René Descartes (3)

In A Discourse On The Method Descartes writes about how he wants to fashion a method. Descartes claims that the method is composed of four parts. The four parts have the following characteristics: "certainty in the distinction in truth and error, ease of application, fruitfulness, and wisdom or the production of true knowledge." I will try to briefly examine these four characteristics in Descartes' method.

Being able to distinguish between truth and error is vital to any sort of reasoning schema. If one cannot discern what is true and what is false then the system will not and could not work. The law of non-contradiction is evident for example if something exists it cannot not exist at the same time. Perhaps, that something did not exist at some point in time, but it did come to exist at a later point in time. However, a distinction ought to be made that something does not exist and exist at the same time, and if something can exist and not exist at the same time we are part of an absurd world. If the world we live in is absurd then logic and philosophy are futile.

When Descartes alludes to "ease of application" I think he is proposing Occam's Razor or the Law of Parsimony. Occam's Razor is defined as follows: "a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities."[1] I agree with Descartes, because most of the time (if not always) we should attempt to analyze the things we are trying to understand by positing the simplest composition that fits the theory.

I assume that when Descartes talks about "fruitfulness" he is proposing that given the definitions of the law of non-contradiction and ease of application—both should produce a meaningful insight into what is being explored. Since we have established a system that is not absurd or illogical we can proceed in the investigation, because it is prosperous to do so. Since the system is "logical" then it ought to yield fruitfulness regarding the matters that are being probed. Keeping everything I have discussed so far in mind--we should be able arrive at wisdom or the production of true knowledge.

While Descartes is not claiming absolute knowledge he certainly purports a method that constructs possibilities. From these possibilities Descartes deduces what might fit best in the construct. I would like to mention in passing that Descartes thinks skepticism of our own bias is the best way to arrive at conclusions. For example, Descartes concludes that because he doubts he knows with certainty he exists. However, it is hard to establish how much we ought to doubt since the three laws of thought are merely accepted and not established empirically. That said, I do not intend to exhaust Descartes' system, but try allude to what I think Descartes is trying to achieve by giving us an explanation of his approach.

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[1] Occam's Razor