’s you take to be true), disbelieve (one’s
you take to be false), and undecided (one’s you are not convinced either way). Call the sorted list your belief-set.
Now, if you were an ideal scientist, you would want your belief-set to accurately correspond to reality. So, you
need to decide which opinions currently believed or disbelieved are actually true, decide which opinions
currently believed or disbelieved are actually false, and decide which of your currently undecided opinions are
actually true or false.

But what criteria would you use to make such decisions? To answer this question you need a method; a way of
sorting that ensures your belief-set tracks reality.

Methodology

Tree of Knowledge: The roots are metaphysics, the trunk physics, and the branches, the other sciences. We need to
ensure the foundations (or roots) are firm, so that our edifice will not collapse.

To establish something in the sciences that will be stable and likely to last, Descartes believes he needs to demolish
everything completely and start again from the foundations. Why? Well, Suppose someone had a basket full of apples
and, being worried that some of the apples were rotten, wanted to take out the rotten ones to prevent the rot spreading.
How would he proceed? Would he not begin by tipping the whole lot out of the basket?

Four Rules for Pure Inquiry

What Descartes needs is a method of acquiring true beliefs which is totally free from error, and that must be a
method which is error-proof. No method can be error-proof which allows a state of affairs in which the method
has been correctly applied but has produced a belief which is nevertheless false. In short, he needs a method
whose correct application guarantees truth.

1. Certainty. Never accept anything as true if I did not have evident knowledge of its truth.
a. Carefully avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions, and to include nothing more
in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I
had no occasion to doubt it.
2. Division. Divide each of the difficulties into as many parts as possible and as may be required in
order to resolve them better.
3. Order. Direct thoughts in an orderly manner. Beginning with the simplest and most easily known
objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex.
4. Comprehensiveness. Make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that I could be
sure of leaving nothing out.

Significance of Certainty (the first rule): Method of Doubt

Descartes’ project – establishing firm foundations for the sciences – takes the same form as any other
inquiry, namely that of trying to find the truth; but of undertaking that task, unlike other inquiries, from
the very beginning (from the roots). To do this, Descartes regards the Method of Doubt as the right
instrument. If we follow this method, we will arrive by the end of our inquiries with the proper belief-set,
one that tracks reality.

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This handout is intended as a reliable guide to the text. As it has benefited from the work of many scholars, it is not suitable for citation.