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Topic: Descartes Discourse on Method Outline

	Ren Descartes (1596-1650).
		Descartes was a product of the church and his philosophy reflected the times in which he lived.
		Descartes was a dualist, viz., a man was of two natures, a spiritual nature and a temporal nature.
		Descartes, it would seem, in his philosophical work, continued along the same lines of the church philosophers: the deductive approach, viz., accepting notions which have no basis in reality, and then to proceed to build on those.
	www.blupete.com /Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Descartes.htm (462 words)

	Descartes, René - MSN Encarta
		Descartes made a pilgrimage to Italy between 1623 and 1624, then spent the years from 1624 to 1628 in France, where he devoted himself to the study of philosophy and also experimented in the science of optics.
		His method for discovering a truth of which he could be absolutely certain was to use scepticism: he attempted to doubt everything that he believed to be true and investigate if it was indeed possible to doubt it.
		Descartes was the first mathematician to attempt to classify curves according to the types of equations that produce them, as well as contributing to the theory of equations.
	uk.encarta.msn.com /encyclopedia_761555262/Descartes_Ren%E9.html (1286 words)

	Rene Descartes - MSN Encarta
		In succeeding years Descartes served in other armies, but his attention had already been attracted to the problems of mathematics and philosophy to which he was to devote the rest of his life.
		Although Descartes had at first been inclined to accept the Copernican theory of the universe with its concept of a system of spinning planets revolving around the sun, he abandoned this theory when it was pronounced heretical by the Roman Catholic Church.
		Descartes was the first to use the last letters of the alphabet to designate unknown quantities and the first letters to designate known ones.
	encarta.msn.com /encyclopedia_761555262/Descartes_Ren%C3%A9.html (963 words)

	Rene Descartes
		Descartes was able to solve the puzzle and this led to a close friendship with the stranger, who turned out to be Isaac Beeckman, the head of the Dutch College at Dort.
		Descartes argued with mathematical finesse that only certainty could serve as a basis for knowledge, and that he had a method for attaining certainty.
		Descartes, in his search for a universal-mechanism, undertook the study of subjects as varied as mathematics, physics, astronomy, anatomy, physiology, psychology, embryology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, theology and meteorology.
	www.meta-religion.com /Philosophy/Biography/Rene_Descartes/rene_descartes.htm (1723 words)

	Study Guide for Descartes' Discourse on Method
		The Discourse on Method, published in 1637, was Descartes' first publication (his first major work, Le Monde, was suppressed after Descartes learned of Galileo's condemnation for his writings).
		In reading Descartes' description of the movement of the blood, keep in mind that the great English physician William Harvey had already published a fundamentally correct account.
		He first describes how far he was able to proceed by strict adherence to the Method he has presented in Part II of the Discourse, and then proceeds to describe the movement of the heart and blood as an illustration of what one can achieve through observation when a priori reasoning fails us.
	www.public.coe.edu /~pmccormi/phl295/study_guides/discourse.html (461 words)

	Descartes -- Outline and Review Questions
		Descartes broke with the scholastic tradition by arguing that truth about the external world is accessible to an intellect guided rightly.
		His method is "intuition", in the sense of seeing in a good clear light, boiling down what is perceived to its essentials, and proceeding logically from what is unknown to explain what is unknown.
		In any case, the Discourse serves as a preface to three essays (on optics, geometry and meteorology) which were intended to display his method at work.
	www.cord.edu /faculty/herman/qdescartesshory.htm (1006 words)

	History of scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The methods entailed in the Edwin Smith papyrus (circa 1600 BC), an ancient surgical textbook, reflect the basic components of the scientific method: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.
		Descartes failed to produce scientific results comparable to those of his contemporaries, and so it is not here that we find Descartes primary contribution to scientific method.
		Attempts to systematize a scientific method were confronted in the mid-18th century by the problem of induction, a positivist logic formulation which, in short, asserts that nothing can be known with certainty except what is actually observed.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/History_of_scientific_method (3265 words)

