I recently found a website that gives people access to some of the works of Rene Descarte, so I began reading, what is perhaps his most famous book, "Discourse on the method of rightly conducting reason and seeking truth in the sciences". It's a good read, but in truth, a little long winded. Not to say that Descarte should have written it any other way, because perhaps if he wrote it in any other words except those he used, the world might not have understood the genius that was Descarte. And while I would love to regale everyone with a brief summary of "the discourse", there is no brief summary that does it justice, so I won't even attempt to paraphrase Descarte. As a matter of fact, any attempt of mine to paraphrase his work with the intention of lecturing would be presumptous and smug. Instead, I'll 'make kwento' one of the methods of getting ones point across that Descarte, to me, seems to have mastered.

He opens with his explanation of how he believes that all men are created equally, in the respect that our minds are all of equally good sense. He continues then, to write about how he, Rene Descarte (THE RENE DESCARTE!!!), believes himself to be of mediocre intellect as far as natural ability goes, but justifies this by saying that he has merely had the good fortune of being a diligently academic and scholarly man, who just so happens to fall into the right place at the right time, with the right education and the right friends, so that he now has the right 'track of mind'. He also talks briefly about how he believes, and hopes that he is correct in saying that he has involved himself in among the most important occupations in the world. (I agree) He continues his train of thought by going on to say that (here's the genius. ready?) his book is not written with the intent of lecturing people on the correct way to conduct their reason, because in doing so, he would have subjected himself to heavy criticism and loss of credibility in the event that his philosophy is proven wrong in the future. So what then are we reading this book for? Descarte describes his book as a mere history of what he has found thus far, to be true, and he hopes that although there are many potential errors in his story, there may be a few things he got right.

Rene Descarte, thy name is genius! My God, through the use of humility, this man has absolved himself from any and all possible blame in the future! He humbles himself slightly, by bowing his head, but by that simple move, he has increased the credibility and usability of his work and ideas exponentially. shit. talk about clever..

I've found my new Idol.. step aside Kant.. poppas got a brand new BIRD. (HUH?)