How Did Descarte's Upbringing Influence His Discourse on Method?

Rene Descartes set about in publishing his Discourse on Method to develop a method of sound reasoning with which to deduce all nature, science, and truths. In order to examine Descartes' method one must first examine his roots, which nurtured Descartes' motivation and intelligence where they combined to establish the early seeds of the scientific method.

Descartes attended a Jesuit college and received a thorough education; however he found his teachings in conflict with each other which engendered only doubt and ignorance within himself (Descartes 3). This doubt frustrated Descartes and his search for clear knowledge. Descartes was drawn to certainty and thus especially enjoyed studying mathematics which he would later use to prove the existence of god. Still, most subjects did not offer Descartes the certainty of mathematics. He did not reject his education completely for the experience was necessary "in order to know [the subjects'] true worth and to guard against being deceived by them" (Descartes 4). Determined to banish his ignorance, Descartes left his schooling behind.

In his years among the Jesuit scholars, Descartes concluded that literature was limited and did not provide an adequate model to live by and thus he set out for nine years to travel the world gathering experiences and weeding out the obstacles to reason that he had accumulated in school (Descartes 6). He stressed his role as a spectator to the world "reflecting particularly in each matter on what might render it suspect and give us occasion for erring" (Descartes 16). His intention was not to interfere or to live with the people on his travels but to live among them, examining human interactions and their true and false reasoning. His travels taught Descartes to "pay attention to what [people] did rather than what they said" (Descartes 13). Descartes discovered many customs different to his own and that he should not let these differences cloud his reasoning, thus he learned to reject truths based solely in example and custom.

Travel was important to Descartes because it offered him a chance to test out his knowledge and see where it worked and where it needed adjustment. At the time of his travel, Descartes observed the thirty years war and found that he had not left conflict among the scholars. Men were just as belligerent in practice as they were over theories, willing to slaughter each other for reasoning each thought was true. This is another reason Descartes took care to acknowledge cultural divisions and avoided untrue reasoning based on customs. Descartes turned away from both experience and literature and looked within himself to find a path to clear knowledge (Descartes 6). He realized that the only opinion he could know to be true would be, carefully guided, his own. As with when he concluded the failings of his schooling, Descartes did not reject his travels. He realized that the experience he accumulated helped to shape his later more certain, established opinions (Descartes 17). Desccartes also noted that experimenting is necessary to advance one's knowledge in order to test and build upon what one has already gathered (Descartes 36). In this way each experience which Descartes found corrupted or limiting he also credits to helping shape his later reasoning.

At this point Descartes had accumulated worldly experiences, experimented with his own knowledge and his failings in the world, and thus amassed an understanding of what path to follow to knowledge. Descartes proposed four rules to keep him from straying in haste or prejudice as he followed this path (Descartes 11). He stressed simplicity and certainty. If the first truth he accepted he knew to be true then he at least knew that ascending proofs were not unfounded. This is deductive reasoning and Descartes built his method solidity upon its foundation.

As well as rules, Descarted formulated four maxims, a moral code to which he could fall back on when he was irresolute in his judgments, which reason would at times require him to be (Descartes 13). Descartes stressed his continued belief in God's existence, assurances of which are very common in Discourse on Method. This is perhaps a nod to the religious schooling which he received and the church which he took efforts not to incite for fear of persecution (as Galileo had been for his support of heliocentrism). It is unclear how much of Descartes' religious suppositions and justifications are due to true religious beliefs and how much is due to pandering to the church and layman's crutch.

In examining Descartes' heavy use of deductive reasoning we need only to look at the foundation of his method. In rejecting "as absolutely false everything in which I could imagine the least doubt" Descartes was left with only one truth he knew to be the most sincere unshakable truth: the very chance of thought affirmed Descartes' existence (Descartes 18). From this realization, Descartes ascended in deduction and purported that thus things he conceived "very clearly and very distinctly are all true, but that there is merely some difficulty in properly discerning which are those that we distinctly conceive" (Descartes 19).

Descartes used inductive reasoning in his method to justify God's existence. Descartes asserted that all things outside the being such as the heavens, light, and heat he knows to exist because he conceives of them so distinctly and clearly. This reasoning wouldn't work for conceiving of God because that would mean Descartes conceiving of perfection without truly knowing what perfection was, which he argued, is impossible of an imperfect being (Descartes 19). Thus, only God could allow man to conceive of perfection. Descartes seems to believe he uses deductive reasoning here by establishing that to have imperfection you must have perfection - God - however it seems to partake of inductive reasoning or at the very least invalid deductive reasoning; Descartes assumed "all things we very clearly and very distinctly conceive are all true" because God exists and put these ideas in us (Descartes 21). He also assumed that God exists because he "plainly knew" so (Descartes 19). This is an argument that has no solid founding, rather is an argument that eats itself. Descartes set out to build logic as a chain of reason, but this is a circle rather than a chain.

It is interesting to note that Descartes found himself defending his earlier works Dioptrics and Meteors in which he claims the reasonings he purports are proven to be true by the nature that each deductively follows the next and thus proves its foundation (Descartes 43). He defended not concretely justifying the suppositions by imploring readers to accept that the suppositions in practice justify themselves and their unnamed predecessor. As Descartes' Discourse on Method is solidly descended from deductive reasoning and distinctly clear principles, it seems suspiciously ambiguous of him to leave these suppositions' validity to assumption. It does in fact ring closely to his argument of God's existence where he found that God -- perfection - exists because man - imperfection - exists, a supposition that is less than concretely founded and appeals to the participant's faith.

Descartes' Discourse on Method is very much a product of Descartes' upbringing and experiences, grounded in his distrust of himself and the ignorance rooted there and sprouting from his inclination to illuminate the physics behind the world with solid reasoning. These seeds lead Descartes to in turn plant seeds of the Scientific Method. It is interesting to note how much of science and nature are validated by the same notions yet they are so often at odds themselves. Descartes even found it difficult to wrap the world's principles in one blanket and even then he admits that this method is meant for himself and may not work for everybody. Each person must create, or tweak, his own method by following his or her own experiences. Descartes offered his method, but you can deduce what you will.

NOTE: Citations (Descartes, page #) refer to his Discourse on Method