Descartes Essay

Doubtful Dreams As any other philosopher, Rene Descartes was driven by the need to find the undeniable truth. He was very upset when he realized as a young man that many of the things he was taught in school was scarcely supported by evidence, if not out right false (Pojman & Vaughn, 2011, p.487). Therefore, when he began his foray into philosophy, he decided would deny and ignore all previously accepted opinions and build an entirely new foundation of truth to build on (Tweyman, 2013,…

Descartes program of methodological doubt was to doubt absolutely everything. He thought that if all were doing is perceiving how do we know that what we’re perceiving is real when sometimes even our mind makes mistakes. For example, we see things aren’t there or hear a noise that wasn’t actually made or even think we see a family member but it was actually someone else. In my opinion Descartes theory goes very deep into the mind and really makes you think and almost makes you afraid. When it…

Socrates and Rene Descartes are alike in their most fundamental motives but yet contrasting in results both trying to improve thinking but about two different things. One example would be how they each convey their message formal versus informal, another would be their life style and beliefs of how things should be done. Both Socrates and Descartes have completely different views on getting their desired results, and the level of risk one is willing to take to accomplish certain results.…

Question 1: The Importance of John Locke’s Theory of Empiricism in Contrast to the Cartesian “Method of Doubt” The Rene Descartes “method of doubt” arises from the dualistic view that the mind is separated from the body. The premise of doubt is found in the weakness of human sensory perception to see the truth outside of bodily functions, especially with the use of the human brain. Therefore, the foundation of doubt is based on the inability of the body to reconcile the mental processes or the…

Rene Descartes’ statement, “I at least know for certain that nothing is certain” perfectly illustrates the multiple problems that arise when all rational beings realize that their senses can deceive them and that the very foundation of their knowledge is based on the assumption that everything they encounter is real. Thankfully, being aware of the problem is the first step in solving it. The juxtaposition of Rene Descartes and William Shakespeare reveals a difference of opinion when they set…

Searle and Descartes being separated by nearly four centuries provides a rough landscape for a philosophical discussion to be conducted upon. Both Searle and Descartes have inherent biases based upon their location on the timeline, Searle with modern science and Descartes with religion and the church. Being that the two are opposed, I think that Searle is able to articulate effectively his positions and respond to Descartes’ claims properly. If positioned at the same location along the timeline…

Throughout history, philosophers have been setting up plenty of theories to determine if the mind and the body are one. Substance dualism is one of those theories. Specifically, Descartes is a dualist who brings up the indivisibility argument about the mind that has been trusted until science is well developed. Even though Descartes’ argument is well-accepted, it is not strongly supported by factual evidence, and it is easily defeated by a simple question, which is how the mind and the body…

Dolegui Wilfried Nanfack PHIL 2101-(ET6) For this paper, I’ll be talking about Descartes’s argument for dualism in the “sixth Meditation” and “multiple personalities”. Descartes, both as a philosopher and scientist, is at two levels of understanding of the real. It’s back to nature in a mechanistic framework to which the body is subjected, and at the same time, it supports a dualism of soul and body in which the soul escapes the body determinations. In his sixth…

In this essay, I outline two similarities of Descartes and Spinoza—belief in apriori knowledge, and God as the infinite substance—as well as two differences—contrasting conceptions of God’s relation to the world, and mind-body relations. Both Spinoza and Descartes subscribe to the rationalist epistemology which claims that knowledge must be self-evident and derived from reasoning, rather than experience. As such, both philosophers believe in apriori knowledge, in which true knowledge is derived…

In Meditations of First Philosophy, Descartes explains philosophical meditations written over six days. The Second Meditation concerns the nature of the human mind. Descartes argues that the human mind is better known than the body. A major claim of his is his most famous quote “I think, therefore I am,” meaning a thinking thing, such as himself, can exist. In this essay, I will prove that Descartes’ argument in the Second Meditation for his existence as a thinking thing is convincing. First, I…