Descartes' Method of Doubt and the Search for Truth

Descartes' Method and the Crisis of Knowledge

René Descartes' fundamental objective was to establish order in a world where everything was questioned. Cartesianism arose as an attempt to solve the crisis caused by the emergence of new science and the decline of scholasticism. Thinkers needed a new criterion for truth. While Francis Bacon argued that this criterion must be experience, Descartes posited that reason should establish this new approach through a method.

Descartes' Method: Four Key Rules

Descartes outlined a rational method as a set of rules, certain and easy to observe, that would prevent anyone from accepting falsehoods as truths. These rules can be summarized as follows:

1. Evidence: Accept only ideas known with absolute certainty and evidence.
2. Analysis: Decompose complex problems into their simplest, intuitively knowable elements.
3. Synthesis: Reconstruct the problem based on the analysis of its elements.
4. Enumeration: Review and ensure that no steps have been missed.

An additional rule underlying Descartes' method is universal doubt.

Methodical Doubt and the Search for Indubitable Truths

Descartes' method implements a process of methodical doubt intended to reach indubitable truths. He doubted the qualities of material bodies, even their very existence. This doubt has three key characteristics:

• Universality: It extends to all aspects of knowledge, aiming to find something beyond doubt.
• Methodical Nature: It serves as the pathway to truth.
• Theoretical Focus: It operates solely within the realm of knowledge.

By questioning whether any truth can withstand doubt, Descartes arrived at his famous dictum: Cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am").

The Existence of God

Descartes' second great truth is the existence of God, which he demonstrated through several arguments:

• Epistemological Argument: The innate idea of infinite perfection must have been placed in us by a being of higher nature (God).
• Causal Argument: Every idea or mental content is an effect that implies an actual cause.
• Ontological Argument: Since God is perfect and existence is a perfection, God must necessarily exist.

Three Spheres of Reality

Descartes distinguishes three spheres of reality:

1. God: The infinite substance.
2. The Self (Ego): The thinking substance.
3. Matter: The corporeal substance.

Descartes defines a substance as a thing that exists in such a way that it needs no other thing to exist. In this framework, only God is truly a substance in the absolute sense.