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Life and the teachings of Rene Descartes
Life and works of rene descartes
Life and the teachings of Rene Descartes
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René Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in La Haye, France, which has been renamed after him, Descartes. He was the baby out of his three siblings. His mom named Jeanne Brochard had died before he turned one year old. His father, Joachim Brochard, a council member in the provincial parliament, sent his kids to live with their grandmother. The father left them with the grandmother while he himself remarried and enjoyed the bliss of not having children under his feet. He still was a stickler for a good education and having a legacy so he sent 8 year old Rene to the Jesuit college of Henri IV where he stayed until he was 15. After studying logic, rhetoric, musical arts, and astronomy he moved onto the University of Poitiers, where he worked on his baccalaureate in law for the next four years. His father planned on his prestigious son to become a lawyer and make it into politics just like him. Although, during his school years he had several influential teachers in his logic and mathematics classes. Soon after he declared he didn’t want to learn from anything except from himself or “the great book of the world” which he had written in Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking Truth in the Sciences. After obtaining his degree, men back in those days, had to either join the church or the army. Rene joined the army and saw a few battles as a nobleman. While in the army there were geometrical problems given to the world which at that time was like trying to divide pi by itself over 1 or something to that effect. Well he could solve these impossible equations within a few hours, and after realizing his mathematical genius he decided being in the army was beneath him, but he stayed for a while longer to app... ... middle of paper ... ...perfection. c. There must be as much reality in the cause of any idea as in the idea itself (the principle of cause and effect). d. Therefore, the idea we have of infinite perfection originated from a being with infinite perfection, and this being is God”(3). He goes even further to say that God is a completely pure and a good creator and cannot deceive. Descartes creates an Evil demon to be the deceiver of humanity because God cannot deceive. Works Cited (1) Http://mathforum.org/cgraph/history/fly.html. Drexel University School of Education. Web. 19 Mar. 2014 (2) "René Descartes." 2014. The Biography Channel website. Mar 18 2014, 09:07 http://www.biography.com/people/ren%C3%A9-descartes-37613. (3) Fieser, James, and Norman Lillegard. "7." A Historical Introduction to Philosophy: Texts and Interactive Guides. New York: Oxford UP, 2002. 339. Print.
René Descartes was a French philosopher born in La Haye, France, on March 31, 1596. In the 17th century. Now that town is now named after him, because of the great things he has done. He spent most of his life in the Dutch Republic He had two siblings and was the youngest. His father and mother's name were Joachim and Jeanne Brochard. His mother died before his first birthday. In addition, his father was in the provincial parliament as a council member. After their mother died, Joachim had the kids go live with their grandmother on their mom's side. They stayed there even though their father eventually remarried. Even though their father did not want them around, he still wanted the best education for his children so he sent René when he was eight, to boarding school to the Jesuit college of Henri IV in La Flèche. And he stayed there until he was 15.
1) Rene Descartes challenges, in his meditations, the principles of philosophy, arguing that everything he knew, he learnt from or through his sense, experience and knowledge. Descartes utilizes two different domains of reality, formal reality and objective reality. Formal reality is the reality of existing objects or state of objects. Objective reality is the reality of the meaning of our concepts. Descartes eventually states that through the use of argument and deduction we can get from none basic beliefs to basic beliefs.
The next stage in the system, as outlined in the Meditations, seeks to establish that God exists. In his writings, Descartes made use of three principal arguments. The first (at least in the order of presentation in the Meditations) is a causal argument. While its fullest statement is in Meditation III, it is also found in the Discourse (Part IV) and in the Principles (Part I §§ 17–18). The argument begins by examining the thoughts contained in the mind, distinguishing between the formal reality of an idea and its objective reality. The formal reality of any thing is just its actual existence and the degree of its perfection; the formal reality of an idea is thus its actual existence and degree of perfection as a mode of mind. The objective reality of an idea is the degree of perfection it has, considered now with respect to its content. (This conception extends naturally to the formal and objective reality of a painting, a description or any other representation.) In this connection, Descartes recognized three fundamental degrees of perfection connected with the capacity a thing has for independent existence, a hierarchy implicit in the argument of Meditation III and made explicit in the Third Replies (in response to Hobbes). The highest degree is that of an infinite substance (God), which depends on nothing; the next degree is that of a finite substance (an individual body or mind), which depends on God alone; the lowest is that of a mode (a property of a substance), which depends on the substance for its existence.
... God alone remains; and, given the truth of the principle that whatever exists has a cause, it follows, Descartes declares, that God exists we must of necessity conclude from the fact alone that I exist, or that the idea of a supremely perfect – that is of God – is in me, that the proof of God’s existence is grounded in the highest evidence” Descartes concludes that God must be the cause of him, and that God innately implanted the idea of infinite perfection in him.
Stumpf, S.E and Fieser, J. Philosophy: History and Readings, New York: Mc Graw Hill, 2008.