	An Outline of English Fiction - Discourse on Method
		The Discourse on Method is a philosophical and mathematical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637.
		The Discourse on Method is best known as the source of the famous quotation "cogito ergo sum," "I think, therefore I am." In addition, it contains Descartes' first introduction of the Cartesian coordinate system.
		Descartes uses the analogy of tearing down the house to its foundation in order to build a secure edifice (He even extends the analogy to move next door into a house of morality, while his own house is being rebuilt).
	www.ped.muni.cz /weng/outline_of_english_fiction/terms/discourse_on_method.html (583 words)

	Descartes’ Views (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The method by which all genuine knowledge is achieved is exemplified by the method of geometry.
		Descartes’ Knowledge that he exists) is intuitive; to apprehend clearly and distinctly that he exists is to intuit his existence.
		Descartes’ Process: doubt everything almost to the point of total skepticism; then, having discovered through rational intuition some belief or claim which is absolutely certain and indubitable, proceed in a step-by-step fashion of deductive reasoning to demonstrate the true nature of “man” and the universe.
	www.macalester.edu /~adupay/DescartesViews.htm (1350 words)

	Rene Descartes: Discourse on Method 2, 4
		By these considerations I was induced to seek some other Method which would comprise the advantages of the three and be exempt from their defects.
		I resolved to commence, therefore, with the examination of the simplest objects, not anticipating, however, from this any other advantage than that to be found in accustoming my mind to the love and nourishment of truth, and to a distaste for all such reasonings as were unsound.
		2 Descartes is here referring to ancient geometry and ancient number theory, that is, the study of the properties of numbers, both of which comprised the bulk of Greek and Roman mathematical thought.
	www.wsu.edu /~dee/ENLIGHT/METHOD24.HTM (991 words)

	The Method and Scope of Philosophy
		The true philosophic method should not be lopsided, should not be biased to any particular or special dogma, but comprehend within itself the processes of reflection and speculation and at the same time be able to reconcile the deductive and the inductive methods of reasoning.
		Hence the method that philosophy employs in its approach to Truth is much dependent upon what conception we have of philosophy and of the nature of the goal of philosophy.
		Empiricism as a method of philosophy is mainly confined to sense-experience.
	www.swami-krishnananda.org /phil/phil_03.html (1897 words)

	Discourse Theory Summer School 2006: Week 1
		With respect to the theoretical aspects, attention is directed to the origins of structural linguistics and Freudian psychoanalysis as well as their reception in contemporary philosophy and political thought.
		This first lecture introduces some of the basic and central categories of discourse theory such as ‘articulation’, ‘discourse’, ‘empty signifiers’ and ‘logics of equivalence and difference’ and places them in relationship to positivism, hermeneutics and naturalism as the dominant approaches to social science research.
		The argument that politics is the ontology of the social is explored in the context of a re-definition of relations of power and representation.
	www.vuw.ac.nz /conted/discoursetheory/week1.html (1128 words)

	[No title]
		Descartes graduated from one of the famous schools in France and found that he was dissatisfied with his education.
		The answer of Descartes is that he clearly and distinctly understands the necessary connection between the activity of his thinking and the fact of his existence.
		Descartes' potential perfection cannot be the source of the idea of a being who is actually perfect without any potential for increase.
	falcon.jmu.edu /~omearawm/ph101descartes.html (2061 words)

	The Philosophy of René Descartes - Page 2
		But finite beings also are substances; and although Descartes had added that finite beings need the concursus of God in order to exist, the passage to the monistic concept of single substance appears quite open; this was to be the point of departure for Spinoza.
		To this we must add the fact that Descartes considers thought not as an act, but as the thinking substance ("res cogitans"), that is, as a soul, whose essence is thought.
		For Descartes, ethics is the science of the end of man, and this end must be determined by reason.
	radicalacademy.com /phildescartes2.htm (1517 words)

