Rene Descartes Discourse On Method

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher that lived from 1596 to 1650. He was rather famous for his works, which were published majorly after his death. In this paper, I will be arguing Descartes’ method of doubt as well as evaluating his approach to finding the truth of all knowledge.

In his Discourse on Method, Descartes confessed that at first he believed that to obtain clarity and knowledge one must master their studies and learn as much as possible from the sciences but then he realized he was all wrong. To acquire said clarity he noticed we have to clear our minds from all information we have learned in the past that are not our own and to only find knowledge within ourselves. The completion of this process would require one to doubt
everything that is not certain; everything that the person has not seen with their own eyes. With this, he thought, he would ultimately find the philosophical foundation of knowledge, which he believed would lead him to certainty, and later build upon that.

For Descartes, such method is necessary because it will allow people to lean on something that is actually certain and completely true as well as it also allows people to move forward in life on the right path. He says that the sciences are unreliable and in the end left the reader with questions. With this method, people could depend and commit to something that was true, on a proven theory that would not leave questions and doubts unanswered.

Since Descartes decided to throw all of his conceptions, ideas and premises out the window, he began doubting everything he came across and one of these was his sense of perception.
For Descartes, our senses can be deceiving and should not really be trusted. To support this opinion, Descartes uses dreaming as an example: he states that when we are dreaming, our senses tell us that we are actually experiencing what our dream sees us in, that it is our really and it does not let us know that what we are living is not actually true. Descartes concludes that Once we prove a good God’s existence, then we can begin following our senses because a good God would not deliberately fool
him.

If there is one thing that avoids universal doubt for Descartes, that would be the “Cogito Ergo Sum,” (“I am thinking, therefore I am.”) You doubt to get to the Cogito because it is the basis of all truth and knowledge. This emerges as true for some reasons: it does not come from our sensory perception or from the external world Descartes suggests could exist. The logic behind this is that to simply know and agree about this proposition would confirm you exist just because you are doing the doubting and for this to happen a thinking mind must be present.

For Descartes, the best way to find truth was to reject all previous opinions but I disagree with him.
I believe that the truth must be sought after no matter what because everybody has the right to know things with certainty but I reject the way he pursued this specific objective.

Instead of closing your mind and not allowing anything in except for what you believe is true, in the end, can affect what you find to be the end result. What if a person follows Descartes’ method of doubt and comes to a different realization than someone who did not follow Descartes’ method? Who is actually correct if they both are certain they are right? Of course, this is taking into consideration that what Descartes is arguing is only a proposition, not the factual information.

Descartes’ method is certainly a difficult one to carry out and it would take up a lot of time out of a person’s life. Some dangers can come from Descartes’ practice; for a weak or even emotionally unstable person, this could be the tip of the iceberg. It could drive people insane or even change them for the worse. In the end, I think Descartes’ methods should not be practiced today since they were meant for times where philosophy was starting to create an
impact.