Rene Descartes was a famous French mathematician, scientist and philosopher. He was arguably the first major philosopher in the modern era to make a serious effort to defeat skepticism. His views about knowledge and certainty, as well as his views about the relationship between mind and body have been very influential over the last three centuries.
René Descartes sought to end medieval theories. Descartes wanted certainty behind previous thinking, he wanted concrete evidence supporting the previous theories. According to Lester G. Crocker, Descartes, “Reject[ed] the authority of an entrenched medieval system of thought, he made the individual mind the criterion of certitude.” In this example, Descartes attempted to reject previous beliefs until he was certain. Before the Enlightenment, people used the Bible as the source of all their beliefs. They did not attempt to disprove these previous theories, they just accepted them. Descartes attempted to support new theories through math. Descartes was prolific in his mathematics, especially geometry. In the words of Crocker, “[Descartes’] great assumption was that sensory experience could and had to be reduced to mechanics and then to mathematics (for him, geometry), that is, to measurables.” Here, Descartes used math to explain his theories. Because math is objective, it can be proven with concrete evidence. For this reason, Descartes changed philosophy going forward. Descartes desired an explanation for the world humans live in, his use of math and a need for concrete explanations helped move from medieval to modern
Moore, Brooke Noel., and Kenneth Bruder. "Chapter 6- The Rise of Metaphysics and Epistemology; Chapter 9- The Pragmatic and Analytic Traditions; Chapter 7- The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." Philosophy: the Power of Ideas. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.
Laplace taught at one of the schools he attended for a while before he decided that he wanted to further his knowledge of mathematics (Marquis de laplace, 2013). He traveled to Paris to study at a military school and obtained a professorship of mathematics (Marquis de laplace, 2013). By the age of 19, Laplace had earned a spot as a chair of mathematics at the Military Academy of Paris (Pierre-Simon Laplace, 2000). In 1773 Laplace became an associate member of the Paris Academy of Sciences and in 1785 he became a full member of the academy (Pierre-Simon Laplace, 2000).
Born in France on March 31st, 1596, Rene Descartes grew to be known as ‘The Father of Modern Philosophy”. Not only was Rene a philosophical man but he contributed greatly to Mathematics and his ideas have influenced our daily lives in a productive way. DesCartes was raised in a very religious christian family, his father was a member of the parliament and strongly believed in education at a young age. DesCartes studied at the Jesuit college at the mere age of eight. As a child and throughout his adulthood physical incapabilities enabled DesCartes to function as swift or promptly as his peers. Growing up and until the day of his death, Descartes’s health was always a major precaution he was forced to remain aware of. The Jesuit college granted him the immunity of resting in mornings before class. It was this education that led him to contribute philosophical and mathematical theories and devices that still hold a great value to mathematicians and everyday people even today in the 21st century. From a very young age he had interests in mathematics and analytical geometry. Descartes’s contributions to modern day society were affected by his young adulthood, soon he created mathematical and scientific ideas, and lastly philosophical ideas.
Descartes claim of ‘Cogito ergo sum’ marked a sharp departure from what philosophy was in his time. He started from the basic principle of rationalism and he concluded that ‘I think, therefore I exist’. In his Meditation II, Descartes hits an epistemological ground zero. Here it is that Descartes begins his startling point, “And thus, having reflected well, and carefully examined all things, we have finally to conclude that this declaration, Ego sum, ego existo, is necessarily true every time I propound of mentally apprehend it.” In this statement he affirms his existence and later concludes that he was a res cogitans -- a thinking thing, “that is to say a mind, an understanding or reason-terms of significance of which has been hitherto been unknown to me. I am a real thing, and really existent.” Descartes broke with old philosophy and gave it a new beginning. In particular, because his system of truth originated from his own thinking and analysis, he no longer desires to rely on ideas of previous philosophers. He is clearly determined to find out the basis of intellectual certainty in his own reason. In proving Descartes ‘Cogito’ I will use to prove God’s existence.
Melchert, Norman. The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. 4th ed. Toronto: McGraw Hill Companies, 2002.
Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher believed that the origin of knowledge comes from within the mind, a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. His Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641) contain his important philosophical theories. Intending to extend mathematical method to all areas of human knowledge, Descartes discarded the authoritarian systems of the scholastic philosophers and began with universal doubt. Only one thing cannot be doubted: doubt itself. Therefore, the doubter must exist. This is the kernel of his famous assertion Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore I am existing). From this certainty Descartes expanded knowledge, step by step, to admit the existence of God (as the first cause) and the reality of the physical world, which he held to be mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind; the only connection between the two is the intervention of God.
He also writes about how he wonders if he is human and if what he sees is real or false. He stated if he is not certain what is true then he would consider it to be false. He also talks about his uncertainty of whether he is awake or asleep. Rene Desecrates was trying to see what is true or false. He questioned