Regels om richting te geven aan het verstand

De eerste publicatie van Regels om richting te geven aan het verstand verscheen in het Nederlands in 1684. Descartes scheef dit stuk echter al rond 1628, maar pas na zijn dood kwam het weer boven water, tijdens een inventaris van zijn werken kort na zijn dood in 1650. De eerste Latijnse versie, getiteld Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, werd pas gepubliceerd in 1701. De Regels hoorden eigenlijk te bestaan uit drie sets van twaalf regels, maar het manuscript bleek incompleet. Van regels negentien tot eenentwintig wordt geen beschrijving gegeven en de regels tweeëntwintig tot zesendertig ontbreken volledig.

Inhoud

De eerst twaalf regels behandelen Descartes' wetenschappelijke methode. Hij pleit, net als in zijn werk, Verhandeling over de methode, dat men moet vertrouwen op menselijke intuïtie en deductie. Ook raad hij het af om te speculeren over te complexe onderwerpen, omdat complexe conclusies ook meer ruimte over laten voor twijfel. Het tweede deel behandeld zogenoemde 'perfect begrepen problemen'. Dit zijn problemen waar het onderwerp helder is en kan worden behandeld door middel van (wiskundige) vergelijkingen. Het laatste deel van het boekje zou gericht zijn op 'imperfect begrepen problemen'. Bij een dergelijke discussie resulteert de veelheid van de beschikbare data in betwijfelbare conclusies en methoden, zoals vaak het geval is bij de empirische wetenschappen. Descartes wilde uitleggen hoe ook deze discussies gereduceerd kunnen worden naar simpele onbetwijfelbare vergelijkingen.

De Regels

Regel I

"The aim of our studies should be to direct the mind with a view to forming true and sound judgements about whatever comes before it."

Regel II

"We should attend only to those objects of which our minds seem capable of having certain and indubitable cognition."

Regel III

"Concerning objects proposed for study we ought to investigate what we can clearly and evidently intuit or deduce with certainty, and not what other people have thought or what we ourselves conjecture. For knowledge can be attained in no other way."

Regel IV

"We need a method if we are to investigate the truth of things."

Regel V

"The whole method consists entirely in the ordering and arranging of the objects on which we must concentrate our mind's eye if we are to discover the truth. We shall be following this method exactly if we first reduce complicated and obscure propositions step by step to simpler ones, and then, starting with the intuition of the simplest ones of all, try to ascend through the same steps to a knowledge of all the rest."

Regel VI

"In order to distinguish the simplest things from those that are complicated and to set them out in an orderly manner, we should attend to what is most simple in each series of things in which we have directly deduced some truths from others, and should observe how all the rest are more, or less, or equally removed from the simplest."

Regel VII

"In order to make our knowledge complete, every single thing relating to our undertaking must be surveyed in a continuous and wholly uninterpreted sweep of thought, and be included in a sufficient and well ordered enumeration."

Regel VIII

"If in the series of things to be examined we come across something which our intellect is unable to intuit sufficiently well, we must stop at that point, and refrain from the superfluous task of examining the remaining items."

Regel IX

"We must concentrate our mind's eye totally upon the most insignificant and easiest of matters, and dwell on them long enough to acquire the habit of intuiting the truth distinctly and clearly."

Regel X

"In order to acquire discernment we should exercise our intelligence by investigating what others have already discovered, and methodically survey even the most insignificant products of human skill, especially those which display or presuppose order."

Regel XI

"If, after intuiting a number of simple propositions, we deduce something else from them, it is useful to run through them in a continuous and completely uninterrupted train of thought, to reflect on their relations to one another, and to form a distinct and, as far as possible, simultaneous conception of several of them. For in this way our knowledge becomes much more certain, and our mental capacity is enormously increased."

Regel XII

"Finally we must make use of all the aids which intellect, imagination, sense-perception, and memory afford in order, firstly, to intuit simple propositions distinctly; secondly, to combine correctly the matters under investigation with what we already know, so that they too may be known; and thirdly, to find out what things should be compared with each other so that we make the most thorough use of all our human powers."

Regel XIII

"If we perfectly understand a problem we must abstract it from every superfluous conception, reduce it to its simplest terms and, by means of an enumeration, devide it up into the smallest possible parts."

Regel XIV

"The problem should be re-expressed in terms of the real extension of bodies and should be pictured in our imagination entirely by means of bare figures. Thus it will be perceived much more distinctly by our intellect."

Regel XV

"It is generally helpful if we draw these figures and display them before our external senses. In this way it will be easier for us to keep our mind alert."

Regel XVI

"As for things which do not require the immediate attention of the mind, however necessary they may be for the conclusion, it is better to represent them by very concise symbols rather than by complete figures. It will thus be impossible for our memory to go wrong, and our mind will not be distracted by having to retain these while it is taken up with deducing other matters."

Regel XVII

"We should make a direct survey of the problem to be solved disregarding the fact that some of its terms are known and others are unknown, and intuiting, through a train of sound reasoning, de dependence of one term on another."

Regel XVIII

"For this purpose only four operations are required: addition, substraction, multiplication and division. The latter two operations should seldom be employed here, for they may lead to needless complication, and they can be carried out more easily later."

Regel XIX

"Using this method of reasoning, we must try to find as many magnitudes, expressed in two different ways, as there are unknown terms, which we treat as known in order to word out the problem in the direct way. That will give us many comparisons between two equal terms."

Regel XX

"Once we have found the equations, we must carry out the operations which we have left aside, never using multiplication when division is in order."

Regel XXI

"If there are many equations of this sort, they should all be reduced to a single one, to the equation whose terms occupy fewer places in the series of magnitudes which are in continued proportion, i.e. the series in which the order of the terms is to be arranged."

Bronvermelding

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