This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by Laurent Bossavit. Original Post: Discourse on Software Methods Feed Title: Incipient(thoughts) Feed URL: http://bossavit.com/thoughts/index.rdf Feed Description: You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all alike. You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all different. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by Laurent Bossavit Latest Posts From Incipient(thoughts)

...so, in place of the large number of precepts of which logic is composed, I believed that I would have enough with the following four, provided that I were to make a firm and constant resolution not to fail, even a single time, to observe them.

The first was never to accept anything as true that I did not evidently know to be such: that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice; and to include in my judgments nothing more than that which would present itself to my mind so clearly and so distinctly that I were to have no occasion to put it in doubt.

The second, to divide each of the difficulties that I would examine into as many parts as would be possible and as would be required in order to better to resolve them.

The third, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with those objects the most simple and the most easy to know, in order to ascend little by little, as by degrees, to the knowledge of the most composite ones; and by supposing an order even among those which do not naturally precede one another.

And the last, everywhere to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I were assured of omitting nothing.

-- René Descartes, Discourse on Method

In the midst of a systematic attack on the four precepts, I found the following gem:

Let us note in passing how, in the name of this [last] precept, a few thousand computer science professionals have dramatically rigidified the social dialogue... under the pretext that one could not take new data into account "without rewriting all the programs". It took more than ten years to convince them that it was possible to design programs that... like our own reasoning... could adapt to changing situations. I am not certain that all have accepted, and taken to heart, such a change in their own Discourse on Method.

-- Jean-Louis Le Moigne, La Théorie du Système Général

And Le Moigne proposes four precepts intended to replace Descartes in a new (but no longer intended, as Descartes' was, to be ultimate or universal) Discourse on Method. These are (my translation) :

• The precept of relevance: to allow that any object we consider is to be defined in relation to the implicit or explicit intentions of the [observer]; never to prohibit the revision of such a definition if, as our intentions change, so does our perception of that object.


• The precept of totality: to consider always the object to be known to our intelligence as the visible and active portion of a larger whole; to perceive it in totality, in its functional relationship with its environment without bothering overmuch with obtaining a faithful image of its internal structure, the existence and unicity of which are never taken for granted.


• The teleological precept: to interpret the object not in itself, but by its behaviour, without seeking an explanation a priori of that behaviour by some law relating to its hypothetical structure; but to understand this behaviour, and the resources it depends on, in relation to the purposes that the observer attributes to the object; to hold the identification of such supposed purposes for an act of rational intelligence and allow that to demonstrate their existence shall seldom be possible.


• The precept of aggregation: to allow that any representation is partisan, not through any negligence of the observer, but deliberately so; to seek therefore some techniques whereby one may select relevant aggregates and banish the illusory objectivity of an exhaustive enumeration of the elements to be taken into account.