Rene Descartes on this Day in History

This day in history: On this day in 1619 René Descartes starts writing his "Meditations on First Philosophy." He is best known for his axiom "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think therefore I am). This leads to the joke: Rene Descartes walks into a bar, the bartender asks "May I help you?" and Rene Descartes replies "I think not", then disappears. On a weird sidenote, Descrates had a fetish for cross-eyed women.

“Descartes was a philosopher and mathematician. In his Discourse on Method and his Rules for the Direction of the Mind (1628) he laid emphasis on deduction rather than on induction. In the subordination of particulars to general principles he experienced a satisfaction akin to the sense of beauty or the joy of artistic production. He speaks enthusiastically of that pleasure which one feels in truth, and which in this world is about the only pure and unmixed happiness.

At the same time he shared Bacon's distrust of the Aristotelian logic and maintained that ordinary dialectic is valueless for those who desire to investigate the truth of things. There is need of a method for finding out the truth. He compares himself to a smith forced to begin at the beginning by fashioning tools with which to work.

In his method of discovery he determined to accept nothing as true that he did not clearly recognize to be so. He stood against assumptions, and insisted on rigid proof. Trust only what is completely known. Attain a certitude equal to that of arithmetic and geometry. This attitude of strict criticism is characteristic of the scientific mind.

Again, Descartes was bent on analyzing each difficulty in order to solve it; to neglect no intermediate steps in the deduction, but to make the enumeration of details adequate and methodical. Preserve a certain order; do not attempt to jump from the ground to the gable, but rise gradually from what is simple and easily understood.

Descartes' interest was not in the several branches of mathematics; rather he wished to establish a universal mathematics, a general science relating to order and measurement. He considered all physical nature, including the human body, as a mechanism, capable of explanation on mathematical principles. But his immediate interest lay in numerical relationships and geometrical proportions.

Recognizing that the understanding was dependent on the other powers of the mind, Descartes resorted in his mathematical demonstrations to the use of lines, because he could find no method, as he says, more simple or more capable of appealing to the imagination and senses. He considered, however, that in order to bear the relationships in memory or to embrace several at once, it was essential to explain them by certain formulæ, the shorter the better. And for this purpose it was requisite to borrow all that was best in geometrical analysis and algebra, and to correct the errors of one by the other.

Descartes was above all a mathematician, and as such he may be regarded as a forerunner of Newton and other scientists; at the same time he developed an exact scientific method, which he believed applicable to all departments of human thought. ‘Those long chains of reasoning,’ he says, ‘quite simple and easy, which geometers are wont to employ in the accomplishment of their most difficult demonstrations, led me to think that everything which might fall under the cognizance of the human mind might be connected together in the same manner, and that, provided only one should take care not to receive anything as true which was not so, and if one were always careful to preserve the order necessary for deducing one truth from another, there would be none so remote at which he might not at last arrive, or so concealed which he might not discover.’"~Walter Libby

See also Norman Smith's Studies in the Cartesian Philosophy 1903
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/03/norman-smiths-studies-in-cartesian.html

Descartes, Spinoza & Philosophy - 230 Books on DVDrom (Rationalism, Hume, Kant)
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2015/10/descartes-spinoza-philosophy-230-books.html

Rene Descartes and the Soul by John Pancoast Gordy 1890
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/02/rene-descartes-and-soul-by-john.html

Descartes and the Pineal Gland By HP Blavatsky
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/01/descartes-and-pineal-gland-by-hp.html

Descartes quotes:

"The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries."

"Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power."

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

Download: Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio R. Damasio
https://ahandfulofleaves.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/descartes-error_antonio-damasio.pdf

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This is the House that Descartes built.

Two distinct substances, mind and matter, lay in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Locke, who by his experience guarded the substances, mind and matter, that lay in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Berkeley, who tried the Locke, and said that no matter could be in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Hume, who knew only ideas, who doubted all matter and doubted all mind, and thought to demolish entirely the House that Descartes built.

This is the Kant, transcendentally wise, who rebuilt from Hume, who denied mind to Berkeley, who tried the Locke, who by his experience guarded the House that Descartes built.

Hegel this is, who abstraction denies, who succeeded to Kant, transcendentally wise, who rebuilt from Hume, who knew only ideas, who denied mind to Berkeley, who said "no matter," who attacked the Locke, who guarded the substances, mind and matter, distinct in the House that Descartes built.

This is the Royce, with his high surmise, who interpreted Hegel's obscure disguise, who looked beyond Kant, transcendentally wise, who rebuilt from Hume, who knew only ideas, who denied mind to Berkeley, who said "no matter," while trying the Locke, whose daily experience guarded the House that Descartes built.

This is the James, who the "many" descries, who with purpose pragmatic does pluralize, who opposes the Royce, with his high surmise, who can diverse, devious thoughts devise, which in ultimate oneness he unifies, who interpreted Hegel's obscure disguise, who in three-fold thought-forms did theorize, who succeeded to Kant, transcendentally wise, who by categories did characterize, who rebuilt from Hume, who knew not his own mind, who cared not for Berkeley, who tried the Locke, whose daily experience guarded the substances, mind and matter, that lay in the House that Descartes built.