Rene Descartes
Early Modern Period (Late 1400s ~ End of the 18th century).
New theories of Mind and Matter, the Divine and Individual arose at this time.
Established 2 distinctive ways of thinking about the world which are Rationalism and Empiricism.
We conceive knowledge by using the Axiomatic Method which is Based on the derivation of theorems (Proven knowledge), and from established Axioms (Assumptions).
Axioma is a statement that is accepted as true based on evidence and reasoning.
Rationalism is, of or belonging to reason.
Philosophical views that Rationalism holds are “The fundamental method for problem solving is through reason rather than faith, inspiration, and revelation.
Rationalism suggests that knowledge can be derived by a priori concepts (For example, axions, postulates, or earlier deductions).
Priori is derived by reasoning from self-evident propositions.
Posteriori is derived by reasoning from observed facts.
Empiricism is through observation and experimentation.
The philosophical view that Empiricism holds is that “The most reliable source of human knowledge is experience (For example, perception based on the physical senses). We have no source of knowledge other than sense experience. Knowledge begins with Axioms = Assumptions.”
Rene Descartes developed techniques that made: Analytic Geometry.
Rene Descartes offered new vision of the natural world which is the Word of Matter and Interacting according to universal laws. This material world included an Immaterial Mind.
Descartes formulated the Modern version of The Mind-Body Problem.
What are mental states and What are physical states?
The Meditations by Rene Descartes is one of the great works of philosophy seminal treatise for subsequent philosophers.
Raises problems such as The existence and nature of the self, The existence of god, The nature of truth.
The meditations attempt a complete intellectual revolution: “The replacement of Aristotelian Philosophy with a new philosophy to replace Aristotelian science with a new science.”
For a 17th-century Aristotelian: “A body is Matter informed by substantial and accidental forms.”
Every physical object is a compound of matter and form: Hyle matter and Morphe form also known as Hylomorphism.
Matter is that out of which a thing is made.
Substantial forms are sources of information about objects organized matter.
Accidental forms are non-essential properties and objects that can be lost or gained without changing their substance.
Descartes presents a mechanist view of matter that does away with Aristotelian forms.
Descartes reduces all changes to something mathematically quantifiable, in specific, he reduces physical objects to matter in motion.
The 6 Meditations by Rene Descartes
1. Considerations concerning the sciences
2. The chief rules of the method
3. Rules of morality derived from this method
4. Proof of the existence of god and the human soul
5. The order of the questions in physics investigated and of other difficulties that pertain to medicine
6. What things the author believes are required to advance further the investigation of nature
4 Rules for Individual Inquire
1. Never accept anything as true that we do not know to be such.
This warns of the prejudices that come with age and education.
2. Divide the difficulties examined into as many stood parts as possible.
This is about breaking down problems into its most basic parts
3. Commence with those objects that are simplest and easiest to know.
This instructs us to begin with simple elements and move up
4. Everywhere one must make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that we are assured of having omitted nothing.
This prescribes attention to detail
What pleased Descartes most about the 4 rules of individual inquiry was being assured of using reason in everything.
Method of Radical Doubt
Descartes offers a critique of the senses: “Suppose that all the things which we see all false.”
We have no senses and our body, motion, and place are merely fictions of the mind.
One thing we can be certain of: “The self exists because we can think. We know first our mind.”
The way Descartes disproves skepticism is by the famous dictum: “I think therefore I am” which shows that there are some things that just can’t be false.
3 conclusions on why our existence isn’t false.
1. Skepticism is instantly disproved
2. We can have Knowledge
3. To establish what we are
Things we can’t doubt is that the rational intuitive truths have to be true.
Descartes regards all human beings as consisting essentially in an “Immaterial mind united with material continuum. We must be a separate immaterial being.”
Descartes introduced the substance dualism of mind and body in Modern Philosophy, which is divided into Mental Substance and Material Substance.