Descartes Vs Hume

Descartes as a rationalist believes that knowledge comes from the mind alone. During the First Meditation, Descartes came to the conclusion that there must be some kind of evil deceiver that "leads him to a state of doubt" (Descartes 77). Descartes starts out with the fact that distant sensations are subject to doubt and uncertainty. He then goes on to try and cast doubt onto close sensations. Descartes starts off by stating that close sense perception must be certain because we are not crazy, and only a insane person would doubt what was right in front of them. Descartes then uses the dream argument to cast uncertainty on close sense perception because "they are as lively, vivid and clear as reality is when we are awake" (Descartes 76). Descartes then states that geometry and math are certain. "For whether I am awake or sleeping, two and three added together always make five, and a square never has more than four sides; and it does not seem possible that truths so apparent can be suspected of any falsity or uncertainty" (Descartes 98). Descartes comes to realize this certainty because math, geometry, and the simple sciences can be understood and proved through logic and reasoning. He then uses his Deceiver Argument to cast doubt on close sensations. He questions how we know for certain that God is good, and how we know that

The concept of self identifies the essence of one’s very being. It implies continuous existence having no other exact equal, i.e. the one and only. Whether or not the specific characteristic(s) used to define self are objectively real, i.e. physical attributes, or purely subjective, i.e. imaginary traits, the concept makes distinct one entity from another. Rationalism is the theory that truth can be derived through use of reason alone. Empiricism, a rival theory, asserts that truth must be established by sensual experience: touch, taste, smell, et al. Rene Descartes, a philosopher and rationalist concluded that one self was merely a continuous awareness of one’s own existence; one’s substance was one’s ability to think. On the other

René Descartes was a skeptic, and thus he believed that in order for something to be considered a true piece of knowledge, that “knowledge must have a certain stability,” (Cottingham 21). In his work, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes concludes that in order to achieve this stability, he must start at the foundations for all of his opinions and find the basis of doubt in each of them. David Hume, however, holds a different position on skepticism in his work An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, for he criticizes Descartes’ claim because “‘it is impossible,’” (qtd. in Cottingham 35). Both philosophers show distinct reasoning in what skepticism is and how it is useful in finding stability.

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher known for being an empiricist and for being skeptical of religion. Like Hobbes, he was also a big influence on western philosophy. Among his many works, his major writing include, treatise of human nature and enquiry concerning the principles of morals. In an enquiry concerning the principles of morals, Hume introduces his fovarism towards the role of sentiment. He argued reason solely cannot be a motive of any action and that reason can never resist the motive of passion "reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions,"(pg 415). He explains that Moral distinctions are developed from the moral sentiments such as feelings of approval and disapproval felt by an action. Hume believes that pleasure and pain are the causes of the passions that drive our actions. According to Hume, it is the pleasure and pain that are the causes of the passions which drives our actions. He claims that it is the actual experience of the pain or pleasure, not the reason we adduce to their causes that drives us to act.” Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not

René Descartes believed that all truth could be found by rationalization, that it is not that any one person lacks the ability to come to the conclusion of truth, but that we all think differently and do not analyze situations in the same way. To understand his strategy, you must first understand the type of life that Descartes lived. Descartes was always a very intelligent person with a passion for learning. He spent much time studying in school in order to learn about truth and the world, but what he found was that he had not actually found

Rene Descartes, a rationalist, said that each person contains the criteria for truth and knowledge in them. Finding truth and knowledge comes from the individual themselves, not necessarily from God. Descartes also believed that reason is the same for every single person. Descartes believed that nothing could be true unless we as humans could perceive it. He also believed that you could break down things into smaller simpler parts. Descartes also believed that there was a relationship between the mind and body. He also believed that the idea of being perfect originated from God since God himself was perfect. He also integrates his mathematical concepts into his methodology. Descartes also applied doubt to his ideas before he

     Hume on the other hand, took a different approach to the idea of self. He believed that there in fact was no such thing as selfhood. Instead he asserts that “it must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea. But self…is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference…” (597). By this he implies that in order to form concrete ideas, ones impressions of pain, pleasure, joy, etc. must be invariable throughout time. This, Hume states, we know without a doubt to be impossible. Passions succeed each other over time and give rise to new passions, therefore “…it cannot be from any of these impressions…that the idea of self is derived, and consequently there is no such idea” (597).

