The Idea Behind Rene Descartes Philosophy of Enlightenment

The enlightenment was not only a spark of culture but also a new wave of thinking for philosophers. Before the age of enlightenment, the popular belief system was one based solely on religion and a belief in god. This however was not the case as the age of enlightenment came to be. One of the philosophers who started the change away from this tradition was Rene Descartes. Descartes and his different ways of thinking provided fuel for the moment and changed philosophy as a whole.

Descartes was born in 1569 in a small town called La Haye in France. He went to a prestigious school known as Jesuit College, which, at an early age, allowed Descartes to discover his interests in science and humanities. The school taught by the Aristotelian method, which said that "that nature was inherently stable and ordered and that one could rely on information derived from sense perceptions to deduce truths" (Spark notes). In his later work he would begin to question the Aristotelian method.

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It can be said that most of Descartes work was used to correct problems that he saw in philosophy and mathematics when he was a student.

After graduating from the Jesuit College, he attended the University of Poitiers where he got a law degree in 1616. Descartes then joined the military so he could travel, and study different cultures. It wasn't until after he left the military service that he would publish any works.

Descartes didn't publish any of his work until 1636 with the publishment of the Discourse of the Method.

In which he talks about how he came to doubt all of his knowledge. It's also where he first uses his famous quote Cogito ergo sum or "I think, therefore I exist." He also writes about how the human mind is separate from the body.

The work that Descartes is really famous for is Meditation on First Philosophy. He refers back to Discourse, backing up his claims while addressing concerned that fellow scholars had on his first work. The theories stated in this work would change the way people thought about their mind and body and the relationship between the two. In his next work the principles of Philosophy he attempts to reduce the universe to it mathematical foundation. Descartes stayed a prominent figure in philosophy and science well after his death in 1650.

During Descartes time the church still had a huge amount of control over knowledge, and power in general. Contradicting or questioning any aspect of church doctrine would result in imprisonment or even death. For this reason scholars strayed from being too radical out of fear of the church. Descartes knew that separating the church from science and philosophy was the only way to increase knowledge. This is why he introduced the idea of separating academics from religion in his writings. He said science was uncertain and filled with myth and would never help advance society. Descartes knew all too well what would happen his he wasn't careful. Galileo another scholar from his time was killed by the inquisition, because of his works in science. Even though Descartes was fearful he believed that his ideas where so solid that they must be made known.

"During his lifetime both the truths of religion and the truths of science had become uncertain. The Protestants had successfully challenged the authority of the Catholic Church. Copernicus and Galileo had challenged the geocentric view of nature. If ideas that had been held by almost everyone to be true for over 1500 years could now be found to be in error, then how could one trust any authority" This is what started Descartes of his quest to find the undubitable. He decided to ride himself any idea or preconceived notion in which he could imagine any doubt. Wanting to find what, if anything was left at the end. This can be seen in most of his published works.

As mentioned earlier, Descartes' most famous statement is Cogito ergo sum, “I think, therefore I exist". Thought drives all of Descartes' philosophy in the first meditation. The only thing that he couldn't find doubt in was that he had the composite to think. First he decides he can be certain that he exists, because if he doubts, there must be a thinking mind to do the doubting. Descartes proposes that the very act of thinking offers a proof of individual human existence.

Descartes points out that although he can be sure of nothing else about his existence— he can't prove beyond a doubt that he has hands or hair or a body-he is certain that he has thoughts and the ability to use reason. . “I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” (Descartes page 492)” Thought and reason, because they are clearly perceived, must be the essence of humanity. "Thought is distinct from the physical world that our senses disclose to us. It is thought, our mind, which provides us with the concepts that allows us to think and to come to understand the world". (The enlightenment) These are just some of the many examples that Descartes provides, all of which lead to his argument against the reliability of our senses.

In his meditations our "senses" became one of the things he could not completely rely on. The earth travels around the sun according to our senses. But when in truth the earth actually travels around the sun. He notes in first meditations that there are often times when his senses trick him and he can't tell if he was asleep dreaming or if he was awake. (Sparknotes) "In the Dream argument, Descartes argues that he often dreams of things that seem real to him while he is asleep. In one dream, he sits by a fire in his room, and it seems he can feel the warmth of the fire, just as he feels it in his waking life, even though there is no fire. The fact that he feels the fire doesn't really allow him to tell when he is awake and when he is dreaming. Moreover, if his senses can convey to him the heat of the fire when he does not really feel it, he can't trust that the fire exists when he feels it in his waking life."

He notes that if we can't trust our senses to tell us accurate information about the world, then we can't trust thing that are justified by our senses. He explains this using the example of a piece of wax. We know that solid was and was melted by a candle are both wax. Therefore perception is not only about using our senses but also reasoning that our mind makes. Since we can't trust our senses, things we know about from them can only be properly perceived by our minds. This means that the mind is the only thing Descartes is certain exists.

Descartes then begins to question what he actually is. "But what them am I? What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and imagines and has sensory perceptions." (Descartes page 493) Descartes begins to wonder that since he can't trust his senses, is the human body just a lie that our senses are falsely telling us. Is it just a figment of reality that his mind created? The only way to even rationalize this to say that the mind must be a separate element from the body. This is when Descartes begins to note the difference between mind and matter.

Descartes did not dismiss god entirely in his writings, but it's important to note. If he had dismissed god entirely no one would have listened to his philosophies and he would have surely be killed. He did however, say that thinking or being humanly aware was the first principle, that observation and reason came first. The idea that god didn't come first was not taken well by the church.

In the first mediation it can be seen how carefully he worded everything that had to do with god. He often plays with the idea of there being no god but never says it directly. He often uses god in a round-a-bout way to justify his argument. "Does it now follow that I to do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed... He will never bring it about that I am nothing as long as I think that I am something" Descartes admits that he cannot be sure that God is not playing some sort of trick on him. However, because he believes that God is good, he knows that God would not deliberately deceive him.

"It is easily forgotten how controversial, reviled, and celebrated a figure Descartes was, not just in his own lifetime but for the next 150 years or so" (Kimball). It is clear that Descartes was a major influence in the enlightenment movement and to philosophy as a whole. He helped start the separation of science and philosophy from the church. Now philosophers and scientists don't have to be afraid of reproductions when published their new findings. It's hard to imagine what the world would be like if Descartes theories never came to be.