ARCHIE R.

MAGARAO October 16, 2009

MODERN PHILOSOPHY

ON RENE DESCARTES’ DISCOURSE OF METHOD THAT ARE PRESENT IN OUR KNOWLEDGE

PRODUCTION

“Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed,
for everybody thinks himself abundantly provided with it, that even those
most difficult to please in all other matters do not commonly desire more of
it than they already possess. It is unlikely that this is an error on their
part; it seems rather to be evidence in support of the view that the power of
forming a good judgment and of distinguishing the true from the false, which
is properly speaking what is called Good Sense or Reason, is by nature equal
in all men.”1

Introduction
In the beginning section of Rene Descartes’ Discourse on the Method of
Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for truth in the Sciences, he noted
that Good Sense or Reason is by nature equal in all human beings2. In this
relation, he also thought like Aristotle in his Metaphysics that the desire
to know is a common inclination in all human beings. This fundamental desire
compels in the human beings the endeavor and pursuit for knowledge and growth
in wisdom. Hence for Descartes, all sciences are one and interconnected as
such that they are identical with human wisdom3. However, wisdom here is not
just those stuffs which man can have knowledge with but a perfect knowledge
of things that the human intellect can understand and grasp.
Rene Descartes asserted that among any other human occupations it is
being a philosopher which is the most “excellent and important”4. Descartes
says this to convey that philosophy is the only discipline that deals with
the study of wisdom compared to Medicine, Theology, Mathematics, and so on.
Hence, Descartes considers philosophy as an elite discipline and he gave it
honor and precedence from the rest of the human intellectual endeavors. He
even noted that “Philosophy teaches us to speak with an appearance of truth

1
Rene Descartes, Discourse, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Chicago: Encyclopedia
Britannica, Inc., 1952), 41.
2
Ibid.
3
Virginia L. Jayme, Studies in Selected Modern Philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel (Cebu:
University of San Carlos Department of Philosophy, 1992), 4.
4
Rene Descartes, Discourse, 42.

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on all things, and causes us to be admired by the less learned…”5 Moreover,
the philosophical pursuit distinguishes one from the savages and barbarians.
Hence, the possession of philosophy is the noblest good that a state can ever
have, according to Rene Descartes.
The attainability of wisdom which is primarily the goal of philosophy
is no other than rendered to the individual who engages himself or herself in
a philosophical quest. But this philosophical quest or endeavor is by no
means a personal concern as Descartes in the same manner made mention of his
very own philosophical journey and quest for truth.
Going back to the opening remark of Descartes in the Discourse, it is
implied that given the proper functioning of the Good Sense or Reason the
human intellect can attain truth. Furthermore, the Good Sense has to be
employed in the very search for truth. However, Descartes warned us that the
possession and employment of the Reason or Good Sense is not enough that it
is in need of a method to guide it. Hence, this point that Descartes raises
will eventually lead us to the following discussion.

THE TWO OVERARCHING ELEMENTS IN THE DISCOURSE VIS-À-VIS THE PRODUCTION OF

KNOWLEDGE

Actually, Rene Descartes gave only four rules in the Discourse with a
preliminary note that “a multiplicity of laws often furnishes excuses for
evil-doing, and as a State is hence much better ruled when, having but very
few laws, these are most strictly observed”6. He even stressed that in no
occasion should these four rules be disregarded. These are the rules that
Descartes enumerated in the Discourse:
Rule 1. To accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognized to
be so: that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and
prejudgments, and to accept in them nothing more than what was
presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no
occasion to doubt it.
Rule 2. To divide up each of the difficulties which I examined into as
many parts as possible, and as seemed requisite in order that it might
be resolved in the best manner possible.

5
Ibid.
6
Ibid., 47.

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 Rule 3. To carry on my reflections in due order, commencing with
objects that were the most simple and easy to understand, in order to
rise little by little, or by degrees, to knowledge of the most complex,
assuming an order, even if a fictitious one, among those which do not
follow a natural sequence relatively to one another.
Rule 4. To make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I
should be certain of having omitted nothing.

However, in the event of our knowledge production we identify two

overarching elements which are found in the Cartesian Discourse and these are
no other than the Rule of Division and Rule of Order.

