Abstract

Those concerned with heuristic ars inveniendi may find in the works of Descartes— especially in his Regulae ad directionem ingenii — thoughts, the elaboration of which might well promote this newly developing science. Descartes, always sharply opposed to traditional logic, may be considered to be one of the founders of mathematically oriented heuristic. He investigated the psychological mechanism of inventive thinking, but mainly its logical structure, and he tried to encourage and to inspire inventive, productive thinking. His most important findings in this respect are : the necessity of limiting and clearly defining the problem ; the necessity of applying analogies, models and hypotheses in problem solving ; the stressing of the rôle of Gedankenexperimente and— in connection with this— the rejection of schematic ways of thinking. Descartes recognized that theoretical thinking is similar to certain operations of the mind with a playful or praticai tendency, with regard both to its psychological motives and often also its logical structure. Descartes' analyses of forms and structures of thought are very instructive ; he also forestalled herewith later endeavours in the field.