Term paper assignment
One of the brightest characters in philosophy XVII century was Rene Descartes. He was a great French philosopher and mathematic, a developer of classical rationalism. His main work is «Principles of Philosophy». Descartes accepted the existence of two substances: matter with a length attribute and spirit with a mentality attribute. According to Descartes, matter is eternal Universe that consists of corpuscles that can divide endlessly. Material things in addition to length can characterize movement as well.
Descartes criticized scholasticism and theology and he did it from the rational point of view. Descartes asserted the idea of almightiness and impeccability of mind.
In his theory of knowledge, he invented an important methodological function – doubt. This function is based on a principal: I think therefore I am (philpapers.org). The principle is mainly idealistic but it played a revolutionary role in theoretical and educational senses, because it called everything in question and convinced not to take anything for truth. He wrote: the first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt (philpapers.org) philpapers.org.
Do not take anything for truth if you aren't completely certain about the issue you are questioning.
Avoid hurry and interest in the truth as in a useful thing for you.
Divide every studied question into several parts, so many as you need in order to understand it with all captaincy.
Start with simpler for your comprehension things and go from them to more difficult ones.
Enlighten a question as fully as it possible in order to be sure that everything is clear and nothing is missing.
Descartes thought that the only cognitive being has direct authenticity: cogitation est. Cognition is a criterion of things’ truthfulness. According to Descartes thought that only clear and certain things are real. And in outside nature everything that is certain and clear is mathematic, therefore only mathematical things are true. Because it doesn't matter if we're awake or asleep two and tree always equal five and rectangle is always four-sided. Nature acts according to mathematical rules. That’s why it's so right and natural. It's clear and certain therefore it's true, as Descartes wrote: if you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things (philpapers.org).
Descartes underlined quality difference between rational and sensible level of mentality. Moreover, he overestimated the possibilities of rational cognitively, seeing no common characters between rational and sensible things and didn't realize that the rational cognitively comes out of our senses. Descartes came too close to idealism, accepting the existence of a special purely rational educational sours «inborn ideas». Descartes turned a sensible world into a solid mathematical object.
According to Descartes if you lack certainty that something is true you don’t have enough knowledge or information of it. From my point of view, this thought seems logical. But of course I cannot say in principle that if I don’t have enough knowledge of something that nobody does. It doesn’t make a thing less true in principle and for everybody else. Descartes said: It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
If I concentrate only on my inner world and I refuse to comprehend and ignore everything that’s going on around me, I can say that everything I don’t know, everything I lack information and knowledge about is untruth. But as a thinker and social-active healthy person I accept other people’s thinking and I realize that some people can have more knowledge than I do. I accept it’s possible.
If we accept knowledge as something personal and don’t idolize it, we accept that knowledge is rather variable. My friend and I can have different knowledge about one and the same issue and we both will be right. As a living creature, as a homo-sapience we have to have doubts, because we need it to develop and revolutionize. If we hadn’t doubted anything in the past, we wouldn’t have made so many outstanding foundations. It’s very important to know that everything isn’t constant, that people can make mistakes. When we make mistakes we learn something.
Descartes proposed to start philosophical knowledge with doubt about everting and proclaim that everything that we can see and sense is unreal, including ourselves. How can I prove myself that I exist? Of course I cannot doubt my thinking process, that’s why every knowledge must be started with realizing our own cognition. That explains the quote: cogito ergo sum.
But Descartes was too quick in his conclusions because thinking process is the same as any other psyche process and cannot serve as criterion of being. A cognitive process can be comprehended and accepted as for example any emotional process, but we’re not talking about being when we accept an emotion.
I think that we should start comprehension of ourselves not with cognition but with acceptation, because before I accept something I comprehend neither a thing being nor myself.
Works Cited
Gaukroger, Stephen. Descartes: philosophy, mathematics and physics. Philpapers, 29 Mar. 2011. Web. 30 Jan. 2017. < https://philpapers.org/rec/GAUDPM>
