Rene Descartes is a drunken fart (I drink therefore I am) This is an incomplete post

That's pretty much all I ever knew about Descartes until this class. I had never imagined myself capable of reading these things, always imagining it the province of higher intellects than my own. So I was surprised by three things: first, how thin the book was; second, how readable it actually is; and third, how much I already knew about Cartesian logic from having studied economics.

We also had the great advantage of having Lisa Shapiro come into class to walk us through it. I have about 12 pages of notes from reading the book and the lecture to get through in order to write this journal entry. But as you may have noticed, I try not to regurgitate the book and the class, rather I try to come up with a mini-essay on it, hopefully using both. And so I will try that again, although I fear falling short on such a large thing as this. But then, that's been the reality about my entries for most of these writers. And that failure is partially the point.

"For it is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well"

I think that sums up why I'm in this program. Hope it's not already too late. But what does he mean, beyond the obvious aphorism? He's clear that he believes that "good sense" and "reason" are naturally equal in all men, and therefore difference of opinion is exactly that - difference of use of those fundamental qualities - some use them well, some (most?) don't. And like many who have gone before him, he denotes that it is this capacity, the capacity to use our minds, that separates us from beasts. Interesting that it's the use of the mind that separates us, not the possession of one, or the capacity for simple thought. So there is a difference among men in this, much like Plato suggested in Republic: slave/free, beast/man.

Part II is where he separates himself yet again from the secular philosophers by reasoning that anything created by a sole author is better built. Obviously, he'd not met the automobile, airplane, or computer yet, but his reference, nature, is, as it was, the starting point. Therefore, God is better. It's not as passionate as Augustine and Pascal, but he's clearly in the same place.

Then he talks about the radical experiment of taking his life apart, assumption by assumption, reasoning that you cannot change the world - only the way you relate to it.... sounds like the beginning of psychology. But in a way, that is what is so radical: turning philosophy inward. Examining the assumptions of self and being.

Cartesian Laws of Analysis:

1) Never accept anything as true unless I know it is such - avoids hasty judgement and prejudice. (Rule of Evident Knowledge)

2) Divide the problem into as many parts as possible. (Simplification Rule)

3) Solve the problem - simplest first, hardest last. This supposes an order even among things that don't naturally precede one another. (Systemisticity Rule)

4) Make specific analysis of facts and general reviews of the whole. This way, you don't miss anything. (Comprehensiveness Rule)

Would that I could remember to think this way in solving problems.