ONT Descartes' Factorization
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| But if we are to select those dimensions which will be
| of the greatest assistance to our imagination, we should
| never attend to more than one or two of them as depicted in
| our imagination, even though we are well aware that there is
| an indefinite number involved in the problem at issue. It is
| part of the method to distinguish as many dimensions as possible,
| so that, while attending to as few as possible at the same time,
| we nevertheless proceed to take in all of them one by one.
| (Descartes, CSM, 63).
|
| The final point we should bear in mind is that among the dimensions of
| a continuous magnitude none is more distinctly conceived than length and
| breadth, and if we are to compare two different things with each other, we
| should not attend at the same time to more than these two dimensions in any
| given figure. For when we have more than two different things to compare,
| our method demands that we survey them one by one and concentrate on
| no more than two of them at once. (Descartes, CSM, 65).
|
| René Descartes,
|"Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii", or
|"Rules for the Direction of the Mind", pages 9-78 in
| René Descartes, 'The Philosophical Writings of Descartes', Volume 1,
| Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch,
| Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1985.
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