The Rule of Division

The Rule of Division is vividly clear in the second rule provided by
Descartes, which is also called the method of analysis or resolution. It is a
method where one segregates the parts of any objects being placed under
investigation. It is a fundamental process, I suppose, that in the knowledge
production there is the point where one divides the whole entity in order to
attain a better understanding of it. By this method one searches the
truthfulness of the particular as it embodies or comprises the greater and
more complex whole. It is like in the logical induction where one establishes
the truthful foundation of the base in order to gain an unshakeable whole.
Basing upon experience, when an individual produces knowledge he or she
does not produce a fully bodied knowledge in one split of second. Rather, the
production of knowledge, as what is attested by the Cartesian rule, comes
with single entities in succession. It has to be considered that each single
entity in succession follows each other in a logical sequence for them to be
made intelligible as a whole. I would presume that in the absence of a
logical succession these individual entities become incomprehensible or hard
to decode. Knowledge is produced per particular logical succession and then
put or sized up together to make an understandable/intelligible whole. But
what is presupposed here is that even prior to the logical succession of each
particular entity the individual part is already an intelligible entity in
itself in order to comprise an intelligible whole. On the other hand, the
whole eventually becomes vague or ambiguous if the parts that comprise it are
inherently unintelligible.
The Cartesian method stresses the significance of the parts for they
shed light to the understandability of the whole and vice versa. For example,

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in a scientific experiment the scientist has to take into consideration the
individual elements or chemicals’ properties and reactions prior to their
combination in order to produce the desirable effect or result. In this
relation, the scientist also has to understand the procedure and to ascertain
that the logical execution of the steps in doing the experiment is met. If
not, the result will be devastating or will not meet the necessary effect; as
a result, the scientific experiment ends in a failure.

The Rule of Order

This method is clearly found in the third rule of Descartes which also
known as the method of synthesis or composition. If the rule of division is
about segregation, the rule of order is about synthesizing or grouping
together the entity being segregated in the previous rule. This method is
also fundamentally seen in the event of understanding. The mind as a
particular-composite absorbs and places every experience in memory per
individual succession. Similarly, Edmund Husserl had theorized that
experiences or anything that enters into the mind comes into an individual
succession. In other words, even the process of knowledge accumulation does
not come in a bunch but by pieces. In this regards, the piece by piece
succession of information that comes into the mind builds up an order or a
synthesis. Such synthesis makes an intelligible whole. In this process also
we start with the intuitive apprehension of the simplest datum and proceed to
deduce step by step the other more complex objects. Nevertheless, this
methodology warns that the subject had understood well the particulars of the
whole before building them into an edifice of information. Thus, by
understanding well the particular parts the synthesis becomes even more
understandable or intelligible.
This method does not function alone but it functions hand-in-hand with
the method of division. That is, by establishing a strong foundation, the
very moment that the well understood and ascertained particulars (method of
division) are combined together they will eventually comprise an unshakable
and intelligible whole or structure of knowledge (method of synthesis). On
the other hand, demonstration happens in the process of knowledge production
vis-à-vis the Cartesian method of synthesis. What is meant here is that in
building the whole it is inevitable to demonstrate the individual parts. The
coinage of the word “demonstrate” means that there is an exposition of the
truthfulness of the particulars or parts before incorporating them all to
produce an edifice of a truthful and valid whole.

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 Lastly, what the rule of division denotes is that the parts of the
whole have to be investigated first before gradually moving to the whole.
Instead of starting with the whole one rather starts with the simplest part.
It is basically a gradual and meticulous movement from the least to the
greatest. Moreover, in the process, every particular should be linked without
missing neither the previous nor the next, that is, there has to be a chain
of logically successive particulars for the moment that the chain is
destroyed surely the conclusion falls into ruin. As in the very word of
Descartes: “…having carefully noted that in order to comprehend the
propositions I should sometimes require to consider each one in particular,
and sometimes merely keep them in mind, or take them in groups, I thought
that, in order the better to consider them in detail, I should picture them
in the form of lines, because I could find no method more simple nor more
capable of being distinctly represented to my imagination and senses”7.

CONCLUSION
Rene Descartes proposes that in any scientific and even philosophical
endeavor the faithful following of the rules by he who engages himself in
such a quest is assured of achieving the truth even if he is less gifted with
intellectual fluency. Moreover, Descartes is implying that his proposed
methods are just guides. Analogically speaking it is liken to a sign pointing
beyond itself. As a guide, it helps in the unconcealment of truth, if I were
to use the Heideggerian terminology for truth. Thus, it is a means towards an
end. For Descartes, it is not actually genius that brings one to attaining
the truth but the utility of method.
In establishing the rules in the Discourse, at the back of the mind of
Descartes lurks the underlying goal of the methodic doubt: to establish an
unshakable foundation for all the sciences and philosophy that can never be
subject to negation or denial for the denial or even the negation of it is a
self-defeating act just like saying absent in a class role call (an analogy
given by Susan Bordo in her opus Flight to the Objectivity).Moreover, I would
say that Rene Descartes did not employ his methodic doubt to universal
propositions in a sense but to particular propositions as in his dictum:
Cogito, ergo sum. He focused more his attention to particular things i.e.
cogito before climbing up to the universal things that this tactic is
idiosyncratically seen in his method of division and method of composition.

7
Rene Descartes, Discourses, 47.

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Lastly, in the event of venturing for the attainment of the principal truth
Rene Descartes had fondly employed these methods. Thus, the formulation of
these methods is for its utility in the achievement of the first truth or
principle which will eventually become the foundation for both science and
philosophy.