introduction to the method
https://gyazo.com/e9c8444fc34b944802a13aae8a9b0695
Written in French in 1637.
'Of methods (Introduction to Methods) for the right guidance of reason and the search for truth in learning.' Plus its attempts at refractive optics, meteorology, and geometry."
The philosophical considerations will be summarized later in "consideration", but this book tells the story of how the ideas came to be. It is divided into six parts
Part 2
It begins, "At that time I was in Germany."
Four Rules
I don't accept anything as true except what I obviously accept as true.
Divide difficult questions into small parts
Start with the simplest problem and move on to the most complex one step at a time
Review the whole thing and be sure you haven't missed anything.
Part 3
Three maxims
Follow the laws and customs of the country
No matter how dubious the opinion, once you make up your mind, follow it consistently.
When you are lost in the woods, you can't go if you stay put, or if you go this way and that way. Once you have decided on a direction, keep going in accordance with that decision. Do not change direction without a good reason.
Overcome yourself rather than fate. Change your own desires rather than the world order.
Only our ideas are within our power.
And then we're off on our journey.
Part 4
A story about discarding doubtful things in order to consider whether there is such a thing as "truth.
Sense is doubtful.
The argument is dubious.
Let's assume that anything indistinguishable from a dream is a fallacy.
Even if you are that skeptical, you can't deny that there is a "thinking entity".
If I just stop thinking about it, any reason to believe I ever existed will cease."
The concept of "soul" as the subject of this thinking, and the concept of "God" as the basis of that reasoning.
Trying to use the senses to understand this concept is like trying to use the eyes to hear a sound
Human beings are not perfect because they have doubts, but they think of something more perfect, and this must have been learned from something more perfect, which creates a more perfect concept of existence than the "human soul" by the logic of saying
Part 6
I wrote about these things three years ago, when one opinion of natural science by Galileo was repudiated by a religious tribunal." I don't think there was any particularly damaging content," he begins to the effect that
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