Is Reason Always Right?

Is Reason Always Right?

    One of the most irritating things for a child to hear is the phrase, “You’ll understand when you’re older.” Humans have a natural desire to learn and understand the universe around them, as well as their place in it. Some of the most pressing questions that plague every individual are the large questions of life such as, “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, and “Is there purpose?”. People have sought answers to questions like these ever since they could think, and the ways in which they have sought them are as varied as the people who have done the seeking. In René Descartes’ A Discourse on the Method, one such person becomes disillusioned with the ways others have searched into truth and yearns to satisfy his own desire for understanding. Led by this desire, Descartes devises his own method that attempts to be incontrovertible in seeking the answers to the questions of existence, and ends up creating one that, though useful and revolutionary, is as imperfect and limited as the powers of the human reason that it is built upon.

    Close to the beginning of his dissertation, Descartes says that he was “educated in classical studies from [his] earliest years” (Descartes, 7). He was “extremely eager” (Descartes, 7) to get his education because he had been led to believe that, through it, he “could acquire clear and sure knowledge of everything that one needed in life” (Descartes, 7). He attended “one of the most famous schools in Europe” and “learnt everything that others were learning” (Descartes, 7). Yet, despite all his learning, when he had completed his education and reached a point where he would be “admitted to the ranks of the well educated” (Descartes, 7), he “found [himself] bogged down in so many doubts and errors” that he “completely changed” his opinion on classical education (Descartes, 7). He believed that, though he had set out to become learned, he did nothing more than progressively reveal to himself how ignorant he was, and this realization led him to the belief that “no body of knowledge on earth” lived up to his expectations of it (Descartes, 7). In discussing philosophy, he makes the observation that “there is nothing in it that is not disputed and consequently is not subject to doubt” (Descartes, 10), and comes to the conclusion that anything that is no more than “plausible” is “tantamount to false” (Descartes, 10). However, despite his doubts in established knowledge, he still “constantly felt a burning desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, to see [his] actions for what they were, and to proceed with confidence through life” (Descartes, 11).

    This fire for understanding mingled with his skepticism led Descartes to the idea that, in order to discover real truth, he had to find a way to do it himself. He pondered over all the opinions and thoughts that he had come to believe and how he had come to believe them, and came to the conclusion that, as far as they were concerned, he “could do no better than to set about ridding [himself] of them once and for all, with a view to replacing them afterwards either with better ones, or even the same ones, once [he] had tested them with [his] reason and ensured that they were set straight” (Descartes, 14). He acknowledged that some of the commonly accepted opinions he was leaving might end up being correct, but he wanted to “reform [his] own thoughts and build on a foundation which [was his] alone” (Descartes, 15). So, he decided to invent his own brand new thought engine, built on the foundation of the powers of reason. He combined pieces of three different branches of knowledge—philosophy, geometrical analysis, and algebra—to create a method “which retained the advantages of all three but was free from their defects” (Descartes, 17). The first precept of Descartes’ method was “never to accept anything as true that [he] did not incontrovertibly know to be so” (Descartes, 17), and he became so confident in his method that he later claimed, “I have not noticed anything which I could not explain quite easily by the principles I had found” (Descartes, 53).

    Descartes’ method seems incredible at a first look, and it certainly has some usefulness, but closer examination and thought raises the question of whether it is really as solid a foundation as it claims to be. His method encourages people to think and reason for themselves because it claims good sense is “altogether complete in every one of us” (Descartes, 5). This exhortation is good and can lead to many advances in the sciences (Descartes, 54-55), but it also has its limitations. This limitation can be seen in Descartes himself who, despite earlier claiming to be able to easily explain everything, declares near the end of his essay “the little I have learnt up to now is almost nothing in comparison with what I do not know” (Descartes, 54). If such a vast expanse of unknown things exists, he obviously cannot easily explain everything. In addition, the reaches of his method extend only into matters which can be investigated through empirical observation and information (Descartes, 52). This shortcoming completely cuts out matters that extend beyond the physical, such as God and the human soul. This restriction also leads to a conclusion that preservation of bodily health is “without a doubt the highest good… of this life” (Descartes, 51). There are obviously higher goods than this one if eternal things such as a rational soul exists, which Descartes earlier claims they do (Descartes, 38-39). Thus, his method proves to be insufficient to delve into all matters of human knowledge, because it is at times self-defeating and at other times limited by all that is left to be researched.

    Descartes’ method was revolutionary for his time. He was led by a desire for truth and a disillusionment with commonly accepted ideas to pursue truth on his own and through his own reason. This led him to create an entirely new method of thinking which caused him to tear down his own opinions and thoughts in the hope of rebuilding them better than before, like a man tears down his current house to build himself a new one (Descartes, 13). He created a thought engine that gave him great satisfaction and elevated the reasoning powers of every individual. This method attempted to reach conclusions by combining the best of what he considered the most incontrovertible branches of knowledge, and endeavoring to find results that followed directly and clearly from each argument. It led to new discoveries in the sciences and possesses many good notions, but it also failed to be able to delve into branches of knowledge that don’t rely on empirical information. Thus, the method was hinged entirely on human reason and, as a result, was as far-reaching and as limited as the reasoning it employed. When considering Descartes’ method in light of its virtues and its failings, it brings to the forefront the important question of whether or not reason is always right.