Mind, Matter and Descartes :: Philosophy essays

Mind, Matter and Descartes   Cogito Ergo Sum, I think, therefore I am, the epitome of Rene Descartes logic. Born in 1596 in La Haye, France, Descartes studied at a Jesuit College, where his acquaintance with the rector and childhood frailty allowed him to scat a leisurely lifestyle. This opulence and lack of daily responsibility gave him the license to offer his discontentment with both contrived scholasticism, philosophy of the church during the diaphragm Ages, as well as extreme skepticism, the doctrine that absolute noesis is impossible. Through the most innovative logic since Aristotles death, as well as application of the sciences, he pursued a lifelong quest for scientific truth.   Philosophy is believed to have begun in the sixth century in antediluvian Greece. In event, the word philosophy is the Greek term for love of wiseness (Pojman). After notable minds of the Ancient World such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, by modernist standards, original thinking ceased for many centuries. Throughout the following period, later cognise as the Middle Ages, the world was dominated by dogma of the Catholic Church. Scholasticism allied with severe punishment for heresy prevented rationalization orthogonal of religion. Descartes was the first to bring philosophy to its Renaissance (Strathern 7-9). He questi unrivaledd the reality of everything, including divinity fudge. though he was a devout Catholic, and later proved the existence of God mathematically, he founded and popularized the concept of questioning that which is taught.   Descartes philosophy was an attempt to create a genuine foundation upon which further scientific developments would be established. His devotion to maths methodic character and invariability lead him to apply these concepts to all other ideas. He hypothesized that those propositions which one could come to understand completely would be self evident, since ones knowledge virtually them would not depend upon kn owledge of any other propositions therefore they were qualified to stand as fundamental assumptions, to be the starting points from which other propositions could be deduced (Walting).   He realized that he knew nothing for certain except for the fact that he was thinking, which proved that he existed Cogito Ergo Sum. Descartes argues that all ideas that are as clear and distinct as the Cogito must be true, for, if they were not, then Cogito also, as a member of the class of clear and distinct ideas, could be doubted (Walting). Descartes theorized that apiece person has an innate idea of a perfect being.