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Rene descartes philosophy summary reflection
Rene descartes philosophy summary reflection
Rene descartes philosophy summary reflection
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René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes: A Dialogue
As one embarks on the incredible journey through Descartes’ meditations,
a plethora of doubts, criticisms and seemingly fundamental problems arise and block
one’s progress. No doubt, many of these can be attributed to the fact that we of the
twenty-first century come more than three and a half centuries after the brilliant mind of
Descartes (or shall we say, ‘that was Descartes’) spawned the immense framework of
philosophy that is contained within The Meditations. Consequently, we are biased by
more recent modes of thought that cannot address Cartesian issues at quite the same
level, as would an approach more contemporary to Descartes. It is for this reason that
criticisms or objections by Descartes’ contemporaries provides us with a much needed
alternative perspective, while at the same time preserving the historical context that is of
prime necessity in discussing matters such as this. In particular, the objections of the
well-known English philosopher, Empiricist and materialist, Thomas Hobbes, serve to
challenge, and with considerable depth at that, the Rationalism of Descartes.
Furthermore, Descartes’ Third Meditation seems by far the most problematic with respect
to unspoken assumptions, logical structure and even ambiguities of definition.
Consequently, this paper will attempt to discuss some of Hobbes’ objections to certain
logical propositions contained within Descartes’ Proof of the existence of God.
In Meditation III, Descartes introduces the concepts of formal reality (i.e.
the reality attesting to the nature or existence of an object or entity) and objective reality
(i.e. the formal reality possessed by the object or entity that is represented by an ...
... middle of paper ...
...se from an imperfect realization of the significance
of infinity in his time. A better understanding was achieved only in the late 1800s, when
the Russian-German mathematician Georg Cantor developed the first mathematically
rigorous theory of infinite numbers.3
6
1 Roger Ariew & Eric Watkins. Modern Philosophy: An anthology of primary sources. Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1998.
2 This definition (as quoted from p.59 of 1) includes:
“[A substance]...is a thing in which whatever we perceive or whatever is objectively in one of our ideas exists
either formally or eminently.”
3 Sir Roger Penrose. The Emperor’s New Mind. New York, 1990. (p.108-112 of this excellent amalgam of science and
philosophy, deal with the subtleties of infinite numbers and the fact that exist not just one, but at least two and potentially an
infinite number (!) of different infinities).
In chapter ten of the book “Problems from Philosophy”, by James Rachels, the author, the author discusses the possibilities of human beings living in an actually reality, or if we are just living in an illusion. Rachels guides us through concepts that try to determine wiether we are living in a world were our perception of reality is being challenged, or questioned. Rachels guides us through the topic of “Our Knowledge of the World around Us”, through the Vats and Demons, idealism, Descartes Theological Response, and direct vs. indirect realism.
In Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes does and experiment with wax to try to prove that things actually exist in this world. This essay is going to prove how we can tell that things actually exist and what can perceive the wax.
My favorite quote of all time in the Toy Story series, is something that Buzz Lightyear said- “To infinity and beyond!” For this paper, I decided to read a chapter in a book named To Infinity and Beyond by Dr. Kent A. Bessey. In this book, he explains about how the number infinity can be comprehended and can be counted. He explained this through something called cardinality, through the Counting Theory, and through different dimensions.
Reality is an actual situation or event where life cannot be real with an individual and society put together. Reality is not necessarily the same for everyone. Each person may have a different reality based on society, personal experiences, as well as facts. Every individual experiences the Five Features of Reality, which include reflexive, coherence, interactional activity, fragility, and permeability. Reflexive can be defined as believing in something so strongly, to the extent that if someone were to say something different, it would not influence ones decision. The person continues to believe in what they always had in the past. But in the coherence reality, human interaction might change ones belief and they begin to believe something upon what they interact with. Fragility is even more evident in every day life, where the rules are not implicit. Permeable feature is another way of demonstrating how vulnerable ones reality really is.
