Descartes's Method of Attaining Universal Knowledge

Descartes is a guy who studied one of the best schools of Europe while he was going through every book that he could lay his hand. Also he travelled a lot and observed so many different cultures and life styles. However, according to him these are not such excuses not to be an ignorant. In addition he makes things dramatic and says:

“When one takes too much travelling, one eventually becomes a stranger in one’s own country; and when one is too curious about what commonly took place in past ages, one usually remains quite ignorant of what is taking place in one’s own country”(4).

In other words, he educated well and travelled a lot and he was still describing himself as ignorant. Then he figured out these following 4 rules in order to achieve every type of certain and qualified information on the earth. The rules are:

1. Don’t accept anything that is not certain and plain
2. Break the difficulties/problems/questions into smaller parts as far as you can
3. Conduct the solution by starting from the simplest and the easiest one
4. Review your work and correct it or start all over again

In my point of view, this can be a perfect recipe for achieving scientific information. However, the ordering is wrong. First we should break apart the problem into its essential parts. Then, we can analyze all smaller problems and identify solutions for each and every single case. We shouldn’t start to solve such problems that are not simple or certain enough. We should keep dividing if such cases happen. Lastly, we should combine what we have done and review our work.

Does this recipe suits for every scientific information? Such a question can be discussed by referring physics. Consider Newtonian Physics, also known as Classical Physics. If one tries to understand the acceleration of an abject under certain forces by examining the atoms, that will create a problem, believe me. Because when we examine the atoms (SPOILER: It is not the smallest thing!), we observe other particules that are called quarks.

So on and so forth, this recipe is not the most efficient one. Indeed, it also cannot give any information about non-scientific information. Considers love, emotions.