Cogito ergo sum

Rene Descartes and John Locke are some of the first philosophers to question personal identity and although they both bring up valid points I tend to lean towards Descartes rationalistic view. The reason we see such different distinguishable arguments is because of the different approaches that these philosophers took. You see, Descartes was a rationalist, which means that beliefs that we form should be based off reason rather than emotion. While, Locke was an empiricist, which was someone who…

Personal identity is the concept in which you develop your own sense of self over time. In a philosophical sense, personal identity theory is asking yourself, who am I, why do I exist? These questions have been thought of and discussed throughout history by philosophers who have searched for the answer about the actions and nature of the human being. The philosophy of personal identity has addressed the matter of the human beings existence and how we exist throughout time. When you ask yourself…

David Eagleman’s Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives ponders over forty different existences after death. It is hilarious at times as well as thought-provoking making this a unique read. Eagleman is a neuroscientist and American writer who has also written Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain and The Brain: The Story of You. He has received the Guggenheim Fellowship award as well as Science Educator of the Year award. His writing delves from scientific fiction to philosophy. This work of…

behind everything we know as humans. Descartes began to live by this epistemological theory that much of what we know about this world is adequate, but there is no such thing as the certain truth. In the movie titled, The Matrix, we see Descartes cogito ergo sum, or “I think, therefore I am” theory come straight to life on the big screen. But there are also some huge differences where as Descartes was a strong believer in and existing God, and the Matrix movie ignores the entire existence of…

Justifying belief and what is knowledge’s nature and scope is well defined by the philosophical stance of “naturalized epistemology” in that knowledge comes from the empirical sciences though it’s application of theory, methods and results. Knowledge comes from proving things. This is different from the classical foundationalism which asserts the need to basic belief from which other beliefs can be built on. This essay will discuss the distinctiveness of naturalized epistemology, then how it…

real which we later find out is not. As a result, this realization has sparked a considerable amount of skepticism in my mind. Nevertheless, one thing that Descartes assured after compelling me to call most forms of existence into question - Cogito Ergo Sum. Descartes’ theory, “I think, therefore I am”, is his belief that he can doubt anything but his own existence in view of the fact that any thought you have proves that you exist (Warburton, 51). He was sure that he was doubting and because of…

For example, something which we perceive with our eyes must be rationalised by our thoughts. His famous dictum, cogito ergo sum, is a conclusion reached as obvious and necessary, not inferred from experience. This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. For us to accept and understand “knowledge” we must first accept…

off by confessing that he had come to doubt all of his previous knowledge. But later he then overcomes this doubt and using the Rules for the Direction of the Mind, he solves one of the world's biggest philosophical verbalizations of all time, Cogito ergo sum which translates to “I think, therefore I exist”. Rene Descartes founded this idea when he threw all his existing beliefs out of the window. That an evil force was making him believe in false ideas. After a while, Rene Descartes then went…

something I liked about Descartes is he knows one thing is real; himself. He says in Meditation II, “I am certain that I am; and hense I must be careful that I do not imprudely take some other object in place of myself.” This concept was know as Cogito Ergo Sum, which basically says that for him to be asking questions about the nature of his own existence it means something must exist in order to do that mentally. Descartes and Plato were two philosophers i truly enjoyed a lot. Keep in mind,…

Cogito ergo sum is perhaps the birth of the modern philosophical movement for multiple reasons. The famous phrase of Descartes’ when translated means, I think, therefore, I am, and was the first of a series of logical proofs that Descartes made to help prove his own existence. Up until this time, the history of modern philosophy had relied on arguments about or involving God. Descartes is credited with writing ““Meditations” as the rejection of medieval ways of thinking and the invention of the…