Sheyla Vera
Phil 106
Fall 2015
Descartes vs Hume
Even though all philosophers claim to have different set of ideas and theories they all basically begin questioning the same thing. From one’s existence, gods existence, and the existence of the soul apart from the body. They all, in some way or another, have argued whether or not another philosopher’s theories are valid or not. When this happens we, as the readers, see the flaws that the previous theory had and then the possible flaws another philosopher might make when argue on the validity of a theory. Hume and Descartes are two philosophers who have argued on how we have come to know what we claim is truth in reference to knowledge, amongst other ideas pertaining to the mind.
Hume’s theory …show more content…
Descartes states that because of this we must break down everything we know and find a base to our knowledge, an unquestionable principal. He continues on to say that because of this we should not trust anything that has previously deceived us and consider what we hold to be true by this. Descartes says that there are many ways that our senses that provide impressions, as Hume would put it, will deceive us. For example, because man has the ability to dream while a sleep, how is that we know we are awake this very second. The same goes for our sight; from far away we may think there is water in the distance on a very hot day but as we get closer we realize that our visual sense have mislead us. Even though Descartes exceedingly pushes that we not trust our sense when it comes to knowledge after being deceived, it seems almost absurd that we begin to believe that just because of one instance when we were mislead. We must have some true knowledge if we are able to notice when we have been mislead so therefore there is now way that point could be validated. Another way that Descartes can be disproven is that if we begin to search for a certain unquestionable principle then how to we know when to stop searching for that first
Phil 106
Fall 2015
Descartes vs Hume
Even though all philosophers claim to have different set of ideas and theories they all basically begin questioning the same thing. From one’s existence, gods existence, and the existence of the soul apart from the body. They all, in some way or another, have argued whether or not another philosopher’s theories are valid or not. When this happens we, as the readers, see the flaws that the previous theory had and then the possible flaws another philosopher might make when argue on the validity of a theory. Hume and Descartes are two philosophers who have argued on how we have come to know what we claim is truth in reference to knowledge, amongst other ideas pertaining to the mind.
Hume’s theory …show more content…
Descartes states that because of this we must break down everything we know and find a base to our knowledge, an unquestionable principal. He continues on to say that because of this we should not trust anything that has previously deceived us and consider what we hold to be true by this. Descartes says that there are many ways that our senses that provide impressions, as Hume would put it, will deceive us. For example, because man has the ability to dream while a sleep, how is that we know we are awake this very second. The same goes for our sight; from far away we may think there is water in the distance on a very hot day but as we get closer we realize that our visual sense have mislead us. Even though Descartes exceedingly pushes that we not trust our sense when it comes to knowledge after being deceived, it seems almost absurd that we begin to believe that just because of one instance when we were mislead. We must have some true knowledge if we are able to notice when we have been mislead so therefore there is now way that point could be validated. Another way that Descartes can be disproven is that if we begin to search for a certain unquestionable principle then how to we know when to stop searching for that first