Rene Descartes And William James

Descartes (1596-1650) was a rationalist. He was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. He was born in a small town in La Haye located in France. He attended the newly opened Jesuit college of La Fleche at the age of eight (Hallman 238). Descartes believed that knowledge of the world can be gained by the

Along with individualism, reason was a driving proponent of thinking throughout the entirety of the Enlightenment. Philosophers and scientists alike used reason. Reason allowed these men and women to outline their conclusions in detail in a step by step method that aided in increasing credibility. Arbitrary logic, such as the claim to a throne based on a divine right, began to fade with the rise of appealing to reason. No other writer embodies the appeal to reason more than René Descartes. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes uses reason as a tool to explore his own perceptions. One of the more intriguing examples of his process of reasoning occurs in his second meditation, “Of the Nature of the Human mind; and that it’s more easily known than the body”. Throughout the chapter, Descartes arrives at the conclusion that all we really have to rely on are our own thoughts. He arrives at this notion by first reasoning as to why we cannot rely on sense and then concluding at the simple explanation that we are only “A thing which thinks.”. It is our thought that “doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels”. (Page 10, Meditation II) Descartes’ claim that individual reasoning and

Rene Descartes decision to shatter the molds of traditional thinking is still talked about today. He is regarded as an influential abstract thinker; and some of his main ideas are still talked about by philosophers all over the world. While he wrote the "Meditations", he secluded himself from the outside world for a length of time, basically tore up his conventional thinking; and tried to come to some conclusion as to what was actually true and existing. In order to show that the sciences rest on firm foundations and that these foundations lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes must begin by bringing into doubt all the beliefs that come to him by the senses. This is done in the first of six

Like I said before, we should always know why we believe in our views. I believe that we should always question our beliefs so that we can find the truth, no matter how horrendous or scary it may be. If you don’t believe in truth or don’t want to find it, then don’t question anything. Rene Descartes doubted a lot of things. He questioned his own existence and even reality. Some people may call him delirious for doing so, but like me, he just wanted the truth. In fact I hate being lied to. I want people to tell me the truth, and as a result, I try to find the truth for myself, because nobody will question for me. I may be the only one asking the question, the only one with ambiguity, but I also may be right. We should question because no one likes to be lied to, or misled their whole life. Questioning our beliefs is not only the fastest way to find truth, it is the only

Science in the Seventeenth Century In this paper, I will discuss the different viewpoints taken by scientists and philosophers such as Rene Descartes, Hero of Alexandria, Nicholas Steno, and Isaac Newton during the seventeenth century regarding their explanations of nature or the use of the forces of nature. Descartes and Hero of Alexandria studied and wrote papers prior to 1640; Steno and Newton wrote papers after 1640. Rene Descartes, the “Father of Modern Philosophy” and a scientist, believed that the world consisted of particles of matter, and that these particles of matter always filled the empty spaces of the world.

In one of the most influential books in the history of Western philosophy, Rene Descartes outlines a method mental reasoning, which he applies to a wide variety of fields and intellectual endeavors. For the first few books of Discourse on the Method, Descartes outlines first how the method came about as he was a pupil at school and had the realization that he was not actually learning anything important. He was therefore motivated to discover what truly constituted learning, knowledge, and truth. The philosopher can do this by doubting everything first. By doubting, he can use reason to discern what is real from unreal.

It is fascinating to examine the process by which Descartes took to completely dismantle everything he knows in his pursuit towards explaining different truths throughout the world. I think Descartes came to the realization that he was perceiving things incorrectly in his life which disappointed him. Descartes understands this because he is basing all of his incoming information about the world through his senses. Descartes is puzzled by his dreams versus his realities because he is capable of dreaming about the reality. If this were to be true, how could it be possible to determine which one is actually reality? This thought process seems to push Descartes deeper into question as he begins to challenge other aspects of the world that seemed to be of concrete truth. Descartes then realizes he cannot trust in the knowledge he once trusted in. Due to this, Descartes seemed to be angered that god was allowing him to be deceived. Descartes than seems to take the path towards the notion

Everything else, which he has learned throughout his entire life and believed in, is to be thrown out because it is not known clearly and distinctly. Descartes method and theory on knowledge was well planned and carefully thought out. It is evident that he spent a great deal of time determining the principles that he would use as determinants for judging whether a specific idea was justified and true.

The prudent tone of “But since the tendency to hang on to long held beliefs cannot be put aside so quickly, I want to stop here” suggests that Descartes is eager to build upon the idea that the only concrete thing we know is that we exist, but is well aware of the fact that it is extremely difficult to abandon all previously held ideas and bias. In a perfect intellectual world, a philosopher like Descartes could revert back to his childlike innocence and rebuild his understanding of the world, however we are creatures who are constantly learning and growing and it is impossible “for our judgements to be as pure or as solid as they would have been if we had the full use of our reason from the moment of our birth.” Descartes realizes that he has taken on a grand intellectual task and reasonably sees the need “to stop here” and continue with his contemplation

Rene Descartes most known for his saying "I think, therefore I am.", can be described as a French mathematician, scientist, and a philosopher. He was born in France on March 31, 1596 and he died in Stockholm, Sweden on February 11, 1650. His parents were Jeanne Brochard and Joachim Descartes. His mother died before Descartes' first birthday. His father was a council member who had no time for his family and therefore sent Descartes and his siblings to live with their grandmother (Smith). However, Descartes' father was obsessed with his children receiving a thorough education; therefore, he sent Rene Descartes to a boarding school at the Jesuit college of Henry IV when Descartes was eight years old. It has been speculated that while Rene Descartes

1) In his attempt to prove that there is knowledge, what position does Descartes adopt and why? Rene Descartes claims a position of radical doubt. This position is to doubt everything, because of this position Descartes has certain doubts about everything that can possibly be doubted no matter how weak the grounds of the argument or doubting itself until he can discover a proposition that is logically undoubtable. [4] 2) As he begins his project, Descartes uses three "tools" (or, arguments) in support of his adopted position.

Descartes was a noble man and tried very hard to see things in a different light from everyone else. In doing this he came up with four methods for viewing ideas. His first method is to remain faithful to the laws and customs of his country and his religion. In doing this he first

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher who was lived from the year’s 1596 to1650. He was of the Jesuit background and was a devout Catholic. He was trained as a lawyer and then believed that he could find knowledge from other people around the world, thus changing his vocation to becoming a soldier in the army to do so. He then felt unfulfilled and believed that the knowledge that he was seeking was from within himself. He asked himself questions like: how do we know things? What can we be certain about? This was the beginning of this method of doubt. In this essay I am going to explain how Descartes explored doubt by taking things down it their simplest form.

René Descartes was a rationalist. While other philosophers backed up arguments in appeals to religion, Descartes believed in logic. According to Descartes, all of the knowledge that was needed was within the self without the help of any other person. Descartes proposed The Method of Doubts, which consisted of the idea that in order to solve larger problems, it is helpful to cut the problem into smaller, more understandable sections by analytical questions. For example, it is not simple to give an answer to a question such as “what is the meaning of life?” because it is a question that is not typically broken down carefully. Descartes believed in constructing ideas through personal experiences rather than tradition. Descartes ceased his studies

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