Thursday, January 31, 2008
Discourse Part 3 page 14
In Descartes Method Part 3 it seems that Descarte was mainly talking about his life and the idea that living to make a fortune or living to learn something in order to better establish your financial position, was not a life worth living for him. He says on page 14 section (22) "My third maxim was always to try to conquer myself than fortune, and to change my desires rather than the order of the world, and generally to accustom myself to believing that there is nothing that is completely within our power except our thoughts, so that, after we have done our best regarding things external to us, everything that is lacking for us to succeed is, from our point of view, absolutely impossible." The section that I bolded above really stands out in terms of what he is saying, not just because I bolded it, I believe what he is saying is that we can only do so much in our lifetime and spending it on expanding any fortune is a waist of time depending on our positions. We must concentrait on bettering ourselves and others around us while in the meanwhile expanding our knowledge of life so we do not become ignorant of the things more important than money and material things. After a certain point in our lives where we can literally see that there isen't any further we can go we must stop because as he says it is "absolutely impossible".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Hey guys I don't know if you've looked at this part yet or possibly just thought it wasn't important but one thing I found really interesting in this section was when Descartes says "...among many opinions that are equally accepted, I would choose only the most moderate...to stray less from the true path, in case I should be mistaken, than if I had chosen one of the two extremes when it was the other one I should have followed." Ok so Thompson told us the first day to always question... Is he right? I don't think so. At first glance that theory doesn't sound so bad, to stay in the middle so that in the end you're not to far from either side. However, if there are multiple forks in the road and at each you should have gone left and instead stayed in the middle, by the end, you will be so far from the truth that it wouldn't have made any difference if you had stayed in the middle or went right.
I think that you should always plan ahead, so that you wont get lost, and should you get lost regardless of any precautions you took in order to keep on the right track you should be able to make sound decisions on that wrong trail that will lead you to the right destination. In a sense what Im trying to say is that you should plan for the best and the worst meaning that you should seek facts instead of fallacies or keeping as close to the truth as you can without losing your own sense of judgement. I mean you can have all the facts an anything and believe it all to be true, but lest face it , all of those facts were written by other mortals like us so how much can we really take to be true so in turn we need to be individuals and provide our own judgments and decisions.
I agree with Arjan and Descartes it is true that the more harmful and violent animals tend to stay in the middle of the forest but by trying to make it to the shore or as far from the center of the forest as you can you will have a better chance of making it out of that situation alive. You should also have an escape plan as well. People get lost in the forest and jungle all the time so if you are going to put yourself in taht situation you should have a plan on how to find your way to safety. Going into the forest or whatever without doing research and finding a way to safety in advance just in case you do get lost would be like going into the forest or jungle blindfolded at night! It stupid and moronic.
I think you are right asking questions might be good in theory but can lead a different path. I think that is why when we get information we should always ask many sources to get as much accuate information as possible
Asking questions along the way is imperative especially when your lost. I guess the stereotype of men always refusing to ask for directions is true. Going back to the quote from the book I also thought that it would be a great idea to ask for directions while out on the right direction this way you could prevent from getting lost. I think that I may have thought into it too much but just throwen it out there.
I thought that by saying "conquer myself" Descartes could be saying that instead of conquering what the world desires for him in order to be happy he should conquer his own desires to be happy. I also thought that he could be saying that instead of trying to change the world you can change yourself or adapt to the way the world works. If we cannot adapt to the ways of the world than it is beyond our control.
Post a Comment