Hume and Descartes on The Theory of Ideas David Hume and Rene Descartes are philosophers with opposing views about the origination of ideas. Descartes believed there were three types of ideas which are, innate, adventitious and those from imagination. He stated since he exists and his idea of what a perfect being is, such as God, then God exists. Hume, on the other had, believed ideas came only from one thing, impressions. Both theories have their strengths and weaknesses but I like Hume's…

our perceptions, and memory. Well-known philosophers, David Hume and Rene Descartes are some of the individuals who searched for an answer and definition of personal identity. Both considered the perceptions of their mind and came up with two different conclusions. One stating that personal identity in unintelligible, and the other confirming that what makes one certain of their existence is their ability to think and perceive. David Hume begins his discussion of personal identity by denying that…

Descartes, Hume and Skepticism 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? Descartes introduced the idea of universal doubt to philosophy. If…

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…

and through skepticism the modern world began. The French philosopher, René Descartes who implemented reason to find truth, as well as the British empiricist David Hume with his usage of analytic-synthetic distinction, most effectively utilized the practices of skepticism in the modern world. René Descartes was the first philosopher to introduce the intellectual system known as “radical doubt.” According to Descartes, everything he had learned before could have possibly been tainted by society…

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 hand, David Hume, an empiricist refuted Descartes conclusion and claimed that the concept of self was nonsense, the idea could not be linked to any sensual experience. Ultimately, Hume concluded that there was no such thing as self, i.e. self does not actually…

The contributions of Descartes and Hume towards the issue of establishing: the existence of God Introduction: Arguments for and against the existence of god have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists and others for thousands of years. In Philosophy, these arguments involve primarily the disciplines of Epistemology and Ontology and can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective. The epistemic arguments place different restrictions on our ability have knowledge…

how we gain our knowledge. Renee Descartes is often known as the father of modern philosophy. He was also a mathematician and scientist. He developed the coordinate system, explained blood circulation and rainbows. He also discovered how the earth orbits the sun. He is a rationalist about knowledge. (Pismenny, 2016) This means that he believes we can gain knowledge through our minds. He argues that you do not need to have experience of something to know it. David Hume, another philosopher, is an empiricist…

Ideas of Descartes, Plato, and Hume The immediate starting-point of Plato's philosophical speculation was the Socratic teaching. In his attempt to define the conditions of knowledge so as to refute sophistic skepticism, Socrates had taught that the only true knowledge is a knowledge by means of concepts. The concept, he said, represents all the reality of a thing. As used by Socrates, this was merely a principle of knowledge. Plato took it up as a principle of Being. “If the concept…

Rene Descartes’ begins to illustrate his skeptical argument as presented in Meditation l. Descartes basic strategy to approaching this method of doubt is to defeat skepticism. This argument begins by doubting the truth of everything, from evidence of the senses to the fundamental process of reasoning. Therefore, if there is any truth in the world that overcomes the skeptical challenge then it must be indubitably true. Thus, creating a perfect foundation for knowledge. The first Meditation is an…