The Influence Of Descartes Discourse On Method

After his disillusion with education, Descartes traveled the world and closely observed everything he saw. On his reasoning for this, he wrote what I argue to be as close a definition as one can reach for what it means to be a healthy, growing human. His reason for traveling the world came down to his theory that he could “encounter much more truth in the reasonings that each man makes about the affairs that concern him, and whose outcome must punish him immediately afterward if he has judged badly” (Descartes 84). This is the definition of the short-term evolutionary process that defines and advances the human race; we innovate- if we succeed, we are rewarded, if we fail, we are punished. This is in exact parallel with the natural form of
This is significant because it demonstrates that even though our long-term evolution is happening too slowly for any generation to witness, the short-term variety affects our day lives every day. Any time a scientist comes to a conclusion based upon a law proven by those before him- the Cartesian method- we have to thank Descartes’ belief that he “could not keep [his new methods] hidden without gravely sinning against the law that obliges us to procure, so much as we can, the general good of all men”
It can be brutal, but it is how we make progress. Life on earth has never been easy; in evolution, one genome can not succeed without the other dying out forever. Humans are the only species on earth that has been able to benefit from this type system over single lifetime, or an even shorter period. Good ideas rise to the top, but are then proven imperfect; our methods we use to explore these ideas improve over time, but can never be held as a golden standard; and we use the tools of documentation that we have to pass this intelligence down so that, in the words of Descartes, “we all together would go much further, joining the lives and labors of many, than each in particular could do” (86). Our propensity to participate in this never ending process is what defines the nature and legacy of being