Compare And Contrast The Two Sides Of The Self

The Two Sides of the “Self”
Is the “self” affected by the outside world? Whitman seems to think so, but Descartes claims that we cannot trust the outside world because we are being deceived by an evil demon. Both philosopher’s obviously differ on what we can and cannot consider to be true. Descartes and Whitman had very different ideas of the self and what could affect the self. While Whitman believed that we could achieve knowledge of the self through the senses, Descartes argued that we should throw the senses to the side and only believe in what we could distinctly perceive and truly understand. However, if we mix both of these philosopher’s thoughts on the “self” we can really grow to understand and experience the world around us in a much meaningful way and therefore, allowing us to know the “self” and helping it grow.
Ultimately to Whitman the self is everything we have experienced and seen. All the people we meet have an effect on us. We are them and they are us. In Song of Myself, section one he claimed that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you” meaning that we are each other and we share everything, even the smallest particles that make us. Whitman wrote about all of us being equal “Births have

First he threw out his senses because he cannot trust them. He stated that they can be deceiving, but in order to be deceived he has to exist. Therefore, Descartes concludes that the only way he can prove his existence is through thought. Descartes wrote “thought, this alone is inseparable from me I am, I exist. - that is certain” and he should no longer exist once he ceases to think (pg. 18 p 27.) According to Descartes in order to exist and to be certain of our existence we must be a thing that “doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, also imagines and has sensory perceptions” ultimately we must be intellectuals and not flow through the motion of our deceiving