Descartes is responsible for the skepticism that has been labeled Cartesian doubt. Hume critiques this skepticism in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. After his discussion of Cartesian doubt, he offers a different type of skepticism that he considers as being more effective philosophically. Is Hume right in his characterization of Cartesian doubt and is the skepticism he offers better?

     Hume began his first examination if the mind by classifying its contents as Perceptions. “Here therefore [he divided] all the perceptions of the mind into two classes or species.” (27) First, Impressions represented an image of something that portrayed an immediate relationship. Secondly, there were thoughts and ideas, which

     Through his philosophical search Descartes was able to find one indubitable certainty, that we are thinking beings. We always think, even when we have doubts that we are thinking we are still thinking because a doubt is a thought. Although Descartes found this one universal truth, he was still not able to believe in anything but the fact that he was a thinking being. Therefore he still doubted everything around him. He used this one certainty to try to find a system of knowledge about everything in the world. Descartes idea was to propose a hypothesis about something. For example he might say that a perfect being was in existence. He would go around this thought in a methodical way, doubting it, all the while trying to identify it as a certainty. Doubting everything was at first dangerous because in doubting everything he was also admitting that he doubted the existence of God, and thus opposing the church. However he made it a point to tell us at the beginning of his Discourse on Methods that what he was writing was only for himself and that he expected no one but himself to follow it (Descartes 14, 15). Descartes eventually managed to prove the existence of a higher being. He said that since he had the idea of a perfect being, then that perfect being must exist. His

Renee Descartes, as a Rationalist viewed knowledge as something that we achieve through reason. Descartes begins his theory of knowledge by assuming that nothing exists. By doing this he would have to trust nothing. Not his senses, not anything that he has thought. As a Rationalist he sought to eliminate all doubt and anything else that wasn 't completely credible. Because he found that his senses were not one hundred percent reliable, as he found they sometimes deceived him, he did not trust them. Descartes believed that in order to obtain knowledge, there must be a rational method for obtaining it, and that the use of the senses, or any personal experience was not a reliable source. Finally, in Meditations on First Philosophy he concludes that he is a thinking thing: “I think, therefore I am”. He knows that this is true because he thinks, and to disprove that would require thinking and since he

John Locke and David Hume, both great empiricist philosophers who radically changed the way people view ideas and how they come about. Although similar in their beliefs, the two have some quite key differences in the way they view empiricism. Locke believed in causality, and used the example of the mental observation of thinking to raise your arm, and then your arm raising, whereas Hume believed that causality is not something that can be known, as a direct experience of cause, cannot be sensed. Locke believed that all knowledge is derived from our senses, which produce impressions on the mind which turn to ideas, whereas Hume's believed that all knowledge is derived from experiences,

Rene Descartes was a philosopher of the 17th century. He had this keen interest in the search for certainty. For he was unimpressed with the way philosophy is during their time. He mused that nothing certain was coming forth from all the philosophical ideologies. He had considered that the case which philosophy was in was due to the fact that it was not grounded to something certain. He was primarily concerned with intellectual certainty, meaning that something that is certain through the intellect. Thus he was named a rationalist due to this the line of thought that he pursued. But in his work in the meditation, his method of finding this certainty was skeptical in nature; this is ‘the methodic doubt’.

Descartes is a rationalist about knowledge, so that means he believes that it is possible to gain knowledge through our mind and that we have the ability to know things that we have never seen or experienced before.(Descartes, 1641) He believes that everyone is born with the inherent ability to know two things; mathematics and God. He argues that we have the ability to infer mathematic skills from our minds. (Pismenny, 2016) He also says that we are born with the idea of God and religion already in our minds and that God is responsible for

René Descartes was a French philosopher and also mathematician. His method of doubt led him to the famous "cogito ergo sum" when translated means "I am thinking, therefore I exist". This cogito was the foundation for Descartes' quest for certain knowledge. He explored doubt and how we can prove our own existence, by taking the first steps of scepticism. His book "Meditations On First Philosophy", was written in six parts. Each representing the six days that God took to create the world. Not to upset the Church, Descartes would need to prove the existence of God, and the soul. Within Descartes' argument, we find some important areas. Two, which require focus, are his