Realism, in philosophical terms, refers to the concept that there is a reality beyond our perception. This means that how we see things and what we believe about them has no impact on the nature of said things. For example an individual may see an object as blue and another see the same object to be red, this is merely a disagreement between both parties about how they should label the colour. This wouldn’t mean that both parties are discussing different objects, this shows that no matter what individual’s beliefs or thoughts on the real world are only ever approximations and do not accurately capture reality. (O’Brien, M and Yar, M, 2008)
Infinity has long been an idea surrounded with mystery and confusion. Aristotle ridiculed the idea, Galileo threw aside in disgust, and Newton tried to step-side the issue completely. However, Georg Cantor changed what mathematicians thought about infinity in a series of radical ideas. While you really should read my full report if you want to learn about infinity, this paper is simply gets your toes wet in Cantor’s concepts.
Realism claims that what we can review about our surrounding is established in the fact that they absolutely exist. What we believe about gathered information is what we think about the actual world. It states that there is an actual world that assimilates directly with what we think about it.
During the sixteen hundreds, the French philosopher René Descartes laid the foundations for the beginnings of Cartesian Dualism. In contrast, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued against dualism in favor of materialism. Recently, Cartesian Dualism, and dualism in general has fallen out of favor as materialism arose as a more plausible and explanatory theory regarding the interrelationships between body and mind. The translation Descartes’ writing in the Meditations is far more cryptic than Hobbes’ writing in the Leviathan. Making it far easier to see Hobbes’ claims. Hobbes provides a reasonable explanation against dualism in his objections to Descartes, and in his Leviathan, provides background upon his reasoning in those objections. Dualism may be less popular than materialism in current philosophy, but it may simply be because dualism has more or less reached some sort of block in regards to its further development, and not anything to do with the writings of Descartes or Hobbes. Descartes and Hobbes may have influenced many of the earlier bickering between philosophers of mind upon the subject of mind-body interaction, as Hobbes was likely the first objector to Descartes’ dualism.
imagine that when it is was first theorized by Rene Descartes; it was a truly revolutionary idea.
Descartes was born 1596 in France. At eight years old he was already in college. Descartes was a scientist and was also known as the father of modern Western Philosophy. He is famous for his book “The mediations of philosophy,” first published in 1641. He is much like me because he refused to stem off other philosophers thought. Instead, he created his philosophy. He is most famous for his quote “I think therefore I am.” This paper will include Descartes doubt, Descartes the cogito, his knowledge of the material world. The principles of the Cartesian epistemology. The “light of nature.”
When I think about the first distinction, appearance vs. reality, I interpret that to basically mean perception vs. truth. For instance, to me the term "appearance" refers to an individual's perception of an object or experience such as how it looks, smells, sounds, and feels. The term "reality," however, I interpret to mean the scientific facts/truths about an object or experience. For example, an appearance of an apple would be that it is red, round, smooth, and sweet to the taste. The reality of an apple would be its chemical makeup and what is inside of it such as carbohydrates, vitamins, and minerals, as well as how many calories of energy it contains.
Let us begin with the term "value." Science and the Modern World provides us with an earlier interpretation of this notion. Here Whitehead explains that "'Value' is the word I use for the intrinsic reality of an event." (SMW, 93) Now an "event" for Whitehead constitutes a fundamental datum of reality.
What is really real? This question relates to the word ontology, the study of being, which asks what kind of things exist? There are three theories that are brought up by this word; Materialism; Idealism; Dualism. Materialism is the “metaphysical theory that matter is truly real and immaterial things are not (Kessler, 423).” Some examples of materialism are trees, cats, humans, chairs, etc. Material things are spatial, public, and mechanical. Idealism is the theory that ideas are ultimately real. Some examples of idealism are peace, love, hope, belief, faith, etc. Immaterial things are non-spatial, private, and teleological. Materialist and immaterialist things are real because there are physical aspects, like our bodies and our souls. This is called dualism, “the theory that reality is both material and immaterial (Kessler, 423).”
Some synonyms of reality are existence, matter, phenomenon, real world, realism, and truth. Another definition of reality is “The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”. This definition comes from wikipedia.
For my purposes, a virtual world can be described as anything that is computer mediated such as chat rooms, MUD communities, Moo communities, email, and any other interaction that takes place in cyberspace. For my purposes, reality is the material world that surrounds us.