René Descartes

In Meditations on First Philosophy Rene Descartes attempts to reconcile a Christian metaphysics with a new epistemology contrary to the scholastic, Aristotelian worldview. He seeks new foundations that knowledge can be built upon and tries to accomplish this by identifying basic, indubitable axioms to derive more complex truths by. As Descartes had a background in mathematics and geometry, these tenets are proposed alike mathematical truths in that they are self-evidential. He calls these axioms…

out of their way to find the facts and the reality of the situation. In a sense, human beings are on a constant quest for the truth, without truly realizing it. However, two famous philosophers did notice this unforeseen quest: Rene Descartes and William James. Rene Descartes delves deeper into the topic of the truth in his philosophical work, “Discourse on Method,” whereas William James further explores the truth, from a distinct perspective, in his philosophical works, “What Pragmatism Means,”…

Philosophy 001 Project 3: Descartes 1) Cartesian dualism refers to the philosophical view proposed by the French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes that describes and explains the relationship of the mind and body. According to this philosophical view, the Mind and the Body are two completely separate and different substances capable of interacting with one another. Descartes asserted that “[that is, [the] mind, by which I am what I am], is entirely and truly distinct from [the] body,…

distinct? Can we even exist without a mind or without a body? Rene Descartes’ theory of “Mind-Body Dualism” discusses such philosophical questions and claims that although our mind and bodies are synced, they are not similar by way of division. Many questions remain on how “Mind-Body Dualism” works, many of which will be discussed in this paper, beginning with Descartes’ theory and the logic behind his reasoning. I will then discuss why Descartes believes that the mind is indivisible and why he…

Dualism vs Materialism The mind/body problem, the question of what is the relationship between the mind and the body, is commonly seen as a key issue in the philosophy of the mind (Sober, 2013, p. 204). The two categories of views discussed in Sober’s ‘Core Questions in Philosophy’ that attempt to resolve the mind/body problem are dualism and materialism. Dualism is the theory that the mind and the brain are two fundamentally different substances (Sober, 2013, p. 204). Conversely, materialism…

Rene Descartes: intelligent mathematician, original metaphysician, and an important scientific analyst. He contributed a lot of knowledge to the world of math and science; however, he left the world with a far more important vision that this is a world of matter obtaining a few fundamental properties and interacting according to some universal laws. Descartes philosophical development was peculiar to say the least because his arguments did not follow a distinct pattern of change. In other words,…

René Descartes first builds up his position in Meditations on First Philosophy by starting with pushing aside all that we know and learned as it was based on the empiricist thinking, that our beliefs are to be based on our sense experience, which is the perceived foundation of how everyone thinks. This way of thinking, according to Descartes, should be abandon as it is a defective way to do so when learning. Even thinking by numbers and figures are not a good foundation when gaining knowledge in…

1. Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism.is composed of two substances: mind and body. One is physical and one is non-phyical. Rene Descartes views on dualism are known as substance and simple dualism. He believed that reality was composed of two substances, one being the mind which consists of inmaterial thing such as thoughts and emotions. Then the Bosy which existered in the material space. However, John Searle’s views on dualism where known as…

Ramonda Sinkfield PHIL 2010 Professor James June 16, 2018 Unit 2 Writing Assignment John Locke and Rene Descartes studied and discussed consciousness, the self, and personal identity in their work. They had different views on how the self was different from the brain or from the mind and on how knowledge is gained. However, their main concept was rationalism verses empiricism. According to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, it is a study that “rationalists claim that there are significant ways…

Regarding the mind and body, we cannot say that materialism is correct because there is nothing to prove that the mind is not its own entity. Rather, the Cartesian Dualism view is a possible alternative as the mind is dependent on the body and vice versa. Paul Churchland raises several arguments against dualism and in order to evaluate his objections, it is crucial to understand the concepts of substance dualism as well as its opposite, materialism, and how they differ from one another.…