“Discourse on the Method”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences ({{lang-fr|Discours de la Méthode Pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la vérité dans les sciences}}) is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. It is best known as the source of the famous quotation "Je pense, donc je suis" (English: "I think, therefore I am", or "I am thinking, therefore I exist"),^[1] which occurs in Part IV of the work. A similar argument, without this precise wording, is found in Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), and a Latin version of the same statement Cogito, ergo sum is found in Principles of Philosophy (1644).

Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the development of natural sciences.^[2] In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism, which had previously been studied by Sextus Empiricus, Al-Ghazali^[3] and Michel de Montaigne. Descartes modified it to account for a truth he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions.

The book was originally published in Leiden, in the Netherlands. Later, it was translated into Latin and published in 1656 in Amsterdam. The book was intended as an introduction to three works: Dioptrique, Météores and Géométrie. La Géométrie contains Descartes's initial concepts that later developed into the Cartesian coordinate system. The text was written and published in French rather than Latin, the latter being the language in which most philosophical and scientific texts were written and published at that time. Most of Descartes' other works were written in Latin.

Together with Meditations on First Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy and Rules for the Direction of the Mind, it forms the base of the epistemology known as Cartesianism.

Organization

Part I: Various scientific considerations

A similar observation can be found in Hobbes: "But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his share",^[4]{{Relevance inline|date=November 2017}} but also in Montaigne, whose formulation indicates that it was a common place at the time: "Tis commonly said that the justest portion Nature has given us of her favors is that of sense; for there is no one who is not contented with his share."^[5]^[6] Descartes continues with a warning:

Descartes describes his disappointment with his education: "as soon as I had finished the entire course of study... I found myself involved in so many doubts and errors, that I was convinced I had advanced no farther... than the discovery at every turn of my own ignorance." He notes his special delight with mathematics, and contrasts its strong foundations to "the disquisitions of the ancient moralists [which are] towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud".

Part II: Principal rules of the Method

Descartes was in Germany, attracted thither by the wars in that country, and describes his intent by a "building metaphor". He observes that buildings, cities or nations that have been planned by a single hand are more elegant and commodious than those that have grown organically. He resolves not to build on old foundations, or to lean upon principles which, he had taken on faith in his youth. Descartes seeks to ascertain the true method by which to arrive at the knowledge of whatever lay within the compass of his powers; he presents four precepts:

Part III: Morals and Maxims of conducting the Method

Descartes uses the analogy of rebuilding a house from secure foundations, and extends the analogy to the idea of needing a temporary abode while his own house is being rebuilt. The following three maxims were adopted by Descartes so that he could effectively function in the "real world" while experimenting with his method of radical doubt. They formed a rudimentary belief system from which to act before he developed a new system based on the truths he discovered using his method:

Part IV: Proof of God and the Soul

Applying the method to itself, Descartes challenges his own reasoning and reason itself. But Descartes believes three things are not susceptible to doubt and the three support each other to form a stable foundation for the method. He cannot doubt that something has to be there to do the doubting (I think, therefore I am). The method of doubt cannot doubt reason as it is based on reason itself. By reason there exists a God, and God is the guarantor that reason is not misguided. Descartes supplies three different proofs for the existence of God, including what is now referred to as the ontological proof of the existence of God.

Part V: Physics, the heart, and the soul of man and animals

Here he describes how in other writings he discusses the idea of laws of nature, of the sun and stars, the idea of the moon being the cause of ebb and flow, on gravitation, and going on to discuss light and fire.

His work on such physico-mechanical laws is, however, projected into a "new world." A theoretical place God created "somewhere in the imaginary spaces [with] matter sufficient to compose . . . [a "new world" in which He] . . . agitate[d] variously and confusedly the different parts of this matter, so that there resulted a chaos as disordered as the poets ever feigned, and after that did nothing more than lend his ordinary concurrence to nature, and allow her to act in accordance with the laws which he had established." He does this "to express my judgment regarding . . . [his subjects] with greater freedom, without being necessitated to adopt or refute the opinions of the learned." Descartes goes on to say that he "was not, however, disposed, from these circumstances, to conclude that this world had been created in the manner I described; for it is much more likely that God made it at the first such as it was to be." Despite this admission, it seems that Descartes' project for understanding the world was that of re-creating creation—a cosmological project which aimed, through Descartes' particular brand of experimental method, to show not merely the possibility of such a system, but to suggest that this way of looking at the world—one with (as Descartes saw it) no assumptions about God or nature—provided the only basis upon which he could see knowledge progressing (as he states in Book II). Thus, in Descartes' work, we can see some of the fundamental assumptions of modern cosmology in evidence—the project of examing the historical construction of the universe through a set of quantitative laws describing interactions which would allow the ordered present to be constructed from a chaotic past.

