René Descartes Thinkers of Modernism

Categories: Rene Descartes

Rene achieves some absolutely unquestionable and obvious knowledge the individual in solitude in the almost desperate task of finding a firm ground on which to rest his convictions. This is the pretense of the philosophy of René Descartes. This theme results on the phrase I think therefore I am.

With it Descartes expresses the discovery of an unquestionable truth but also a new realm of the real: individual self-conscious subjectivity. also called Cartesius he was born in French on March 31 1596, and he died in Stockholm on February 11 1650.

He was a French philosopher mathematician and physicist as “the father of modern philosophy” as well as one of the most outstanding names in the scientific revolution this philosopher the knowledge of Cartesius the Latinized era in which he wrote his name derives from the cartesian word formulated the famous cogito ergo suma an essential element of western rationalism he wrote a part of his works in latin that was the international language of knowledge and the other person in french likewise in physics is as the creator of mechanism as in mathematics of analytical geometry not without however part of his theories have been refuted animal-machine theory or even abandoned the theory of vortices.

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its simplicity units discourse of the method the words that are used the norms and the endless systems the reasonings the scholastics the learning the mathematical method and the attempt to finish with the syllogism. penalties of galileo for its support to copernicanism order censorship to partially disguise thenovelty of the ideas about man and the world that expose their metaphysical expositions some ideas that suppose a revolution for philosophy and theology.

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to correctly drive reason and seek the truth in the sciences. this program represents a clear and precise way the intention of said philosopher: to find a solid and sure principle that will serve as a foundation to a firm rigorous and universal character. this principle is found in the capacity of reason itself. in fact according to cartesian thought reason by itself part of its own principles and without attending to anything outside of itself can get toknow the totality of existing realities. everything is a matter of following theproper method. and what is this proper method the natural march proper of the same reason. this french philosopher and mathematician has a great influence on eighteenth-century european thought his discourse on method to lead the truth and truth in the sciences serving as a foundation foreuropean intellectuals to have a deep trust in the why for what reason ortega said of him that he had been the first modern man. his most important work the discourse on method written in 1637 presents us with cartesian metaphysics. it is a way of thinking a way of investigating andarriving at the truth. for this it is based on four principles:

  1. not to admit as really what we consider what we do but also what we believe is true and we will analyze it removing from our brain any prejudice or previous concept accepted as true.
  2. divide each problem into as many parts as necessary. this means that you have to analyze a problem in all its forms sometimes an analysis and divide it into as many parts as possible to demonstrate its veracity.
  3. sort the thoughts from the simplest to the most complicated. from the smallest to the largest. from the simple to the complex. from the parts to the whole
  4. .  Revision or counting practices so that nothing is seen. Once you have analyzed part by part all the components that make up a concept, a truth or a phenomenon, we have to organize and verify if it is a truth or a lie.

'I think that Descartes, for the time in which we live and based on all the concepts and truths that were accepted in those times, was a very wise thinker and philosopher who was ahead of his time and the surrounding environment'.

'Loss of time in the era of everything that is accepted as absolute and unquestionable truth, is skeptical about science and religion, it takes a lot of courage and courage. However, over the years, the Inquisition and ignorance sent people to the stake who committed the smallest 'sins' committed by the irreverent Descartes. '

Cabe is considered on the other hand, but within the same context, which for this philosopher, do not deserve confidence, the entire philosophical past is contradicted, according to him, the senses often deceive us and, in many cases, fall into error. We discover the very subject of his philosophy, for him, 'Gods of life' (We remember the Parocenid Presocratic), in a single act of all things, essences and existences, the 'eternal truths', which are the ones that govern the universe and regulate our reason. God is in the beginning of the contradiction, he concluded that we do not know if there is God, that is, not the opposite, we do not know if there is God, but if there is, we can not deceive, prove his existence by saying that it is an idea that It is in the mind and is that of an infinite being.

The god Rene Descartes refers to is not the cultural imposition of the God of Christianity, but in the search for the reference of being creational he puts himself in essence of everything. In this same measure, the creation of God seeks the reason of the apparent coincidences of life as feelings and experiences, this is a monotheistic belief, in the same way there are societies where everything becomes God polytheism.

