Different people analyze different situations differently and reach to different conclusions. In supporting his idea he further argued that the senses should not be trusted because people get fooled by their sense. This is due to the reason that many variables affect a person's way of looking and perceiving an event. That's why different people experience same event in different ways.
I do agree with Descartes on this point but at the same time it is also true that majority of the people look at a particular situation in a similar way and reach to similar accurate conclusions. For instance, considering the example of road accident again, if 20 persons watch an accident then majority of them can point out who was responsible for the accident. All of these people view same situation from their own perspective but reach to almost similar conclusion. Therefore it cannot be said that the senses completely fool the person and give him/her wrong information.
Descartes was a complete rationalist and I do not totally agree with him because I believe that a lot can learn from observation and experience. The interpretation of situations or events from mind is another variable but cannot be taken the way Descartes has claimed. I believe that rationalism is an ideal situation or our imagination and it is almost impossible to reach at a pure state of total rationalism. This is due to the reason that our conclusions are based on the imperfect perceptions. Imperfect perfections are because of the subjectivity and it is not possible to separate the subjectivity from our logic, thinking and perception. We have to take into consideration the subjectivity and we can never believe something to be completely 100% true until and unless we see it.
Descartes also confirmed that he is a rationalist by giving wax theory. He explained that a person can rely on someone else's senses of perception by giving example of a candle. The original candle has a unique shape but when it is burned and...
Sensory experiences are nor reliable for making any statements, since people often mistake one thing for another. (Descartes talks about mirages). Knowledge based on reasoning is not always trustworthy, because people often make mistakes. (adding numbers is a classical example). Finally, knowledge is deemed by Descartes to be illusory, since it may come from dreams or insanity or from demons able to deceive men by making them believe that
For Descartes, the individual is capable of thinking beyond the physical and real, and this can be done by arguing based on pure reason. His version of "truths" about human existence and other universal truths about life can be generated from human reason alone, in the same manner in which he proved his existence as a result of his belief that he is "persuaded" that he exists. That is,
Descartes' famous maxim "I; I "? Why statement fundamental method? (3-4 Paragraphs) Describe Newton's method. How arrive conclusions? (3-4Paragraphs) Describe views John Locke: state nature, social contract, revolution, govern, property rights. Q1.Descartes Descartes began his famous series of Meditations with a resolution to doubt everything: this kind of hyperbolic skepticism was used to advance his use of the deductive approach to philosophy. Descartes was fundamentally a rationalist, and believed that truth
Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz are often accurately portrayed as the key figures representing the Continental rationalism. Continental rationalism is characterized by a belief that truth can be deduced from human reason, and that certain innate, or self-evident ideas form the basis for such knowledge. In contrast, British empiricism saw the source of knowledge could be found in experience and through the senses. While the works of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
and, through the scientific study of modern, cognitive science, the idea that 'I' am doing the thinking in a way that is separate from my body and that this can be rationally deducted, simply by thinking and without scientific experimentation would be confounded. However, those using empiricism as their main philosophical view of the world have also been able to twist the empiricism to use science's supposed rationalism and objectivity
5. Kant's "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy is in his genius use of the positive aspects of Rationalism (Descartes and so on) and Empiricism (Locke, Berkeley and Hume). How can you argue this out with the help of the "Critique of Pure Reason"? The human experience of negotiating the universe as it seems to be presented to us is one governed by a great many assumptions. Our education of this process, and
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