Essays on Rene Descartes

The question of whether we should trust our sense comes to us from the ancient times. Since the beginning of philosophy and thought, humans wondered whether the world is the way they see and experience it. With the advancements in philosophy, such doubts even framed out in a separate field of thought. Many thinkers were very skeptical about the contrast between the world as we perceive it and the way it really is and what role do our senses play in the process of perception and understanding. Descartes and Hume are two of the most prominent philosophers whose views ...

The philosophical contributions of Rene Descartes remain the cornerstone upon which doubt is built. The subjects of Rene begin when he decides to bring to an end the past conceptions through models of reasoning and intellect. In his analogy of falsehood and misconceptions, the meditator alludes to the past preconceptions as he resolves to recreate the certainty of knowledge by only accepting as truth things that he has proof. It is essential to understand the philosophical analogy that certain things must be made subject to doubt. As he begins to question the rationale that governs his perceptions, he began ...

Francis Bacon was an English philosopher, who lived between January 1516 and April 1626. He had other titles such as being a statesman-served as an Attorney General and Lord Chancellor; he was a scientist, author, orator and a jurist. His philosophical works continue to be influential especially due to the application of science. His writing career spanned between law and philosophy in science. Initially, he often wrote to the courts before writing on science in 1620. His famous work, the Great Instauration also called the interpretation of nature was aimed at introducing a new way of investigating nature. It ...

Rene Descartes was a famous French physicist, mathematician, philosopher and physiologist. He was the founder of modern European rationalism. Descartes was one of the most influential metaphysicians of modern times. The scientist was born on March 31, 1596 in France. Since the parents were nobles, the boy received a good education. In 1637, René Descartes published his famous work, published in French, - "Discourse on the Method" ("The Geometry Of Rene Descartes | Mathematical Association Of America"). The scientist was the first who introduced the coefficients of equations, variables, and designated degrees. He has modified the symbols of Wyeth’s ...

Philosophy 201

Which pill would you choose - red or blue? What is more important - a blissful ignorance or knowledge of the truth, whatever it might be? After watching "The Matrix", I think, everyone has asked themselves these questions. What is the matrix? One of the definitions which dictionary gives - "a hollow muscular organ located in the pelvic cavity of female mammals in which the fertilized egg implants and develops. Also called womb." [Thefreedictionary.com]. In technological meaning, this is “a container that can be filled with a material (such as very hot metal) to give the material a new ...

Buddha was a great philosopher. His scope of philosophical thought is really impressive. Noteworthy are his thoughts about truth: its metaphysics and epistemology. It will be quite interesting to compare the teachings of the Buddha with the views of Plato, Socrates and Rene Descartes. However, firstly it is needed to examine each of them separately. Buddha's doctrine has the form of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth states that the basic characteristic of human existence suffering and frustration. The Second Noble Truth explains the reason for suffering is "clinging", "affection". It is senseless attachment to life. According ...

Philosophy Questions

Philosophy Questions

Compare and contrast the views of John Searle and Rene Descartes on dualism.

For Rene Descartes’ dualism is Spiritual; for John Searle, it’s Physical. Descartes believes the mind has consciousness and with that power we can say that the ‘seat-of-intelligence’ belongs to the brain. He also believes that through this we acquire self awareness, but for Searle, consciousness is not only because of the brain. Though brains cause consciousness, he points out that the brain is not the only thing that can produce consciousness. He even states that if ever we built an artificial machine that has consciousness. it further proves the point. He also says that the relationship ...

1. Descartes famously begins his Meditations on First Philosophy by considering so-called “radical doubt.” What is radical doubt, and what are the three phases in the argument that lead him to it? What does he believe is the idea that is fundamentally resistant even to the deepest of doubts? And why does Descartes begin his epistemology like this, anyway? Rene Descartes propounded his theory of radical doubt where he insisted on the systematic process of doubting one’s beliefs in a bid to determine or ascertain that which is indeed true. Descartes, in his radical doubt, advocated for doubting ...

Rene Descartes was known as the leading contemporary scientist of Europe. During his lifetime, he was famous for the mathematical and mechanistic accounts that explored the fields of physics, cosmology, optics, physiology and biology. But merely a few decades after he passed away, his scientific systems were completely forgotten. But despite all this, Descartes still remains one of the widely read personalities of his age; the reason being not his scientific legacy but the developments of philosophy by him (Descartes). Yet the most significant works of Descartes include his proves about the existence of God and further study on the ...

