...assistance of another. Dare to use your own understanding.” From the Christian dialectic, human Enlightenment decline. It is characterized by the existence of a war against the accumulation of wealth, which is considered as an obstacle to the development of capitalism. In catholic paternalism, it is seen the pressure internally and externally. Internally, there was hypocrisy of economic in the body of the Church, where they prohibit lending practices and interest rates, but the Church itself there is excess wealth. Externally, the secularization of Church function in the form of God monarchy or God monopoly, faced with land acquisition monarchy that led to growing speculation, rents, and rising land prices. In Addition, the English revolution in the form of agricultural technology push declining Catholic morality. The exploitation of export trade wool from England and cost inflation at home led to the seizure of land for profitable redeployment to new forms of industry. Public Fields and forest previously used for collective farming...
Words: 2287 - Pages: 10
...Exploring the Epistemology’s of Rene Descartes and David Hume Beginning in the 17th century, traditional ideas were being questioned by the new beginnings of science. Although many of the accomplishments during this “scientific revolution” were in astronomy and mechanics, very important advances along the whole borders of knowledge were also taking place. The revival of skepticism, brought about by these new concepts, had many philosophers seeking answers to questions such as: Do we know anything at all, and do the sciences give us knowledge of reality? Rene Descartes, whom many consider to be the father of modern philosophy, sought to kill skepticism for good. He gave his Cartesian quest for certainty the center stage in his epistemology, or theory of knowledge. Following Descartes, later in the 18th century, David Hume also broke away from the religious dogma of the day to explain knowledge on a non theological basis. However, His epistemology dismisses Cartesian methods as both unworkable and barren. Instead, he adopts his own theories which counters the ideas of his of predecessor, and casts a different view on the levels of certainty humans can The Content and Objects of Knowledge--Rene Descartes According to Descartes, we each contain within ourselves the criterion for truth and knowledge. Although he does not reject the idea of God as a creator, he believed that the responsibility of obtaining knowledge rests on the individual and no longer on...
Words: 1648 - Pages: 7
...College Algebra 1414 March 25, 2008 Rene Descartes René Descartes was a highly influential French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy" and the "Father of Modern Mathematics."But famous for his saying, "Cogito ergo sum - I think, therefore I am," which is used in Philosphy. His influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system that is used in plane geometry and algebra being named for him, and he was one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution. As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, Descartes founded analytic geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the invention of calculus and analysis. One of Descartes most enduring legacies was his development of Cartesian geometry, the algebraic system taught in schools today. He also created exponential notation, indicated by numbers written in what is now referred to as superscript (x²). Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine, Indre-et-Loire, France. When he was one year old, his mother Jeanne Brochard died of tuberculosis. His father Joachim was a judge in the High Court of Justice. At the age of eleven, he entered the Jesuit College Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Fleche. After graduation, he studied at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalaureat and License in law in 1616, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer. Descartes never actually practiced law, however, and...
Words: 850 - Pages: 4
...Different between knowledge and opinion according to plato –…According to Plato "Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance." ……It is amazing to me that some people can sense the scale of knowledge so easiliy and to them it is second nature. Yet there are others who may actually be a majority who insist on defending opinions with their last breath while remaining closed to this scale of knowledge………"Opinion is between the knowing of the true idea and the ignorance of the unreal"(Plato -Republic). ………Plato's perspective is beyond the senses, thus the question of 'can sense' is not applicable. Re Plato's Forms, the best one can do is to speculate them as pseudo-rational concepts via pure reason (not via the empirical senses)………In order to make sense and turn what is speculated to knowledge, i.e. as matter of facts, empirical sensual proofs are needed. One good example of this knowledge is a proven scientific hypothesis……….The idea of a soul that survives physical death is one that is speculated and has no empirical basis. According to Kant, they are transcendental illusions based on fallacious thinking, but nevertheless useful in some sense (psychological)…….2. Rousseau examine link between ‘force’ and ‘right’ –…….According to Rousseau, force cannot be the foundation for legitimate political authority. People obey those stronger than themselves out of necessity, not by choice. Thus, the right of the strongest cannot create the sense of a duty that is necessary to establishing...
