Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes:

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician who did not trust his own senses. How could he be sure what was real? How could he be sure he existed? His senses could be tricked and what he thought could also be deception or manipulation from a higher power so he came to the conclusion the only thing that could be grounded as fact was the fact that he was thinking if he was thinking he must exist, so he said. “I think therefore I am”.

Descartes is the father of modern philosophy. Descartes was a rationalist and believed in three things mind, matter, and God. He spent a large amount of time studying the idea of radical doubt. Radical doubt is a mental concept that means if there is not enough evidence to support something then you do not need to believe it. This contributed to his idea of dualism. Dualism is a term used in both the field of philosophy and psychology, it is a person who believes that the mind and the body are two separate parts. He believed that the soul was immortal because it was not a physical thing that could be broken or torn apart while the body was mortal because it could break and be torn apart.

Descartes was a big believer in God and free will. One of his reasons as why God exist is that God is perfect and to be able to be perfect, he must exist. He believed that people have free will and that how people choose to use that free will is how God judges us.

Descartes created a method to perform deductive reasoning that can be used for everything. This method contains four rules and can be found in two of his books, Rules for the Direction of the Mind and Discourse on Method.

Rule 1: “Never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all grounds of doubt.” -Descartes

Rule 2: “To divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as possible, and as might be necessary for its adequate solution.” -Descartes

Rule3: “To conduct my thoughts in such order that, by commencing with objects the simplest and easiest to know, I might ascend by little and little, and, as it were, step by step, to the knowledge of the more complex; assigning in thought a certain order even to those objects which in their own nature do not stand in a relation of antecedence and sequence.”  -Descartes

Rule 4: “To make enumerations so complete, and reviews so general that I might be assured that nothing was omitted.” -Descartes

Descartes thought that thinking rationally was the most important thing to be able to do. With rational thinking one can make accurate decisions, actions, and conclusions.

Work Cited:

“Introduction to Descartes's Method – 4 Rules.” Exposures of a Nomad, 10 Nov. 2010,             faustoaarya.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/introduction-to-descartess-method-4-rules/.

Watson, Richard A. “René Descartes.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.,       7 Feb. 2019, www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes.

Quiz:

1. Who said, "I think therefore I am"?

2. What is radical doubt?

3. What is dualism?

4. What was one of the four rules of deductive reasoning?

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you think your senses and thoughts are deceptions?

2. Do you think that your mind and body are really separate?

3. Do you agree with the four rules or do you think there something more to it?

4. Do you think we have been given free will by a higher power and our being judged by how we use it?