Is our education complete once a degree has been earned? Have we learned all there is to know? Can we be sure of what we have come to know? Only a completely self-assured person might answer yes to these questions, but for Rene Descartes (1596-1650) the completion of his formal education left him feeling and thinking he was still ignorant about the certainties of human experience and existence. This prominent Renaissance philosopher conquered the world of uncertainty in a work written in the 17th century. Mr. Descartes', Discourse on Method, quelled the skeptics with the assertion, "I think, therefore I am". Most important to Descartes, however, was the method for which he was able to arrive at this axiom. The philosopher, Descartes, hoped to establish a universal method, a tremendous goal, if achieved.The Renaissance era cultivated rational thought, science, and mathematics as the eminent forms of seeking knowledge. The working definition of knowledge that he uses is knowledge, which is unchanging, stable through time. Descartes was a man of his culture and his times. The method Mr. Descartes sought would have to be inclusive of a rational methodology. Influential to Mr. Descartes methodology was mathematics. The rational process of mathematics revealed certain axioms. His goal was to achieve a universal methodology to attain or know certain truths. Seeking a universal methodology was a very ambitious undertaking, because universal means that which is true for all men at all times. Thus, Rene Descartes was involved in a challenging pursuit.Mr. Descartes method was established upon the foundation of four rules, a type of mathematical model for the acquisition of self-evident truths. Following a methodical line of thought Descartes discovered a philosophical model to work with. The first step was to doubt everything that was not "evidently so' to him. Only know that which is "clearly and distinctly to my mind". Secon...