Words: 1456 - Pages: 6
...and reasoning. The Scientific Revolution took place during Neoclassicism, and at this time, society as a whole unit became more important. A famous neoclassical writer, Jean de La Fontaine, used animism to tell his stories; his characters were animals that were given human behaviors in order to teach society moral values. Perhaps one of Fontaine’s most famous fables, “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” taught one of the most important life lessons, which is to be wise and look ahead to the future. Francis Bacon, another famous neoclassical author, described the way one can find true knowledge in “Idols of the Mind.” He even discussed how knowledge and power are considered to be one. Bacon expressed that one should not let “idols of the mind” restrain their thoughts, and therefore, keep them from gaining essential knowledge. Like Bacon, Thomas Hobbes stressed the importance of knowledge and power among individuals in society. Hobbes talked of states and a strong central government in “Leviathan;” he also believed in the equality of every man. He also thought sovereign authority and separation of powers was extremely important among society. Rene Descartes was yet another famous writer during Neoclassicism; he was known as the Father of Modern Philosophy. He founded analytical geometry, and his writings centered around mechanical philosophy, meaning the focus of human time was no longer the sun, instead a clock. In his writing, Descartes searched to know the truth; he...
Words: 577 - Pages: 3
...Foundations of Psychology Paper University of Phoenix PSY/300 General Psychology 9/11/12 The roots of Psychology as we know today stems from the early Greek and Roman philosophers. If it was not for these philosophers the people of today would not been have able to interpret their writings and words; passing them down from generations and adapting their theories and concepts to present day. In general, all these different theories all genuinely revert back to these innovators and if it were not for them we would not have this subject that we have today called psychology. Starting off with the Greek Philosopher Socrates. Born in 469 BC to 399 BC, Socrates is known today as one of the founders of what people today call today as Western Philosophy. Socrates contributed a lot to the field of psychology he is especially known for forming a style of questioning which today we call Socratic method. According to "Socratic Method" (2011), “The Socratic Method, named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas.” This allowed people the ability to discover more about themselves then ever before. Plato was a Greek Philosopher and mathematician born in 427 BC to 437 BC; he was one of Socrates’ students and was known to be a few that recorded Socrates’ teachings. He, like Socrates believed that people or individuals...
Words: 583 - Pages: 3
...Socrates, outlined three aspects of the psyche which were: reason, feeling and appetite. He also wrote about the biformity of the psyche and the connection between mind and body (Hergenhahn, 2009). Plato’s ideas were a lot like those of Freud’s notions about the id, ego and superego. Aristotle, who studied under Plato, wrote De Anima, which is considered to be the first book on the history psychology. He built on the ideas of Plato, and other philosophers, about the psyche. Though he was more interested in studying psychological phenomena in biological terms, so many consider him the first physiological psychologist (Hergenhahn, 2009). Then in the 17th century the philosophical begins slowly to make the transition into psychological. Rene` Descartes was a...
Words: 915 - Pages: 4
...Descartes and Rationalism René Descartes, 1596-1650 (Latin Renatus Cartesius, hence the term Cartesian) Descartes’ Project Descartes was a contemporary of Galileo and Kepler. He was born about 50 years after the publication of Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus. Thus he lived right at the beginning of the scientific revolution, as the medieval world view was beginning to collapse. Descartes was a mathematician and physicist, as well as a philosopher. He was the first to offer a system of mechanics that applied both to terrestrial and heavenly bodies. His system was based on a set of laws governing the motions of particles, including various types of collisions. These laws, though unsuccessful, were a precursor of Newton’s laws of motion, and Huygens’ solution to the collision problem. Descartes had the disturbing experience of finding out that everything he learned at school was wrong. From 1604-1612 he was educated at a Jesuit school, where he learned the standard medieval, scholastic, Aristotelian philosophy. In 1619 he had some disturbing dreams, and embarked on his life’s work of rebuilding the whole universe, since the Aristotelian universe was doomed. (Descartes didn’t suffer from lack of ambition!) The problem for Descartes was that he couldn’t merely tinker with the medieval picture, fixing it up here and there, because it was fundamentally wrong. It was rotten to its very foundations. The only way to proceed was to tear it down completely, and start building again from scratch...
