Jordan Essex

Philosophy 101
2/19/18

Descartes and Diversity

Diversity is one thing in our society that truly makes things special. Through

diversity we are able to learn many different things such as culture, cuisine, art,

architecture, etc. Although we gain many of these things through the diversity in our

society there are also things that may hinder us such as miscommunication,

misunderstanding, and anger due to differences due to this huge sense of diversity.

Through Rene Descartes’ Discourse on Method we are given a very good

understanding of what exactly diversity is and the certain aspects of it. Throughout his

Discourse on Method Descartes gives a very important understanding on how he

thinks the difficulties of diversity are very prominent in society and how he believes

he will be able to solve this problem.

First with Descartes we must discuss what exactly he believes diversity to be. We

first see Descartes mention a type of diversity in the first part of the method. This type

of diversity happens to be diversity of opinion, for Descartes believes we as a society

have the same type of reason, but when it comes to our opinion we are very diverse in

how we come to this reason “The diversity of our opinions does not arise from the

fact that some people are more reasonable than others, but solely from the fact that we

lead our thoughts along different paths and do not take the same things into

consideration.”(Descartes 1). Through this we are able to get a better understanding of

exactly what diversity in humans can be, for it can be diversity in culture or simply

diversity in understanding. We are also able to gain from this an understanding of

how although Descartes thinks most diversity to be a true problem not all of it is, for

this gives us a better understanding of what exactly Descartes believes to be the

problem in diversity.

Descartes true problem with diversity is found in the second part of his discourse.

In the second part Descartes discuses the diversity in peoples works, for he believes

that the works of many are more subpar compared to the works of one which he

believes to be better “One of the first was that it occurred to me to consider that there

is often not so much perfection in works composed of many pieces and made by the

hands of various master craftsmen as there is in those works on which but a single

individual has worked.”(Descartes 7). The major problem Descartes has with this is

that personally he felt like all the things he had been taught his whole life had very

little meaning, for it had all been a collection of the works of many that had no clear

opinion. Descartes felt that all the diversity in how people thought of things left him

with very little to guide him in any true direction, for even in his travels he wasn’t

able to find anything but true diversity in different works. Descartes found in his

travels no true answer to this diversity because even the people of all the others places

had opinions that completely made sense to them “I had learned in my college days

one cannot imagine anything so strange that it had not been said by one of the

philosophers, and since then, I had recognized in my travels that all those who have

sentiments quite contrary to our own are not for that reason barbarians or savages, but

that many of them use their reason as much as or more than we do”(Descartes 11).

This leads Descartes to want to abandon all of this and find a solution to this problem

in diversity “Hence I could not choose anyone whose opinions seemed to me should

be preferred over those of the others, and I found myself, as it were, constrained to try

to guide myself on my own.”(Descartes 10).

 The solution to this problem of diversity Descartes creates is his method. This

method Descartes creates is supposed to help make it so the problem of the works of

many is no longer a problem. It is supposed to make it so there is never any doubt in

anyone's work and that all people will have a better understanding. Descartes’ method

is split into four parts and each is supposed help keep a check on all information

coming and make sure it is correct so there is no possible way for there to be multiple

opinions on it. The first part is to never accept anything as true that isn’t obvious so to

never have hasty judgment. The second is to divide all the difficulties he is having

with what he is examining into multiple parts and try to resolve them. The third part is

to conduct his thoughts into an orderly fashion, by commencing the easiest things he

knows going to the harder things to harder things he is trying to know. Finally, is to

completely review everything and make sure there are no errors in anything. Through

this Descartes hopes to get rid of this problem of diversity. Descartes’ hope is that

through this method and by him getting rid of this problem we see with diversity we

will be able to create an overall better world where we all will actually be able to put

our works together, for we will finally have no doubts on what is actually true “With

subsequent inquirers beginning where their predecessors had left off, and thus, joining

together the lives and labors of many, we might all advance together much further

than a single individual could do on his on.(Descartes 36)

Overall we see through Descartes’ discourse a good understanding of the

diversity in our society. We see exactly what good diversity looks like and exactly

what bad diversity can look like and why it is a problem. We are also shown the exact

way we can fix this problem of diversity and how it can help our society. Descartes is

able to give us some meaning to our diversity and how it can become something very

beneficial to our society as a whole.