	MODERN PHILOSOPHY: The Philosophy of Rationalism
		Descartes (picture) was born at La Haye, Touraine, the son of a noble family.
		This is the method adopted in mathematics; Descartes transferred it to philosophy with the intention of constructing metaphysics on a new basis.
		In regard to the attributes of God, Descartes maintains that God alone is true substance; the divine veracity guarantees the validity of the clear and distinct ideas; granted the existence of Go, the hypothesis of the spell of the malignant spirit falls.
	www.radicalacademy.com /adiphilrationalism.htm (3532 words)

	Leithart.com \| Descartes' Hermeticism
		Descartes describes this beginning in two places, in the Olympica section of his Little Notebook, and, more fully, in part 2 of the Discourse on Method.
		The path that Descartes follows in his speculations is a path that leads away from the political and into the self, but it is not a path of retreat and withdrawal, not merely an effort to save himself or maintain his own independence on the model of Petrarch or Montaigne.
		The retreat into the self is part and parcel of his effort to discover the ground for a radical transformation of European society based on a certain method for determining the truth.
	www.leithart.com /archives/001903.php (590 words)

	[No title]
		The Cartesian Method of Doubt & the cogito, ergo sum - In order to attain certain knowledge of the world, according to Descartes one must put to doubt all our preconceived notions which are prone to the adverse influences of tradition, individual experience, imagination, and the tidings of our senses.
		In his Principles of Philosophy (Part I, Principles #71-4), Descartes argues how preconceived notions, as cultivated since childhood and bound up with the sensations of the body, lead one in adult life to false conceptions of things.
		In his Meditations, Descartes also speaks of “obscure” and “confused” in contrast to clear and distinct ideas (Meditations V and VI).
	www.aubg.bg /phil101/cm/Descartes.doc (371 words)

	Introduction to Philosophy (PHI 231) Course Syllabus
		The part on Descartes includes discussions on his key philosophical writings, the Discourse on the Method, Meditations on First Philosophy and ‘Selections from the Meditation’s "Objections and Replies"’, which consider issues such as: doubt and certainty, the existence of God, the self, and the relation between the soul and the body.
		Descartes is said to have ‘psychologized’ the concept of idea (i.e., it transforms the concept from a Platonic sort of Form into a modification of consciousness).
		Descartes is widely credited with having set the agenda for this problem; in these discussions we will examine some of his reasons for thinking that the mind and the body are utterly distinct substances.
	web.jjay.cuny.edu /~echaveza/phi231.htm (12420 words)

	Section 4: The Scientific Revolution: Copernicus to Newton /Shaping of the Modern World/Brooklyn College
		His method was to test hypothesis after hypothesis until he came up with an answer that worked.
		Descartes was a great mathematician and philosopher for instance he showed the any algebraic formula could be plotted on a graph.
		In fact Descartes was not totally against observation,but his emphasis was different from Bacon.
	academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu /history/virtual/core4-4.htm (4431 words)

	[No title]
		Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations on the First Philosophy.
		The final paper is a closer examination of a specific question that occurs to you in the context of this course.
		Discuss the proposed topic with the instructor, or, preferably, submit an outline of your paper, prior to the last lecture.
	ase.tufts.edu /philosophy/courses/fall_2005/syllabi/1H.doc (779 words)

	Early Modern Philosophy: Study Guide for First Exam
		The exam will have an "objective" section covering knowledge of factual material; a section in which you are asked to explain, analyze or comment on quotations from the assigned readings; and a section in which there will be a more traditional essay question requiring integration of knowledge of more than one philosopher.
		You needn't write out answers to all of the questions, but you should make at least a brief outline of what you would say in response to them.
		These questions may not appear on the exam in the form given, but they point to aspects of the readings with which you will be expected to be familiar.
	www.public.coe.edu /~pmccormi/phl295/fall01/exam1.study.html (363 words)