Philosophy

Introduction In many ancient civilizations, it was a firm belief that the sun revolves round the earth and nobody dare to doubt the belief for centuries until Nicolaus Copernicus, an astronomer of the Renaissance period doubted on this age old belief and put forward his revolutionary work stating that it is the earth that revolves round the sun. Lawhead has rightly stated that “Doubt stimulates us to action and seeks its own elimination by means of inquiry, which is a process of finding the way to a new and more adequate belief” (p.495). Actually, people refrain from doubting landmark and well-accepted ...

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What is "I THINK, THEREFORE I AM"

"I think; therefore I am" was a seventeenth century statement that Rene Descartes, a French philosopher, used and philosophically proved it beyond doubt. Descartes was initially in the process of figuring out his real nature using reasoning as opposed to experience that many philosophers of his time used. He is considered one of the first philosophers to explore human as more than flesh and blood (Weate, 1998, pp. 34-45). He believed that the processes and means through which individuals judged their environments as well as formed their opinions justified their existence (Weissman, 2006, pp. 56-9). ...

The philosophy on the existence of God is highly visionary, but also one of the most controversial. In most cases, philosophers argue that a deity and controls all beings. However, no one establishes specifically where the being resided and the true nature of the being. In his meditations, Rene Descartes tries to prove to the philosophy world that God exists. He laid forward a number of arguments o show that God truly exists and demystified most of the views that God did not exist. This paper analyzes the statements and arguments by Rene Descartes in support of the view that God ...

Being versus appearance is no doubt one among the most notable questions of philosophy (Russell 11). Being and appearance takes a center stage because it is a question that, by extension, touches on the two most critical questions of philosophy – the existence of God, and human existence, also referred to as Existentialism (Arendt 34). The question has been tackled by various philosophers, most notably by Plato, Rene Descartes, Aristotle and Immanuel Kant. The question of being versus appearance, also known as appearance versus reality has not found a universally acceptable answer, despite the fact that may philosophers – both ancient and modern have ...

Compare and contrast Descartes method with the approach of Locke

Introduction Philosophical methods and approaches are concerned with describing how to deal with issues such as the role of science in the society, uncertainty in knowledge, cause-effect relationships, judgment in human affairs, and how to describe and measure human values. asserts that the modern philosophy attributes its development to philosophers like Rene Descartes (1596-150) and John Locke among others. These philosophers brought revolution to the world of cognitive psychology by enumerating ways of ascertaining truth from reality and understanding the human cognition. Rene Descartes method grapples with the issue of certainty of anything. Thus, in Descartes method of ...

Introduction

“Cogito ergo sum” is a Latin phrase translated in English as “I think, therefore I am”. The phrase was Rene Descartes’ (1596-1650) philosophical proposition of existence in that he knew he was somewhere as an entity because of his capacity to have thoughts. The proposition has been perceived by western scholars as the foundation for all knowledge because while some objects can be queried if the belong to the realm of imagination or reality, the act of doubting ones existence is proof enough of the reality of their existence (Broughton, 109). I agree with Descartes proposal based on my idea ...

Introduction

Arguably the most controversial philosopher, Rene Descartes’ thoughts have been a subject of debate and philosophical scrutiny in modern philosophy (Cimakasky and Polansky 354). Descartes’ provisional morality is yet another one of the concepts coined by the philosopher, in his quest to attain the goals of his project – one that sought to introduce certainty to the explanations and thoughts that he intended to publish. While the provisional morality concept has been criticized as being vague and lacking in definition, its role in the project is noteworthy. Based on “three or four” maxims, Descartes’ provisional morality is the reason why many ...

Arguably the most controversial philosopher Descartes’ works have raised different points of view among modern philosophers. His most prominent work – Meditations of First Philosophy endeavors to explain the existence of the human being. He endeavors to explain the difference between body and mind through various skeptical arguments. In the first and second meditations, Descartes is seen to be troubled in understanding who he is and whether or not he exists. The philosopher casts doubt on various perceptions that he has had to believe in the past, which actually turned out to be false (Descartes et al 1996, pp.34). The ...

Imagine that you are at the end of your life – your body begins to shut down, your organs start to fail you, and the fear of losing who you are forever. However, a magical company comes along with the ability to transplant your mind into someone else’s body. Who would you be if that came to be? There are many different philosophical nuances to navigate when exploring this question, as it relates closely to the dilemma of the nature of self – whether you are the sum of your thoughts, or whether or not your body actually constitutes an important ...

Key terms

Meditation- a thought processes intended to understand abstract ideas by Rene Descartes Chimeras- By this Descartes intends to mean that all what he thought about his existence is mythical and not true, in fact, it does not even exist.

Conclusion/central argument

Even though Descartes presumes that all what he knew about his existence was a creation of his deceptive mind and actually false and not just doubtful, at least one belief much be true. And this is the truth that as long as he is thinking, as long as he is being deceived, then he must exist, at least to allow for ...

