Descartes Vs Hume

Knowledge, what makes it the basis for all thought and how is it collected. This is the puzzling question for the philosophers René Descartes and David Hume. Descartes, a french philosopher that thrives in the 15-1600s, whereas Hume was Scottish and was active in the18th century. They each have their own theories on how us as humans retain and maintain knowledge. Hume being influenced by Descartes devised his own method of knowledge and logic after denying Descartes theory of all knowledge gathered is through reason and understanding, and providing a standpoint on everything we have learn as humans that we are was gathered by feeling and physical sense-experience. Humes argument is a more sound argument concerning logic and knowledge as Descartes …show more content…
This was brought to his attention by the question of “How can one know they actually exist and is not just a dream or fantasy. This drove Descartes to find a sound solution to this issue of existence. He concluded that our senses cannot be trusted and that anything we perceive as a posteriori knowledge, anything that is gained from experience prior to previous knowledge (a priori) can be trusted based on the lack of influence by those external. He came up with this theory after studying the senses and noticing that at any given moment ones senses cannot be trusted and can ever so deceptive. He touches on the senses being deceptive as he uses the senses in his dreams as well and can notice that they cannot be trusted in the dream realm as all that is in that realm is false and a figment of one's imagination. He brings us that as he writes his meditation that he could be in a dream unclothed and not by the fire as he is consciously writing his text. This furthermore backs up the lack of trust given to the senses due to deception. He also touches on during dreams that he “is not unlike a prisoner in that enjoyed an imaginary freedom in his sleep and fears being awakened and nonchalantly conspires with these pleasant illusions.” () With all this being said he touches on the fact that possibly “general things in the universe such as eyes, head, hands and the like could be imaginary” …show more content…
Due to the lack of trust towards the senses, the basis of reason and individual experience is key. An important argument to aid Descartes theory is that of the wax bottle and how us a humans are unable to conceive the plethora of forms that wax can make through physical sense experience and have to believe the various forms solely on reason. Descartes in his life decided to abandon the traditional style of knowledge acquiring, such as text reading and writing and try to act on all situations based on what he has gathered through reason and understanding to guide him through those