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The Views On The Senses, But At The Same Time

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Michael Geathers

Philosophy

S. Yeng

10/2/15

The topic of paper will involve an in-depth discussion of two differing views on the senses, but at the same time. These two epistemological and ontological views have been discussed by French philosopher Rene Descartes and Greek philosopher, Socrates. The first view, where Socrates proposes that in understanding knowledge, the senses should not be of great importance to humanity. He instead believes that understanding the world of ideas is the theory that in terms of understanding the world around us is favorable, especially when it comes to learning. He sees it as considerably unfavorable to only rely on received knowledge and empiricism alone.
Due to the fact received knowledge in…show more content…
Elaborating further, he saw the only way that comes close to understanding reality is the realm of his reason, in that the use of knowledge and cognition helped Descartes understand the world around him. He then explains further that with his mind, he is able to perceive the world as it is. On Descartes view regarding the mind, he admits that “for since I have now learned that bodies themselves are not perceived not, strictly speaking, by the senses or by the imaginative faculty, but by intellect alone.”
With this revelation, Descartes realizes that many of the objects in reality, including the senses are only resulting out of the act of his cognition and knowledge. But from where that knowledge comes from, he explains that it is not only from himself, but proposes a more theological explanation. Despite Descartes’s rationalism as an explanation for human perception of the world, he sees God existence as an explanation for his knowledge and cognition. To elaborate Descartes explains further about his existence of God revealing to himself philosophically that “I received this idea from God. For I did not derive it from the senses, nor did it ever spontaneously thrust itself on my attention, as do the ideas of sensible things, when the things themselves make an expression on the external sense organs (or appear to do so). Nor is it a fiction, a creation of my own, for I cannot subtract anything from it, or add anything from it.”
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