【Descartes】If you have a question that no one else doubts, chant "I think, therefore I am" in your mind

In a nutshell

1. A masterpiece that is the epitome of narcissism, but one that I can't bring myself to hate: "Discourse on the Method"
2. Descartes faced his questions alone and continued to seek the truth by chanting, "I think, therefore I am."
3. When you have a question that only you doubt, such as a question about an organization's customs or general consumer behavior (which often become ideas for new businesses), the password for solving it is "I think, therefore I am."

A masterpiece that is the epitome of narcissism, but one that I can't bring myself to hate: "Discourse on the Method"

There is a book called Discourse on the Method.

It was published by Descartes in 1637. It is a short book of about 100 pages that contains the famous sayings "divide and conquer," which is the basis of modern academic truth-seeking, and "I think, therefore I am," which gave birth to the starting point of modern philosophy.

The reason I read this book was when I was a high school student in Kumamoto, and I heard Osamu Hayashi, who was teaching Japanese at the Toshin Satellite Preparatory School, say, "I consider Discourse on the Method to be my bible. I have read it many times when I have been in trouble in my life." It was the moment when I, who usually only visited the study reference book and hobby car magazine sections, first picked up an Iwanami Bunko book.

I remember feeling frustrated even after I finished reading it, struggling to follow the text. At any rate, there are many unnecessary sentences, and it is impossible to understand without knowing the background of the 17th century (fortunately, the Iwanami Bunko edition has abundant footnotes). Descartes is, in a word, a narcissist who was out of step with his time. At that time, I ridiculed Descartes.

He couldn't find anyone in the world who had the same questions as him, and he would start arguments with people only to be disappointed, and eventually he gave up on arguments altogether and devoured books. Eventually, when he saw that dialogue with books was nothing more than dialogue with the past, he set out on a wandering journey to find the truth. It's a good thing he seems to have found the truth, but from the outside, he's an annoying narcissist. At that time, scholastic philosophy, which held that faith was the way to approach the truth, was the orthodox view, so his difficulty in living is beyond imagination.

Now that I am 27 years old, have long since graduated from university, and am pursuing a career as an engineer, why did I decide to look back at Descartes again? In a word, it is because I am starting to smolder. I am beginning to have questions that no one else doubts, but there is no way to solve them, and I continue to smolder. I wanted to project myself onto Descartes, whom I had ridiculed as a narcissist. For the benefit of readers who have not read it, I would like to briefly introduce Discourse on the Method below.

Descartes faced his questions alone and continued to seek the truth by chanting, "I think, therefore I am."

One of the achievements of this book is that it presented the starting point of philosophical thought. Descartes used "methodical doubt," that is, in order to approach the truth, he questioned the truth or falsehood of all things, and by continuing to reject them if they were false, he pared away unreliable views. The words he arrived at as a result were, "I think, therefore I am."

I resolved to assume that everything that had ever entered my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately afterwards, I noticed the following. That is, while I was trying to think that everything was false, it was necessary that I, who was thinking this, be something. And admitting that this truth, "I think, therefore I am," was so firm and certain that it could not be shaken by any of the most extravagant assumptions of the skeptics, I judged that I could accept it without hesitation as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.

What is important here is that Descartes seems to have reached the end point for approaching the truth, but he shows that it is merely the first principle of the philosophy he was seeking. He sought something that could be said to be completely true in order to doubt things. He begins his journey of truth, starting from himself.

He established four laws, including "divide and conquer," as a method for determining the truth or falsehood of things through methodical doubt.

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 judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of 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.

As for me, I think this law is Descartes' achievement. This is because it shows that the problem-solving method itself in modern times is unchanging. The basics of problem-solving in academia and work still do not deviate from the above laws.

When you have a question that only you doubt, such as a question about an organization's customs or general consumer behavior (which often become ideas for new businesses), the password for solving it is "I think, therefore I am."

There are many young people in modern times who have questions. A friend I just drank with the other day was also smoldering with questions about his organization. When you have a question that no one else doubts, you become lonely. You become a heretic. You lose your support. Your perspective changes. You want to solve it, but you are alone, and you smolder.

Many people also have questions about general consumer behavior. Why is this inefficiency allowed to pass? Why is it inconvenient? Why can't it be more enjoyable? Isn't there a better way? However, it seems that you are the only one who owns that question as far as you can see. Some people may think of it as a chance to start a business.

When you take action, you want words that give you courage. For me, it is, "I think, therefore I am."

References

• Discourse on the Method (Iwanami Bunko)

  ','Descartes finally entrusts to posterity the problems that he could not solve in his lifetime. If there is anyone who has received that baton, it would be Nietzsche.','By the way, it is a difficult book to read, narcissistic, and you are bound to feel a sense of incongruity, but it is a short book that can be read in a little over 100 pages.

• Hatena Anonymous Diary that questions the world "Mysterious designs and mysterious behaviors in the world"','https://anond.hatelabo.jp/20190905230316','Surprisingly, it's an anonymous Hatena, but this article is written about the sorrow of a person who has a question that no one doubts. When I read this article, I thought, "Ah, this is Descartes."

Aside (Recommended Book)

A recommended design book. It's packed with design tips that you can use forever. I use it often myself.