Technique
Descartes' method (broken into four "scientific" steps including a. accepting only information you know to be true b. breaking down these truths into smaller units c. solving the simple problems first d. making complete lists of further problems) is also known as hyperbolic doubt or having the tendency to doubt, since it is an extreme or exaggerated form of doubt. (Knowledge in the Cartesian sense means to know something beyond not merely all reasonable, but all possible, doubt.) In his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Descartes resolved to systematically doubt that any of his beliefs were true, in order to build, from the ground up, a belief system consisting of only certainly true beliefs. Consider Descartes' opening lines of the Meditations:
Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation...
— René Descartes, Meditation I, 1641
Read more about this topic: Cartesian Doubt
Famous quotes containing the word technique:
“Technique is the test of sincerity. If a thing isn’t worth getting the technique to say, it is of inferior value.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.”
—Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)
“In love as in art, good technique helps.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)