Rene Descartes Discourse On Method Analysis

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Unfortunately, these ideas are very counter-cultural and some people just don’t want these ideas proclaimed. Some people are just confused between what society is selling and the true philosopher. Some people just try to make up a philosophy on their own and this is what happened with the writing of Rene Descartes in his work entitled, Discourse on Method. Descartes create a method that discredits God, truth and community because, he believes, all reasoning and truth is found in the individual. The biggest issue with Descartes method is the very first step, which is “to accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize to be so.” (Discourse, 14). This would lead anyone into the error, that if they encountered anything outside their experiences, these encounters would be deemed not true. As well as the …show more content…

This step in Descartes method puts him in a supreme position above all error, making him perfect. When speaking of God, he incorporates his fascination with mathematics and compares God with geometry. Descartes writes, “Consequently it is at least certain God, who is a being so perfect, is, or exists, as any demonstration of geometry can possibly be.” (Descartes, 26). Here we see that God is a complex puzzle that needs to be solved. God is compared to geometry and Descartes thinks God is a problem that he is able to figure out, like one studying a math problem. Descartes moves to Holland where he is not able to speak the language, therefore he does not need to be bothered by people and can be alone with his thoughts. Descartes is totally wrong, he removed himself from the community and believes that he is the ultimate authority in all things. We must shine the light of truth on these errors because those lacking in proper formation can be fooled into believing this is truth. Descartes minimizes God to a math problem that needs to be solved, he makes himself the authority of truth and breaks with any type of community that could provide

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