Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences.

Scientific Method

1637 Rene Decartes publishes Discours de la méthode.

A method for discovery of truth consists of four rules:

Accept nothing as true unless one has no doubt.

Divide up each problem into as many parts as possible and resolve each in the best manner possible.

Carry on reflections beginning with the most simple and proceed little by little, to knowledge of the most complex.

Make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that one can be certain of omitting nothing.

"Man is composed of a twofold nature, a spiritual and a bodily.

As regards the spiritual nature, which they name the soul, he is called the spiritual, inward, new man; as regards the bodily nature, which they name the flesh, he is called the fleshly, outward, old man." - Martin Luther

Common sense is, of all things among men, the most equally distributed.

Each thinks himself so abundantly provided, even those difficult to satisfy, do not usually desire a larger measure than they already possess.

It is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction it is rather to be held as testifying the power of judging aright and distinguishing truth from error, properly called common sense or reason, is by nature equal in all men.

The diversity of our opinions does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely by this, we conduct our thoughts along different ways, and do not fix attention on the same objects.

To be possessed of a vigorous mind the prime requisite is to rightly apply it.

He truly engages in battle who endeavors to surmount all the difficulties and errors which prevent him from reaching the knowledge of truth.

I, Rene Descartes, hold in esteem the studies of the schools.

I was aware that the languages taught in them are necessary to the understanding of the writings of the ancients;

that the grace of narrative stirs the mind;

that the memorable deeds of history elevate it;

and, if read with discretion, aid in forming judgement;

the perusal of excellent books interviews the noblest men of past ages;

that eloquence has incomparable force and beauty;

that poetry has its ravishing, its graces and delights;

that in the mathematics there are refined discoveries eminently suited to gratify the inquisitive, further all the arts and lessen the labor of man;

that numerous highly useful precepts and exhortations to virtue;

that theology points out the path to heaven;

that philosophy affords the means of discoursing with an appearance of truth on all matters, and commands the admiration of the simple;

that jurisprudence, medicine, and the other sciences, secure for their cultivators honors revealing superstition and error, that we may be in a position to determine real value, and guard against being deceived.

I, Rene Descartes, am not at all astonished at the extravagances attributed to those ancient philosophers whose own writings we do not possess.

I do not suppose them to have really been absurd, seeing they were among the ablest men, but only that these have been falsely represented to us.

I am quite sure that the most devoted of the followers of Aristotle would think themselves happy if they had the knowledge of nature he possessed.

I, Rene Descartes, never accepted anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such unless presented so distinctly as to exclude all doubt.

I divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.

Commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know I ascend step by step to the knowledge of the more complex and difficult to understand.

The long chains of simple reason led me to envision that all things are mutually connected in the same way through unswayable rules.

There is nothing so far removed to be beyond understanding.

Nothing so hidden we cannot discover it, provided only we abstain from accepting the false for the true, and always preserve in our thoughts the order necessary for the deduction of one truth sequentially from another.

Each truth discovered made available the discovery of subsequent ones.

Expediency seemed to dictate that I should regulate my behavior conformably to the opinions of those with whom I should have to live.

In order to ascertain the real opinions of such, I ought rather to take cognizance of what they practiced rather than of what they said.

In the corruption of our manners, there are few disposed to speak exactly as they believe, but also many are not aware of what it is they really believe.

Something believed is different from something known.

When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to act according to what is most probable. (Apply Ockham's Razor)

I, Rene Descartes, endeavor to conquer myself rather than fortune as only our own thoughts are in our power and to conform desire with natural order.

If we consider all objectives as beyond our power, we shall no more regret the absence of success when deprived if we recognize no fault of our own.

It is my conviction I could not do better than continue devoting my whole life to the culture of my reason; making progress in the knowledge of truth.

I, Rene Descartes, attentively examined what I was.

I observed I could envision that I had no body, and that there was no Earth, nor any place in which I might be, but I could not envision that I was not.

I still was, on the contrary, from the very circumstance that I thought to doubt the truth of other things, it most clearly followed that I remained.

I, Rene Descartes, concluded I was a substance whose whole essence or nature consists only in thinking not dependent on anything material.

Rene Descartes = Cartesius

I, that is to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct
from the body, and is even more easily known than the body(?), and is such, that although the body were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.

I think, therefore I am.

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Although I, Rene Descartes, might think I was dreaming, that all which I saw or imagined was false, I could not deny the reality of my thoughts.

I was disposed straightway to search for other truths.

I, Rene Descartes, perceived that there was nothing to these demonstrations which could assure me of the existence of their object.

For example, supposing a triangle to be given, I distinctly perceived that its three angles were necessarily equal to two right angles, but I did not on that account perceive anything which could assure me that any triangle existed.

Many are persuaded there is a difficulty in knowing this truth; in knowing what their mind really is because they never engage in abstract reasoning.

They consider everything through visualization, a mode of thinking limited to real objects; all that is unimaginable appears to them unintelligible.

The truth of this is manifest from the single point the philosophers accept as a maxim there is nothing not previously indentified by the senses.

