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Literary notes about Method (AI summary)

The term "method" in literature is used in a multitude of ways that often go beyond its technical or scientific meaning. Authors routinely employ it to denote not just a systematic procedure or technique—as seen when Descartes’s method is invoked to establish identity [1] or when Socrates’s dialectic method is highlighted [2]—but also to convey more metaphorical or thematic notions. For example, Proust uses “method” to describe an interpretative approach to art [3], while writers like John Dewey and Arthur Conan Doyle extend its application to educational practices [4, 5] and investigative processes. In other cases, method carries connotations of practical action or unique style—whether it’s breaking objects in a less cruel manner [6] or even suggesting an idiosyncratic way of living [7]. Thus, in literature “method” becomes a flexible concept, representing structured inquiry, philosophical reflection, and distinct personal or cultural practices, a versatility evidenced throughout diverse works from Plato to modern narratives.
  1. In order, therefore, that I may know that I exist, I resort to Descartes's method: "I think, therefore I am."
    — from The World I Live In by Helen Keller
  2. Socrates, an Athenian philosopher (469-399 B.C.), founder of the dialectic method.
    — from Meditations by Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius
  3. It must be admitted that the results of this method of interpreting the art of making presents were not always happy.
    — from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
  4. Education through occupations consequently combines within itself more of the factors conducive to learning than any other method.
    — from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
  5. By the method of exclusion, I had arrived at this result, for no other hypothesis would meet the facts.
    — from A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
  6. The method of breaking them was less cruel and much more amusing.
    — from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant
  7. His method of life was commonly this.
    — from The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete by Suetonius

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