René Descartes

Rene Descartes lived in an era of geniuses. He was born in La Haye, a small town in Touraine, France. He was the first modern philosopher. He made major contributions to anatomy and physiology, optics, mathematics, and philosophy. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes’ first meditation is Meditation One, concerning about the things that can be called into doubt. Descartes wants to show that beliefs based on sensory data are not certain, thereby establishing the superiority of the…

Christopher McLaughlin Paper 1, Page 1 Rene Descartes was a French Philosopher in the 16th century. This essay is will focus on his works in Mediations of First Philosophy most notably the first and second meditations, were Descartes begins his journey in riding his life of deceptive beliefs, and finds a point to build on the foundation of knowledge. Descartes became disturbed with the amount of false beliefs he had over time developed. He set out to (through meditation), to dissolve all…

Rene Descartes, also known as the “father of modern philosophy”, was a rationalist and epistemologist. A seventeenth century philosopher, Descartes quest for the truth caused him to create a lasting system that affected epistemological and subjective turns. In the epistemological turn, Descartes conveys the idea that one must account for what they know before they can talk about what is real; similarly, in the subjective turn, Descartes reveals the idea that subjective experience is the most…

In Discourse on Method and Related Writings author René Descartes explains how he developed his unique and, especially for his time, unconventional reasoning in an autobiographical style. The story of his intellectual development is an unconventional one, and he describes how his revolutionary method had transformed him into the distinguished and ever prevalent philosopher that we know him to be today. It is apparent that Descartes was the black sheep of his class, using other methods and…

Rene Descartes was one of the famous mathematicians and philosophers. Descartes was considered the “father of modern philosophy.” (1) He was born in France in the sixteenth century. He got his education in France. Besides his many accomplishments in mathematics, he discovered “analytic geometry” (2) with a contribution from Galileo. In philosophy, he used suspicion and reason to find the truths. He used this technique to make philosophy as strong as the mathematics. His technique made him never…

the main aim of Descartes meditations. In order to do this, Descartes subjects everything to doubt in order to uncover what is immune to it. Therefore, his skeptical argument is said to be stronger than his positive argument in which beliefs are justified. Thus, the justifiability of beliefs and perceptions as put forward by Descartes lead people to be forced into skepticism. From Descartes first argument we look at those things that can be called into doubt. This means that Descartes needs…

Rene Descartes and John Locke are regarded as the first early modern philosophers. Both were in search for the answer to the same question in metaphysics and epistemology, what is knowledge? However, in search for the answer to this question, both philosophers differ in terms of their answers. They’re answers contradicted, and they critiqued one another on their own propositions. The rivalry between rationalism and empiricism emerged within epistemology. In what follows, I will be comparing…

Descartes was a French philosopher who is considered today as the “Father of Modern Philosophy”. Descartes often fought with the idea of this thing called Skepticism, which is the philosophical position that knowledge is impossible. This did not sit well with Descartes so he decided to write a book called “The Meditations on First Philosophy” as a guide book to the truth. Descartes’ two main aims with this book were first, to address and defeat skepticism, and second, to attain perfect knowledge…

Rene Descartes proposes a variant of substance dualism that maintains the equal and distinct existence of physical and mental substances. Descartes (1641) discusses that bodies are physical substances because they extend outward and occupy spatial regions while the human mind is a mental substance because it cannot extend through space (P.165). Descartes also notes fundamental differences on their activities; the human body is passive because it cannot think while the mind can handle complex…

properties that make a person feel a special sense of attachment or ownership. Both philosophers John Locke and Rene Descartes had contrasting views about one’s working mind. Descartes believes that the mind cannot be identical to the body whereas Locke emphasizes that our bodies and mind are the same thing. Locke’s ideas on personal identity are primarily focused on memory, whereas Descartes is focused on the “thinking mind.” The thinking mind is our way of alerting the body, confirming that we…