He goes on to the motion of the blood in the heart and arteries, endorsing the findings of "a physician of England" about the circulation of blood, referring to William Harvey and his work De motu cordis in a marginal note.{{sfnp|Descartes|1637}}{{rp|51}} But then he disagrees strongly about the function of the heart as a pump, ascribing the motive power of the circulation to heat rather than muscular contraction.^[9] He describes that these motions seem to be totally independent of what we think, and concludes that our bodies are separate from our souls.

He does not seem to distinguish between mind, spirit and soul, which are identified as our faculty for rational thinking. Hence the term "I think, therefore I am." All three of these words (particularly "mind" and "soul") can be identified by the single French term "âme."

Part VI: Prerequisites for advancing the investigation of Nature

Descartes begins by noting, without directly referring to it, the recent trial of Galileo for heresy and the condemnation of heliocentrism; he explains that for these reasons he has been slow to publish.^[10]

Secure on these foundation stones, Descartes shows the practical application of "the Method" in Mathematics and the Science.

Influencing future science

The most important influence, however, was the first precept, which states, in Descartes words, "never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such." This method of pro-foundational skepticism is considered to be the start of modern philosophy.^[11]^[12]

Quotations

See also

References

1. ^Garber, Daniel (1998, 2003): Descartes, René; The Cogito Argument In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved 2017-11-12.
2. ^Davis, Philip J.; Hersh, Reuben (1986). Descartes' Dream: The World According to Mathematics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
3. ^{{Cite journal|title=The Place and Function of Doubt in the Philosophies of Descartes and Al-Ghazali|first=Sami M.|last=Najm|journal=Philosophy East and West|volume=16|issue=3–4|date=July–October 1966|pages=133–141|doi=10.2307/1397536|postscript=|jstor=1397536}}
4. ^http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html#CHAPTERXIII {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528165112/http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-c.html#CHAPTERXIII |date=May 28, 2010 }}
5. ^{{cite web|url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1747#Montaigne_0963-06_212|title=Essays of Montaigne, vol. 6 - Online Library of Liberty|work=libertyfund.org}}
6. ^{{cite web|url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1747#Montaigne_0963-06_213|title=Essays of Montaigne, vol. 6 - Online Library of Liberty|work=libertyfund.org}}
7. ^{{cite book |last=Descartes |first=Rene |others=Laurence J. Lafleur (trans)|title=Discourse on Method and Meditations |year=1960 |publisher=The Liberal Arts Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0-672-60278-8 }}
8. ^{{cite book|last=Descartes|first=René |translator-first=John|translator-last= Veitch |title=A Discourse on Method: Meditations and Principles|date=2004|origyear=1637|publisher=Orion Publishing Group|location=London|isbn=9780460874113|page=15}}
9. ^W. Bruce Fye: Profiles in Cardiology – René Descartes, Clin. Cardiol. 26, 49–51 (2003), Pdf 58,2 kB.
10. ^Three years have now elapsed since I finished the treatise containing all these matters; and I was beginning to revise it, with the view to put it into the hands of a printer, when I learned that persons to whom I greatly defer, and whose authority over my actions is hardly less influential than is my own reason over my thoughts, had condemned a certain doctrine in physics, published a short time previously by another individual to which I will not say that I adhered, but only that, previously to their censure I had observed in it nothing which I could imagine to be prejudicial either to religion or to the state, and nothing therefore which would have prevented me from giving expression to it in writing, if reason had persuaded me of its truth; and this led me to fear lest among my own doctrines likewise some one might be found in which I had departed from the truth, notwithstanding the great care I have always taken not to accord belief to new opinions of which I had not the most certain demonstrations, and not to give expression to aught that might tend to the hurt of any one. This has been sufficient to make me alter my purpose of publishing them; for although the reasons by which I had been induced to take this resolution were very strong, yet my inclination, which has always been hostile to writing books, enabled me immediately to discover other considerations sufficient to excuse me for not undertaking the task.
11. ^[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-works/ Descartes' Life and Works] by Kurt Smith, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2017-11-20
12. ^Descartes, Rene by Justin Skirry (Nebraska-Wesleyan University), The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002. Retrieved 2017-11-20