All philosophy unfolds in this new scenario that Descartes forced on us: the mind discovering itself and justifying knowledge and being through the action of its own thought. But all that there is in fragility: what if the mechanisms of the action of the place rest more in the sensory than in the rational (Hume), or it is not possible to transcend one's own subjectivity (Kant), and if you are the subject What really stars in the truth is not the concrete or empirical individual but The Being itself (Hegel)? Moreover, what if we could no longer trust in one way in the last report of knowledge, in God (Nietzsche)?

Therefore, it is perfect, omnipotent, if this idea can not come from anything, nor from myself, that I am finite, imperfect and full of doubt, the effect would then be superior to the cause and this is impossible. Therefore, the idea of God must have been placed in me, by some higher entity, that is, by God himself, with what proves its existence, and for the year of 1641 he wrote The meditations, trying to build his metaphysics of According to the method, he started from critical doubt and believed that there was only something certain, the certainty of existence through thought. I am, Descartes said, to the extent that I think, as a consequence, he says, I am a thinking reality indeed, there is only one thing that can not be false, his existence, in this same work, affirmed that if I conceive the definition of a very perfect being , includes its existence, the conclusion is undoubted.

On the other hand, Descartes realizes that the only way to avoid error is to focus on how knowledge is arrived at, and builds a philosophy centered on the method, the main question that Descartes asks is how is it done to reach the truth free of all doubt? Therefore it transforms the doubt into a method, that is to say, it is then a matter of discovering a proposal of which there is not the slightest doubt, without falling into the formulation of concepts but rather that it is achieved immediately, that is, between the object and the observer there is nothing, then discover that the thought itself is the only thing capable of reaching that condition of immediacy, he says that, 'you can doubt their perceptions but the only thing you can not doubt is that you are thinking' .

That is, being aware is the only thing that can not doubt, so that for Descartes, what really exists is thought, and formulates the famous phrase that leads to immortality: 'I think, therefore I am', this it is the origin of idealism, of what it can doubt is that which is beyond its thought, that is, of what it perceives in a mediate way through its thoughts.

This is how Descartes inherited a very particular way of seeing things and illuminated the understanding of human beings. He taught us not to accept as truth all that people think they are, or everything that seems to be our senses. He made us see that our senses can deceive us, that people can be wrong and that all truth must be subjected to tests and counter-tests, to be accepted as such.

The method of Descartes can be applied to all arts and sciences, to everything that surrounds us and influences our lives, to the phenomena that we understand and to which we can not find an explanation, that is, thanks to Descartes we realized that everything we see is really what we see and that likewise, not everything that we accept as true is really true.

We must doubt, ask, investigate, re-do it ... so that we can come to knowledge and possibly to the truth.

After this, I ask myself, what is the use of knowing the truth, what is the use of it, what is the meaning of our lives, what is the objective of seeking it and trying to find it.

We are a tiny point in the immensity of the Cosmos, a tiny particle in the infinite that seems to be the universe, one more small light in space. Who we are, where we come from, what we do here, why we do not agree on our origin, ... why ... why and why, ... as we see, we have many questions and maybe just one answer ... that is why Descartes' thought is very important in our existence, in our way of understanding life, in our walk as a human species and in our continuous evolution, to navigate through space, visit new worlds and be eternal as individuals of a very small planet that they called Earth and that one day, thanks to a man named René Descartes, had the courage to doubt and seek truths beyond the limits of understanding and reason.

I must conclude by stating that the work of the aforementioned philosopher is of importance for scientific development, and at the same time philosophical, because, with Descartes' method, it begins with the rejection of these traditional ways of thinking about the truth, hence, He will maintain a skeptical attitude towards everything he has learned and everything we can perceive with his senses.

Updated: Mar 11, 2022
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René Descartes Thinkers of Modernism. (2021, Dec 09). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/rene-descartes-thinkers-of-modernism-essay

René Descartes Thinkers of Modernism essay
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