In Principles of Philosophy and Rules for the direction of the spirit of Descartes bring to the attention of the reader several times and made some gestures of ordinary experience that show how the basis of manual arts or business most common techniques, but also study and rational explanation of all human and natural phenomena, there is always a "truth of knowledge" and by that indispensable preliminary. We give a few scattered cases cited by Descartes in his works: cases concerning the use and effect of medicines, the operation of fountains, changes in the air the smoke rises from chimneys, the tides. Not to mention that the purpose of the construction of machines, telescopes (in Dioptrics ), but also the same explanation of the medical arts have become famous among the aspects of the Cartesian system. Making a fountain or a machine is then, for Descartes, the implementation of some basic principles that can not be ignored by the engineer (the person committed the act of manufacture) and in fact the same engineer has to follow step by step to get the order that was initially proposed. Similarly, look at the phenomenon of the columns of smoke into the air or the motion of the tides, is to collect the scattered amount of variables observed in order to reduce the variables to the laws by which they are derived. The mode of production not subject to reflection, unconsciously, a craftsman who ignored the conditions and the effects of an act maker aware of their scope, that is the depositary of the conscious knowledge of a particular theoretical principle prescriptive, it is frowned upon by Descartes .
Here are some excerpts from the Rule V ( rules to guide intellectual ) Descartes
"Any method that is not in the order and disposition of those things which should be directed to the keenness of the mind find some truth [...].
This only contains the sum of all human work and this rule must be followed by those wishing to address the knowledge of things, no less than that Theseus was about to enter the Labyrinth were to follow the thread. But many or reflect on what it prescribes or ignore it altogether or assume they do not need it [...].
So do most of those involved regardless of the Mechanics and Physics blindly produce new tools to produce movement [...].
In truth they all obviously sin against this rule "(Descartes, trans. Com. 1994, pp. 249-250).
to be continued
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