To comprehend abstraction they do exactly the same thing as if, in order to hear sounds or smell odors, they strove to avail themselves of their eyes.

Unless indeed the sense of sight does not afford us an inferior assurance to those of smell or hearing; in place of which, neither our imagination nor our senses can give us assurance of anything unless our understanding intervene.

God is or exists because all that we possess is derived from God.

It follows that our ideas or notions, which to the extent of their clearness and distinctness are real, and proceed from God, must to that extent be true.

We not infrequently have ideas or notions in which some falsity is contained, this can only be the case when we proceed from lack of knowledge.

After knowledge has rendered us certain, we can easily understand that the truth of reason we experience when awake, ought not in the slightest degree to be called into question on account of the illusions of our dreams.

Never be persuaded of the truth of anything unless on the evidence of reason.

I have observed laws established by God are observed in all that exists.

Concatenation of these laws reveal many truths more useful and more important than all I had before learned, or even had expected to learn.

If God were to now compose a universe and after that did nothing more than lend ordinary concurrence to nature, and allow nature to act in accordance with the Laws of Nature, the result, by necessity, would be as our reality is.

I, Rene Descartes, endeavored to demonstrate to all until there could be any room for doubt, and to prove that even if God had forged more worlds, there could have been none in which these laws were not observed.

An opinion commonly received among theologians: the action which sustains the universe is the same with that by which it was originally forged.

God, in the miracle of Creation, established certain Laws of Nature.

Things purely material might have become as we observe them at present.

Their nature is easily envisioned when beheld coming in this manner gradually into existence, rather than at once in a finished perfect state.

I, Rene Descartes, perceived it to be possible to arrive at knowledge highly useful in life; so natural that no one can imagine himself ignorant of it.

In light of the speculative philosophy usually taught in the schools, to discover a practical means by which to know the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, and the other elements that surround us.

As distinctly as we know the various crafts of our artisans, we might also apply them to render ourselves the lords and possessors of nature.

Fruits of the Earth, the blessings of life, preserve health.

I examined what were the first and most ordinary effects that could be deduced from these causes; and found knowledge of the heavens and on Earth knowledge of water, air, fire, minerals, and other things which of all others are the most common and simple, and hence the easiest to know.

I, Rene Descartes, deduce germs of truths naturally existing in our minds.

It is necessary to confess the power of nature is so ample and these principles so simple and general, that I have hardly observed a single particular effect which I cannot at once recognize as capable of being deduced by mankind.

Thereupon, turning over in my mind, the real objects that had ever been presented to my senses I freely venture to state that I have never observed any which I could not satisfactorily explain by the Laws of Nature.

I, Rene Descartes, am confident there is no one who does not admit all that is presently known is nothing in comparison of what remains to be discovered.

I incite men to strive to proceed farther by informing the public of all they might discover, the last beginning where those before left off connecting the lives and labors of many we might collectively proceed much farther.

If I, Rene Descartes, were to publish the principles of my philosophy: to assent to them no more is needed than simply to understand them.

I foresee that I shall frequently be turned aside from my grand voyage of discovery on occasion of the opposition it is sure to awaken.

By publishing the principles of the my philosophy I hope to throw open the windows and allow the light of day to enter.

Rene Descartes

dangerous thoughts

It is likely that Rene Descartes died of arsenic
poisioning while tutoring Queen Cristina of Sweden.

Enlightenment comes from brief insights into the nature of things.

Although such insights are rare and difficult to sustain they allow a glimpse of the basis of desire granting us the ability to control that desire.

Those who have mastery over desire will walk in integrity.

Those who possess this knowledge of Self readily come to believe that any other individual can have the same knowledge about Self as this knowledge involves nothing which depends on anything outside of Self.

"The Scientific Method relies for its supra-cultural validity on principles that are themselves among its own assumptions.

The logic of its justification is circular.

A parallel would be an aborigine insisting, "Okay, let's settle this question of whether scientific experiment or dreaming is the way to true knowledge once and for all. Let's settle it by entering the dreamtime and asking ancestors."

The principal assumptions of objectivity and determinism at the foundation of the Scientific Method are not shared by all traditions of thought.

A non-objective, non-deterministic, coherent system of thought is possible.

It is more than possible: it is necessary given the impending collapse of the world of the discrete and separate self that we have wrought.

Necessary in light of the new scientific revolution of the last hundred years.

Our ways of thinking are not working anymore." - Charles Eisenstein

La methodé contained three appendices: La Dioptrique, Les Météories, and La Géométrie.

In La Géométrie Descartes proposed each point on a two dimensional plane can be represented by two numbers, one giving the point’s horizontal location and the other the vertical location - Cartesian coordinates.

Perpendicular lines (or axes), cross at a point called the origin, to measure the horizontal (x) and vertical (y) locations, both positive and negative, thus effectively dividing the plane up into four quadrants.

Any equation can be represented on the plane by plotting on it the solution set of the equation.

This can be extrapolated into three dimensions as seen above.

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