Rene Descartes is one of most well-known French philosophers of the seventeenth century. As most of his contemporaries, Rene Descartes dedicated lots of his time and efforts to studying the way people cognize the world and consideration of different theories related to cognition processes. Descartes is considered to be an author of catch phrase Cogito, ergo sum, which is translated from Latin as “I am thinking, therefore I exist”. Despite the fact that the meaning of this phrase can be considered to be quite clear, I would like to make an attempt to challenge Descartes’ most famous statement and, ...

Arguably, psychology is not a discipline that developed overnight. For many centuries and years, psychology has undergone tremendous growth from the simplest form of psychological ideas to become a science on its own. There are many philosophers who are historically linked with the formation of psychology as a discipline. As a matter of fact, before psychology became a discipline and a science, various intellectuals are known to have contributed to philosophical concepts behind psychology. This relationship can be linked back to the Renaissance period, middle age, and Greeks. In the early 19th and late 18th century, a link between modern psychology and philosophy became possible (Goodwin, ...

Radical skepticism was just a tool in the rationalist philosophy of Rene Descartes, since he wanted to establish clear and distinct proof for the existence of minds and bodies, and found that ultimately he was unable to doubt his own existence. From this he derived the fundamental precept of Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I exist) and from this went on to affirm the existence of God and the physical universe. No sane or rational person could seriously doubt their own existence or the reality of physical objects outside of themselves, no matter how flawed or imperfect human perceptions ...

Mind and Body Debate

Renowned philosophers Rene Descartes and John Searle are having a cup of tea in Descartes’ living room. As expected, their discussion turns philosophical. Each of the two presents their arguments on the mind and body problem.

Descartes: I believe the mind and body are two distinct and separate substances.

Searle: Every time you postulate an opinion I know we are about to start a long argument. I heard you say the mind is independent of the body. How true is that? I applaud many of your opinions and theories in philosophy. However, I beg to differ on this one. Descartes: My friend, I will take you systematically through my quest for certainty. I ...

Is there a strong case for mind/body dualism?

Arguably, Rene Descartes is one father of philosophy who approaches the issue of knowledge and thinking in a unique stance. According to Descartes, human beings have decisive knowledge of their own existences; this is because man is a thinking being. This is where he developed the philosophy of cognition, meaning: “I think, therefore, I am.” Descartes developed the philosophy of mind/body dualism to escape the Cartesian impasse, or, the deadlock in the argument. The mind/body dualism explores the relationship, and mutually inclusivity, of the mind and the body. Certainly, the common sense perspective of body and mind is that both interact. ...

Is there a strong case for mind/body dualism?

Arguably, Rene Descartes is one fathers of philosophy who approach the issue of knowledge and thinking in a different and unique stance. According to Descartes, human beings have decisive knowledge of his/her own existence; this is because man is a thinking being. Here, is where he developed the philosophy of cognition, meaning “I think, therefore, I am”. Descartes developed the philosophy of mind/body dualism to escape the Cartesian impasse. Certainly, the common sense perspective of body and mind is that both interact. This implies that our intentions, perceptions, anxieties, as well as thoughts directly affect our actions and our bodies. Additionally, ...

One of the most shadowy figures in the history of religious experience is Pontius Pilate, who just happened to be the Roman prefect over Judea when the Jews in that province happened to become very upset about the teachings of Jesus. As prefect, Pilate was in charge of determining Jesus’ fate when it became clear that the Jewish leadership wanted Jesus executed, because only the Roman authorities could order a death sentence. One of the more uncomfortable meetings in all of history ensued when Pilate brought in Jesus for an audience. The Gospels agree that Pilate did not find anything ...

Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher who contributed immensely in the filed of philosophical science. He had a distinct philosophy about how people should perceive life with regards to what is true and what is not true. Descartes had a very philosophical way of approaching claims. He believed that some thing could only be true if it could provide for evidence on its claims. He came up with experimental research to ascertain the truth of scientific and physical occurrences. He was always in doubt of the truth and sort to always find proof for the claims. He explored the idea of God’ ...

Introduction

René Descartes was born in France in the sixteenth century in the year 1596 and he lived a full life until his death in the seventeenth century in the year 1650. Rene Descartes is one of ancient recommendable philosophers who immensely contributed in the critical thinking of the society members especially on the issue of passion, desires and soul. Apart from being a philosopher, René Descartes was a reputable writer and he spent a substantial amount of his time in the republic of Dutch. Rene Descartes work is of great importance even to the modern social environments. Consequently, René Descartes is considered to ...