Exploring The Significance Of Method

Method is not strange to us, and people always pay much attention tothe method and strategy while they do everything, especially in modern times. Themodern philosophers certainly realize the importance of method, which has its roots inancient Greek philosophy. It is not until in modern philosophy, however, together withthe progress of technology, that the philosophers begin to pay equal attentions to bothmethods and contents of philosophy. Descartes is the first philosopher who studiesmethod intentionally. He thinks that philosophy contains all the sciences which form thetree of knowledge. And the tree of knowledge builds in correctly using the humanbeing’s reason. So we should seek for the right method to guide the reasoning.Therefore, whether we can obtain the truth depends on the method which we use inreasoning. Thus, we may understand that the method is fairly important in Descartes. Aswe know, there are two books which illustrate method in the list of Descartes writings:Discourse method and guiding rules. Scholars often research method basing on theguiding rules. However, we are about to study his method mainly basing on Discourse.We will put those questions as follows: why Descartes has regarded method as soimportant? What is his methodology? How his methods influence the latter philosophy?This thesis includes five parts: The introduction mainly shows the significance ofthis theme and discusses the backgrounds of the method. This part also explainsDescartes and his method in latest progress, and explores the history of method inintellectual history. The second part is the first chapter of paper. This part aims atintroducing the Descartes’ writings and his ideological system. The third part is thesecond chapter. It is the main body of this essay and contains five sections. First, wediscuss Descartes’ method in general. Second, we will explain why Descartes writesthis book. Third, we wonder why Descartes pays much regard to method. Fourth,methodology is made up of four rules: doubt, analysis and comparison, intuition and deduction, hypothesis and experiment. Last, how Descartes apply his method in hisphilosophy. The fourth part is the third chapter. This part mainly discusses thesignificance of the Cartesian method. On the one hand, it can coordinate the relationbetween reason and faith. On the other hand, what influence it makes on philosophy’sdevelopment. The last part is the conclusion.