IL EST RENE! His Discourse on Method {Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason in the Search for Truth in the Sciences} is the masterstroke. This is the foundation of modern thought ~ the beginning of the process of enlightened thinking. Clear the table and start from the bottom. Here are the 4 Precepts:
"The first was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of methodic doubt.
The second, to divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.
The third, to conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.
And the last, in every case to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general, that I might be assured that nothing was omitted."
... and so, all scientific method, all rational thought, all problem solving around us, all machines working for us, and the awareness of such as it's happening, is living in the Cartesian World. Monsieur Descartes was 4 ft. 8, and a first-rate fencer.
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