	Descartes
		Figure 1 is similar to one included in Descartes’ explanation of the fact that the force exerted by the water on the bottom of container B equals that of A when both are filled; and moreover, that the force is equally distributed at all points such as x, y, and z.
		Although Descartes had other important physical insights, they were vitiated by being attached to his gross ignorance of what today we consider as elementary physics (much of it to be created in the succeeding 100 years).
		Descartes took the conditions that applied to the axioms of the mathematics of his day—the appearance of indubitable truth—and transferred them to all thought, and in particular, to the analysis of nature.
	members.cox.net /edremler/Papers/Worldview/Descartes/Text.html (8564 words)

	Richard Davies - Descartes: Belief, Scepticism and Virtue - Reviewed by John Marshall, University of Virginia - ...
		Accordingly, Davies writes in the final sentence of the book that Descartes is interesting to us âbecause he is not the father of modern philosophy.â (292) Framed by these sentences is a book containing much erudite commentary and not a little novelty.
		Moreover, I find false the alleged contrast between a Descartes who is the embodiment of the virtue of doxastic rectitude and the more familiar Descartes who conducts enquiry according to certain rules of method.
		The first is that Descartes was so antecedently committed to belief in a veracious God as to be unwilling to explore the possibility of amputating the theory of knowledge from theology.
	ndpr.nd.edu /review.cfm?id=1283 (1331 words)

	Scientific method - Psychology Wiki - a Wikia wiki (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		The scientific method also may involve attempts, if possible and appropriate, to achieve control over the factors involved in the area of inquiry, which may in turn be manipulated to test new hypotheses in order to gain further knowledge.
		The history of the discovery of the structure of DNA is a classic example of the elements of scientific method: in 1950 it was known that genetic inheritance had a mathematical description, starting with the studies of Gregor Mendel.
		A "perfect" scientific method might work in such a way that rational application of the method would always result in agreement and understanding; a perfect method would arguably be algorithmic, and so not leave any room for rational agents to disagree.
	psychology.wikia.com /wiki/Scientific_method (6203 words)

	Descartes: How is knowledge objective (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Descartes' first proof of God's existence depends greatly on his
		Descartes' second proof of God's existence depends on the notion that a
		Descartes conceives of nature as distinct from our essential selves, but
	www.skidmore.edu /~mmarx/lstutors01/descartes.htm (527 words)

	PHGA 7105 The Rationalists
		In particular it will examine how the “dualistic” theory of human nature in Descartes is adopted, altered, and contested by each of the succeeding philosophers.
		Methods: The course will stress the critical analysis of these anthropological theories, as well as their exposition and historical contextualization, as a principal aim of the course’s pedagogy.
		As a research seminar, the course will emphasize the development of research methods appropriate to the field of continental rationalism.
	www.fordham.edu /philosophy/graduate/syllabi/phga7105rationalists.htm (242 words)

	Hauptli's Lecture Supplement to Descartes' Meditations I-III
		Descartes agrees with Galileo that the "book of nature" is written in the language of mathematics—he believes the world was created according to mathematical formulae.
		Descartes believes he can show that there is one claim which legitimately has this "highest" degree of surety—his cogito argument (his famous "I think, therefore I am," or "cogito, ergo sum" argument) is to give us this level of certainty.
		For Descartes, the deity will provide a causal and explanatory terminus (and end for all questions of causation and justification), but this deity will be bereft of most of the medieval adornments.
	www.fiu.edu /~hauptli/Descartes'MeditationsLectureSupplementI-IIIForPHH3401.htm (9466 words)

	Therefore I am \| csmonitor.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Richard Watson's new biography of René Descartes – inventor of analytic geometry and the man who "laid the foundation for the dominance of reason in science and human affairs" – is idiosyncratic, iconoclastic, highly personal, wildly opinionated, and generously informative.
		We learn that Descartes was only 5 foot 1 inch, wore a wig, slept in the nude, never married, and practiced vivisection on animals, which he considered soulless machines and therefore unworthy of sentiment.
		Descartes zealously protected the silence and solitude that enabled him to think in peace, yet was so restless and leery of the plague that he lived in at least 18 domiciles in 21 years.
	www.csmonitor.com /2002/0606/p15s02-bogn.html (776 words)

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