Introduction (200)
René Descartes was a French scientist, mathematician and philosopher in the 17th century. His work had a great impact on the world of philosophy. One of his well known work is the First Meditation. In this paper he raises doubt against his era’s best minds’ teachings and belief system so against the foundations of what that world was built on. As he says, “I realized that it was necessary, once in my life, to demolish everything completely and start again from the fundations”. He did this to find unquestionable, certain truth that can be serve as a basis of a whole new system that can be “stable and likely to last”. His method is called Universal Doubt.
In this essay I will discuss and examine Descartes’ further thoughts …show more content…
He says, that the experiences we have in our dreams are often really similar to those which we have in our waking life. Dreams make us feel that we are doing things in waking life but during our dreams we usually do not realize that what we are experiencing is just a dream. He claims that we can not tell for certain the difference between our waking life and dreaming experiences does not matter how many and how convincing differences we can found we can not be certain. In this argument he tries to make it clear that we can not trust our sense. He says, “How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events - that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire - when in fact I am lying undressed in …show more content…
What if that the mere fact that 2 + 3 = 5 is something we accept that is wrong in its nature? How could that happen? God would not deceive us as he is good and would not harm his creatures. Therefore if that is true an omnipotent creature must exist who is using its power deceive us from our birth.
“I shall at least do what is in my power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods [...]. But this is an arduous undertaking[...]”.
Descartes feels that he reached the point where he demolished the whole belief system’s basis but questioning always everything does not lead to anywhere so he returns to his old opinions. “In the same way, I happily slide back into my old opinions[...]”.
Thomas Hobbes thinks that our dream experiences can be separated from our waking life experiences immediately. It is because in our dreams there is an absence of a sense of the absurd. He said, when we are dreaming we accept anything, even bizarre happenings without trying to question it. It rarely comes to our minds that what we are experiencing is so crazy that it can not be real. On the other hand, when we are awake we can sense if something is absurd. After waking up when we think back we can see what that what we dreamt of was crazy and
René Descartes was a French scientist, mathematician and philosopher in the 17th century. His work had a great impact on the world of philosophy. One of his well known work is the First Meditation. In this paper he raises doubt against his era’s best minds’ teachings and belief system so against the foundations of what that world was built on. As he says, “I realized that it was necessary, once in my life, to demolish everything completely and start again from the fundations”. He did this to find unquestionable, certain truth that can be serve as a basis of a whole new system that can be “stable and likely to last”. His method is called Universal Doubt.
In this essay I will discuss and examine Descartes’ further thoughts …show more content…
He says, that the experiences we have in our dreams are often really similar to those which we have in our waking life. Dreams make us feel that we are doing things in waking life but during our dreams we usually do not realize that what we are experiencing is just a dream. He claims that we can not tell for certain the difference between our waking life and dreaming experiences does not matter how many and how convincing differences we can found we can not be certain. In this argument he tries to make it clear that we can not trust our sense. He says, “How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events - that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire - when in fact I am lying undressed in …show more content…
What if that the mere fact that 2 + 3 = 5 is something we accept that is wrong in its nature? How could that happen? God would not deceive us as he is good and would not harm his creatures. Therefore if that is true an omnipotent creature must exist who is using its power deceive us from our birth.
“I shall at least do what is in my power, that is, resolutely guard against assenting to any falsehoods [...]. But this is an arduous undertaking[...]”.
Descartes feels that he reached the point where he demolished the whole belief system’s basis but questioning always everything does not lead to anywhere so he returns to his old opinions. “In the same way, I happily slide back into my old opinions[...]”.
Thomas Hobbes thinks that our dream experiences can be separated from our waking life experiences immediately. It is because in our dreams there is an absence of a sense of the absurd. He said, when we are dreaming we accept anything, even bizarre happenings without trying to question it. It rarely comes to our minds that what we are experiencing is so crazy that it can not be real. On the other hand, when we are awake we can sense if something is absurd. After waking up when we think back we can see what that what we dreamt of was crazy and