Challenge

Descartes cares about reasoning. He wants people to actively think about what they are doing and have a clear method and steps instead of simply going through the motions that someone else instructed them to perform. He says “…There are those who, believing themselves cleverer than they are, cannot stop themselves jumping to conclusions, and do not have enough patience to govern their thoughts in an orderly way…Second, there are those who…must content themselves with following the opinions of others rather than seeking better ones from themselves,” (15). With this quote Descartes is telling you what he cares about. He wants people to make up their own minds and use their own ideas, but to do it in a way that is logical so other people will be able to understand it. He continues with this when he says “The first was never to accept anything as true that I did not incontrovertibly know to be so…and to include nothing in my judgments other than that which presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly, that I would have no occasion to doubt it.
“...The third was to conduct my thoughts in a given order, beginning with the simplest and most easily understood objects, and gradually ascending…to the knowledge of the most complex…” (17). This makes it clear that Descartes cares about thinking for yourself, but documenting your steps in a way that will allow others to go back and follow what you have done and recreate it. Descartes wants people to challenge what they accept as true and try to come up with an alternative, as long as it is well documented.