Rene Descartes and self examination.
                           By: Andy Montgomery
                      E-Mail: Exec-PC (414)-789-4210

It was once said that Rene' Descartes was truly the mouse that roared.  A 
quiet young man by nature, Descartes single-handedly changed the way all 
philosophers, (and many non-philosophers) look at the reality around them.  
But this was not his goal.  Descartes set out with one plain purpose in 
developing his personal philosophy:  find a better way to think and reason 
about his life and his reality.  Descartes was set on his journey by a 
startling personal revelation early on in his life.  In thinking about his 
education at one of Europe's best universities, he came to a conclusion that 
upset his impression of himself: 


            From my childhood I lived in a world of books, and since 
          I was taught that by their help I could gain a clear and 
          assured knowledge of everything useful in life, I was eager 
          to learn from them.  But as soon as I had finished the course 
          of studies which usually admits one to the ranks of the 
          learned, I changed my opinion completely.  For I found myself 
          saddled with so many doubts and errors that I seemed to have 
          gained nothing in trying to educate myself unless it was to 
          discover more and more fully how ignorant I was.
          

        All the formal education Descartes underwent led him to the conclusion 
that what he knew for certain was that he knew so little of the world, and to 
make matters worse, what he thought he knew as fact he now doubted.
        So, Rene' Descartes decided to re-think his position... on everything; 
all of reality and his relation to it.  Of the end result, we all know what 
his conclusions were, but just how he got there is what this pracies deals 
with and two aspects specifically: the rules for the proper conduct of reason, 
and the provisional code of morals.
        Throughout Discourse on Method, Descartes uses the analogy of building 
a house.  He saw each person as a house, and that in building a house, 
certain measures should be taken to insure that the house is sturdy and 
liveable.  In his analogy, a person is all his past experiences, education, 
beliefs and truths, and like any good building, it must be set on a strong 
foundation.  But Descartes saw a problem wit the foundation that was being 
laid by the philosophies and thinkings of that day:


            ...it [philosophy] has been studied for many centuries 
          by the most outstanding minds without having produced 
          anything which is not in dispute and consequently doubtful.
            I judged that nothing solid could have been built on so 
          insecure a foundation.
          

All that the philosophy to that day did was create nothing but an unsure, 
shaky foundation for personal beliefs.  But Descartes wanted an absolute.  As 
a mathematician, he believed that there must be universal truths that the 
universe was based upon, and that these truths were attainable.  The church 
told people to believe in what they had to say because they were divinely 
guided; the universities because they were learned.  Descartes saw that if a 
truth were truly universal, then all men could believe it because they could 
see for themselves that it was true, not because they were told it was true,
and as he later decided, "I learned not to believe too firmly what I learned 
only from example and custom."
        Now knowing that he needed to tear down his old "house" and build a 
new one, and also knowing that any house needed a strong foundation, Descartes 
concluded that, being the old ways of thinking brought one to the end of more 
questions and doubts, he needed a whole new way of thinking.  So, he created 
one.  Descartes developed four rules by which to think and examine his 
beliefs:

     1)  Never accept anything as true unless you recognize it to be evidently 
        such.  If something is true, you should be able to look at it 
        rationally and come to no other conclusion but that it is true 
        without question.

     2)  Divide each question into as many logical parts as is possible to 
        make finding a solution easier.  It is always easier to solve a 
        problem if you break it down into its most basic components, and deal 
        with each separately even if it means that the solution will take 
        longer to achieve.

     3)  Think in an orderly fashion.  Begin with the smallest and simplest 
        elements of the problem and work your way up to the most difficult, 
        even if it looks like thing are already in some sense of order.  You 
        will never be able to deal with the biggest and most difficult aspect 
        of a problem unless you have a thorough understanding of its simplest 
        attributes.  This manner also proves easier in the long run.

     4)  Be thorough!  Always look at a problem in the grandest general sense 
        to get the best overview to be sure that you overlooked nothing.  No 
        truth can ever come from a problem that is only partially solved.  
        Even the smallest oversight will lead you to doubt the validity of the 
        answer.  If you have any reason to doubt a conclusion, then it is not 
        a truth.

        Descartes' new way of thinking was a challenge, but he reasoned that 
if he strictly adhered to these four rules, he could avoid the other complex, 
(and questionable) methods of logic.
        It is important to note the simplicity of his method; only four rules.
His method is not unlike the Grand Unification Theory of physics.  To 
Descartes, life was infinitely complex and exploding out in all directions, 
just like our expanding universe.  But a true understanding of it could only 
be achieved with the most basic set of rules that governed and interrelated 
all aspects of its complexity.
        So now his method was set.  But now a new problem arose.  If you are
examining your core beliefs, then what do you believe in the mean-time?  This 
problem was solved with Descartes' provisional code of morals.  Descartes saw 
that he could not undergo the demolition and rebuilding of his "house", his 
life, without having another place in which to "live".
        "In order to live as happily as possible during the interval I 
prepared a provisional code of morality for myself," Descartes states in 
*Discourse on Method*.  These are the things he suggests a person believe in 
the interim:

     
     
     1)  Obey the laws and customs of your country, keep your old religion, 
        and follow the most moderate and least excessive opinions of the best 
        part of your society. 

By doing so, and especially taking the most moderate of opinions and actions, 
one would never stray to far even if a mistake is made in the search for 
personal truth.  If one lives life on the fringes, it is more than likely a 
"wrong turn" will lead farther away from society and hamper the search for 
truth.

     
     2)  Be resolute in your actions and the path you are taking, even if 
        you've no idea where you are going.   

Like a traveler lost in the woods, Descartes reasons, it is better to make a 
decision on which way to go and stick with it (at least until one is 
absolutely certain that that is the wrong direction), than to walk for a ways, 
get scared, and go back to the beginning never knowing if that was the way 
out, or worse, wander aimlessly.

     
     3)  Always seek to conquer yourself rather than reshape your destiny.  
        
What will happen will happen and you shouldn't waste time trying to stop it.  
Better to invest your time in changing and strengthening the foundation of 
your beliefs so that you have the tools with which to deal with life's 
challenges and problems.



        With these maxims, Descartes set up a place in which to "live" while 
he re-examined all of his beliefs and everything he held to be truths.  Giving 
himself an anchor to the moderate center of society, he was confident that no 
matter how far he had to travel to reach the truth, he was never to far from 
the life he had led and grown accustomed to.
        It is easy to see why Rene' Descartes' concepts revolutionized 
philosophy and gave birth to modern Western thought.  He never stated that 
previously created philosophy was without merit: he never would assume to have
the wisdom to make such a claim.  What I see him saying is that the old school 
of thought has gotten us to this point, and here it stops.  In order to move 
on--be it in science, theology, philosophy, or what-have-you--man needs a new 
way of thinking about himself and the reality in which he perceives himself to 
reside in.  This new method must be sublimely simple (in order to make it 
employable for all people), yet completely thorough and all-encompassing (to 
guarantee the achievement of universal truths).
     By re-evaluating the basics of the way we see truths, beliefs, and the
understanding of reality, Descartes forever changed the way in which we think 
about everything that effects us as human beings.  As a result, he not only 
built a strong foundation for his own personal beliefs, but also laid an 
unshakable foundation for the building of a rational analysis of reality that 
is now modern thought.