Christopher Alexander on Descartes

Christopher Alexander has the following to say about René Descartes in The Nature of Order, Book One: The Phenomenon of Life (italics in the original text):

…Descartes not only invented the method of observation which in effect we have continued to use unchanged for several hundred years, but that in addition he saw clearly what it would bring. Back in 1641 he effectively foretold the modern history of science.

I should like to call the Cartesian method the first method of observation that allows us to find agreement about the world. … It has become, in effect, the only way in which we obtain objective information about the world.

I believe that what I have described … may be thought of as a second method of observation. If I am right about its power, it might one day seem comparable in value to the first method — and complementary to it.

The first method has helped us to find out how the world works in the machine-like sense. … [The second method of observation] may perhaps bring us to the doorstep of another kind of world, in which we see, feel, become aware of a second layer of existence, beyond the mechanistic view of science and technology: a layer…which is, also, the basis of our emotional and spiritual relation to the world.

The fact that, like the first method of observation, the second method gives insights about objective truth, in the real structure of the world, is highly significant. It means that aspects of beauty, the nature of life, the deeper aspects of our existence…may become visible truths. … That could be, I believe, the long-term result of the method of observation which I have sketched out here.

It is necessary to understand that there is no choice required between the method of Descartes and the method which I have defined here. The two methods are consistent with one another. In any situation where the relevant facts have to do with things that can be viewed in a machine-like fashion, the method of Descartes is best. Pretend the unknown thing is a machine, and find a model which represents its behavior. But in any situation where the relative wholeness of different systems is the most relevant issue, the the method of Descartes, by itself, will not work. In such a case, the method which I have described must be used as well.

—Christopher Alexander, The Nature of Order, Book One: The Phenomenon of Life, pp. 368–69.

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Christopher Alexander on Observation