Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

DESCARTES: METHODOLOGY 175
by supposing some order even among objects that have no natural order of
precedence. 35
There is surely little that is radical or even novel here, and the list is more in the
nature of common-sense hints rather than something offering deep
enlightenment (unless it is specifically interpreted as a some-what cryptic
statement of an algebraic approach to mathematics, in which case it is novel, but
it then becomes very restricted in scope and can no longer have any claim to be a
general statement of ‘method’). The same could be said of Aristotle’s ‘topics’: they
too offer no systematic method of discovery, and certainly nothing that would
guarantee success in a scientific enterprise, but rather general and open-ended
guidance. But ‘methods of discovery’ do not perform even this modest role
unaided.
It is interesting in this respect that, in this passage as in others, Descartes finds
it so difficult to present his ‘method of discovery’ without at the same time
mentioning features appropriate to his method of presentation. The reason for
this lies in the deep connections between the two enterprises, connections which
Descartes seems reluctant to investigate. While it is legitimate to present the
deductive structure of the Principles of Philosophy as a method of presentation
as opposed to a method of discovery, it must be appreciated that the structure
exhibited in, or perhaps revealed by, the method of presentation is a structure
that will inevitably guide one in one’s research. It will not enable one to solve
specific problems, but it will indicate where the problems lie, so to speak, and
which are the important ones to solve: which are the fundamental ones and which
the peripheral ones. Leibniz was to realize this much more clearly than Descartes
ever did, arguing that we use deductive structure to impose order on information,
and by using the order discerned we are able to identify gaps and problematic
areas in a systematic and thorough way. 36 Failure to appreciate this crucial
feature of deductive structure will inevitably result in a misleading picture in
which the empirical results are established first and then, when this is done,
incorporated into a system whose only role is the ordering of these results. But
such a procedure would result in problem-solving of a completely unsystematic
and aimless kind, and this is certainly not what Descartes is advocating. The
method of presentation does, then, have a role in discovery: it complements
discovery procedures by guiding their application. The extent to which Descartes
explicitly recognizes this role is problematic, but there can be no doubt that his
account of method presupposes it.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF METHOD:
EPISTEMIC ADVANCE
The heart of the philosophical problem of method in Descartes lies not in
reconciling his general statements on method with his more specific
recommendations on how to proceed in scientific investigation, or in clarifying