The Power Of Knowledge In Jean-Jacques Rousseau And Rene Descartes

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Rene Descartes’ drastically different views on knowledge make finding common ground and coming to a meeting of the minds seem nearly impossible. Rousseau’s tendency to dwell on life before the corruption of civilization and his general lack of interest in the pursuit of pure knowledge greatly contrasts with that of Descartes burgeoning urge to seek knowledge in its purest and highest form. Both men’s discourses take us on a journey of understanding, stretching modernity to unfounded heights that help us to discover the source of knowledge as it relates to mankind.
In common terms, the “moral” man in Rousseau’s mind covers what most now would refer to as regular human intellect and higher function of the brain. It is within this that Rousseau asserts what it is that distinguishes animal from man. He states, “I can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard, to a certain degree, against everything that might destroy or disorder it” (Rousseau). Both man and animal are more or less mechanical, but man possesses the unique ability to freely act, a characteristic that gives him the option to choose and to change his behavior. Of further importance though, Rousseau notes, is that humans contain the faculty of perfectibility. The interpretations of this quality among humans vary, but the capacity for change is one of the most important aspects to see, as well as the ability to be molded by the environment. Along with the right to choose, man can also change rapidly and further develop at an unfathomable rate. Without the ability to possess this quality, Rousseau explains, humans would more than likely stay in a nature state forever a...

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... proposition that is itself beyond a shadow of a doubt and simultaneously justifies all the other outstanding propositions. A statement is made to be true because it is in line with everything else that we know to be true, not because it can be broken down into simple parts. I’m not sure you can really argue which approach, Rousseau or Descartes, best represents the common understanding of what knowledge is and what it possesses. The underlying truth is that knowledge, no matter through what lens you look at it, is neither good nor evil. It is an intellectual property that continues to house a power to lead us to a better place than where we originally started, and that fact cannot be denied. Whether it is literally survival of the fittest or the internal search for all that is true, we now live along that range of extremes and have no choice but to advance forward.

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