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In his major work, “La théorie du système général,” Jean-Louis Le Moigne (JLLM) presents and criticizes Descartes’s four precepts of method, to which he contrasts four new precepts. To the method of classical Western science inherited from Descartes, he wishes to oppose a new method based on his new precepts: he thus formalizes, as he himself puts it, the “complementary opposite” to Descartes’s proposition. This critique by JLLM appears particularly didactic and fruitful when used with a student audience and when we suggest that they use JLLM’s precepts and apply them to the modeling of contemporary problems. This article presents Descartes’s four precepts, JLLM’s critique of them, the four new precepts he opposes to them, and then the application to one case, that of information needs analysis. Finally, by way of conclusion, JLLM’s “critique of the critique” of Descartes is presented, with the idea of rehabilitating the spirit of relativism and humility shown by Descartes in his quest.