Descartes: Discourse on Method,(Part I-IV)
Text available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59/59-h/59-h.htm
Journals due on March 24.
Questions for reading guidance:
What’s Descartes’ criterion for truth and knowledge?
What’s Descartes’ method to get such knowledge?
Do you think his method can guarantee the truth?
Bianca Gayle
ReplyDeleteDescartes formulated four laws, first: Do not accept anything as true unless it is evident because this will prevent hasty conclusions. Second: is to divide any given problem into the greatest possible number of parts to make for a simpler analysis. Third: start with the simplest of objects and slowly progress to difficult objects. And fourth: be cautious and constantly review the progress you made in order to be sure that you left nothing out. These four laws are meant to be guidelines so he can follow them.
Descartes believes a statement is true because it is consistent with everything else we know to be true, not because it can be analyzed into simple parts. Descartes also formulated morals to guide his behavior. Descartes abandons all sensory knowledge, since the senses can deceive, all demonstrative reasoning, since people often make errors in their reasoning, and imagines that everything that has ever entered his mind is just illusions brought on by dreams.
I believe these methods can guarantee the truth. There will be no bias and no personal attachments when you follow Descartes methods.
Though Descartes has a solid argument, I do not think that the truth can be "guaranteed" whatsoever. Just as other themes and concepts, such as justice, happiness, etc., Truth seems to me to be something that must be stated from someone or something that can be trusted . Truth is absolute and it is far-fetched for a human being to achieve such. Although many times, human beings who are in power tend to create and enforce their own definition of truth. What many do not realize is that truth is actually very difficult to achieve because it is a perfect thing.
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though Descartes believed that things arent always as they seem. One cannot trust one's own senses or the views of others since we as humans are not perfect. He feels things must be broken down and trully analyzed before one can assume things are what they appear to be. Honestly thats what i got from this...
ReplyDeleteRuby Rios
ReplyDeleteDescartes says that we all have an equal amount of reasoning which something that can be argued, there are illnesses that eliminate any reason but he is correct when says about opinion being diverse making it seem that others have more reason than others when in actuality it's just that we all think differently. He says that the greatest minds are the ones that achieve the most, at least that's what get from it. It makes me think whether that's true or if it also has to do with situations that some don't achieve but at least they aspire to and that to me is great in itself.
Kyle Yanagihara
ReplyDelete====What’s Descartes’ criterion for truth and knowledge?
-Descartes believes that only the most basic and evident truths are the basis for knowledge and that he must build upon only this foundational knowledge. He first decides that he does not want to be indecisive so he decides that any course of action he is not sure of he must take the course that is probably the best, as no action will not take him forward in thought or process...at worst, if he does not take the right action he can at least know that this course of action was not correct and deduce another action from that.
Descartes believes that he must only build upon firm foundation of knowledge and he cannot assume anything he has learned in the past is correct.
===What’s Descartes’ method to get such knowledge?
- Descartes travels with armies and and meets people from around Europe. He looks outward for a time and then realizes that he must look internally for knowledge and happiness.
Do you think his method can guarantee the truth?
I do not think that assuming only plainly evident facts can necessarily be the truth. Descartes himself was raised and taught by religious Jesuit teachers whom hold their own truth to be evident. Descartes foundation for knowledge (his true foundation, not his own) was built by people who shaped him culturally and theoretically.
I believe is well reasoned theories, not just positively true facts and evident truths.
ERIK ROBLES
ReplyDelete1. Descarte's criterion for truth and knowledge involves 4 different categories. First, to not believe in something with out any evidence. Secondly, In order to understand a problem it must be simplified. Thirdly, start with simple problems and move towards the harder ones to better understand. Lastly, always review and revise so that nothing is left in error.
2. Something that is trying to proved as true, it must be parallel to other thinks that have been known a true. it seems that Descarte was emphasizing on observation to lead to true, whence a sort of scientific method
3. This method can lead one toward the right path into finding truth, but it couldn't give you truth. I don't agree with this method, because one can stare at apples fall from a tree for hours with out comprehending the force or reason why it is falling.
I believe Descartes message to obtain knowledge and truth is his ability to pin point the relevence of power points of judging, which is accurate based on his consumption of reading and life experience controlled by his sense of reason. As he stated in his passage, "Good sense is of all things among men, the most equally distributed, for every one thinks to himself though abundantly provided with it, that those even who are the most difficult to satisy in everything else, do not usually desire a larger mmeasure of this quality than they already posses. In this it is not likely that all are mistaken the conviction is rather to be held as testifying that power of judging aright and of distinguishing truth from our opinions, consequently, does not arise from some being endowed with a larger share of reason than others, but solely from this,that we conduct our thoughts alone different ways, and do not fix our attention on the same objects." Thus that is his method for truth and knowledge.
ReplyDeleteMartha de los santos
ReplyDeleteFor Descartes knowledge and truth is about proving its realness and by that he created four methods to prove its truthness. The four steps for the criterion of truth and knowledge are, Not believing on anything without acurate evidence, to divide substract and put in the lowest form to make into a simpler analysis, then go from least to greatest of all problems for better processing and understanding, and last to review and recheck the process to make sure that theres no errors.
This process can guarantee the truth and knowledge but theres something to truth which plato puts into his writtings. Truth is absolute and universal, thereforeit has to be the same in everyones mind thoughts and thinking, otherwise in individuals is limited opinion and it cant never be complete to be absolute truth. the truth is about finding the mistakes behind it not its perfection which are absolute and universal. because of this i think that this method is useless to find the truth if you are looking for its perfection.