René Descartes

René Descartes’ dream argument supports his overarching argument for hyperbolic doubt, described in his Meditations on First Philosophy. The dream argument questions one’s perceptions, conscious and unconscious, and how one determines what is true and what is false. He does this by comparing experiences while awake or dreaming. Descartes continues on that since one also cannot tell the difference between what is a dream and what is real life, our perceptions could overall be false, and “assumes…

Are mind and body essentially different? [Descartes, Conway, Cavendish] In 17th century philosophy, the mind-body issue surfaced many circulating viewpoints as to what the real relationship between the mind and the physical world is. This continuing dilemma brings up questions that have ongoing answers regarding if the mind and body are two substances or not, and how exactly the mind and body are related to each other. I am choosing to take a monist standpoint in this paper, expressing that…

The search for the truth of the world has been a highly debatable topic for many philosophers. The concept of ‘substance’ have differed throughout the years, as many philosophers have established contrasting perspectives on it. G.W Leibniz and John Locke were two prominent philosophers whose discussions offered a very unique lens to the the question of what is substance. This essay will focus on philosophers, Leibniz and Locke, and their contrasting perspectives on the concept of substance.…

psychologically opposed to what contrasts our own opinions, humans are also biologically developed to be apprehensive of what is unknown or different. Recent studies in neuroscience have proven that humans are emotional beings, rather rational, as Descartes would have hoped. This stems from our genetically ingrained instincts for dealing with potentially dangerous situations. (Noll, 2003) Daniel Kahneman highlights this dichotomy between instinct and logic in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow.”…

It is argued by Descartes’s that the mind body interaction does interact on a daily basis, on the other hand Leibniz disagrees, and they are causally interacting with each other. You will learn how the mind body is linked and how the body reacts to physically movement from the reasoning/thinking of the mind. It is a dualism, it have metaphysical between both substances. Mind is mental, Body is physical. The mind is not a physical thing it works in the mental state while the Body is the physical…

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…

x Rene Descartes and John Locke, both seventeenth century philosophers, have their own individual views and opinions pertaining to particular subjects such as the origin of ideas. Both of these philosophers attempt to find answers to many of the same questions in epistemology as well as metaphysics. While Descartes is a rationalist, Locke is an imperialist; his ideas come from experience. Locke and Descartes have differing views on various multiple subjects, but both philosophers support…

Descartes thinks that the mind is better known than the body. However I do not believe that is accurate, I believe this because Descartes seems to make a mistake in regards to how the mind and the body are perceived. He thinks that they are distinctly different, and that the mind is better known. This is a false assumption that will be explored throughout the duration of this paper. Descartes famously defended the Cartesian dualist view. This view being that the mind and body are separate. They…

Descartes’ journey through the realm of his mind and his internal exploration of all the things he previously thought to be certainly true, brings him to the subject of the existence of God in his Third Meditation. Before he touches on the existence of God, he concludes that there are three different types of ideas. There are fictional and adventitious ideas which Descartes’ creates on his own and finally there are innate ideas which are present in the mind at birth. With these types of ideas in…

The reading one has chosen to critically analyse is Gilbert Ryle’s Descartes ' Myth. Ryle is attempting here to undermine what he dubs ‘The Official Doctrine’, which is the idea that the generally accepted answer to the mind-body problem is that of Cartesian Dualism, as presented by Descartes in the 17th Century. Ryle refers to the general acceptance as ‘The Dogma of The Ghost Machine’, as the Cartesian theory makes humans out to be just a ghost (mind) controlling a machine (body). Ryle’s main…