Words: 2471 - Pages: 10
...John Locke And His Writing Research Paper By: Brianna Lewis Honors English III Ms. Laroche March 28-2015 John Locke was an influential English philosopher during the enlightenment age. John Locke was born August 29 1632 in wrington Somerset England. His parents were puritan which lead him to grown up in a puritan household. His father was a country lawyer who also served in the military, which lead him to have the best of education. He attended Westminster school in London in 1647 then he attended Christ church in Oxford. He had trouble following the curriculum that was being taught to him which lead him to wonder off and stray into modern philosophy instead of the original curriculum he was suppose to learn. One of his friends that were taking medicine introduced him to it then he found his newfound passion. He begins living though just his mind. He was the very first person back then to identify them though consciousness. He then went to university of Oxford and study medicine and lectured on Greek, moral and rhetoric, which lead to a lot of his writing and his outlook on political disputes. Locke became friends with English statesman Anthony Cooper, Shaftesbury who was his adviser and physician. He became a very influential English philosopher with his writing topics being political philosophy, epistemology and also education. He founded the school of empiricism. Locke's Theory of empiricism emphasized the importance of experience...
Words: 873 - Pages: 4
...Reason and Experience DAA March 09 I. Mind as Tabula Rasa The Specification: - The strengths and weaknesses of the view that all ideas are derived from sense experience - The strengths and weaknesses of the view that claims about what exists must ultimately be grounded in and justified by sense experience. This is an analysis of the "empiricist" view: both Hume and Locke are empiricists as they argue that all knowledge depends on experience. Note that the first item asks us to evaluate empiricism as an explanation of the origin of ideas, and the second asks us to evaluate the claim that knowledge must be justified with reference to experience. Locke on the origin of Ideas AO1 Position and its implications: The mind is a tabula rasa or "blank slate" at birth, empty of all ideas and knowledge; it is gradually filled through experience AO1 Detail, Illustration: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding II.1 Locke's definition of "idea" = "the object of thinking" He gives examples: "such as are those expressed by the words whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking, motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others" We might say concepts rather than ideas, the basic mental building blocks of propositions or declarative sentences Ideas are acquired through two processes, sensation or reflection; each is a type of perception, the first of external objects, the second an inward perception of mental processes. Sensation ...
Words: 8854 - Pages: 36
...How Descartes Use Methodological Skepticism to Articulate a Foundationalist Conception of Knowledge Descartes is the first modern philosopher who rejects Aristotelianism and starts foundationalism, which is of great controversy but extreme importance in modern philosophy. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes utilizes methodological skepticism to present the foundationalist conception of knowledge, in which a belief can only be considered knowledge when it is based on basic principles, or principles that are justified without appealing to any external ideas or facts. Under the methodological skepticism, a person can test a belief by asking the question “Could it be false?” If the answer is “Yes,” the belief is not necessarily true and is not considered knowledge. This is the perfect tool for presenting a foundationalist conception of knowledge, unless there is an omnipotent being who can deceive people to think wrongly about these basic principles. Therefore, the existence of an omnipotent God and proof that God is not a deceiver is then presented in order to reject all doubts about the foundationalist conception of knowledge. A foundationalist conception of knowledge is a conception of academic discipline: one can only trust real knowledge that is based on basic principles. If a principle is wrong sometimes or is possibly wrong, it is not basic. If the principle is self-evident, showing its own truth, or is justified without appealing to any external ideas or facts...
Words: 1257 - Pages: 6
... 1 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II 2 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II Use of Reason (look it up) • Solves all problems (look at Kant “What is Enlightenment) • Provided new approaches to learning • Rationalism Two major schools of thought (at the time) • Inductive ◦ Roger Bacon • Deductive ◦ Rene Descartes 3 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II Kinds of philosophies • Dualism ◦ Mind and Body are different ◦ Binary oppositions- Two fundamental principals for everything ▪ Not monism • Pantheism ◦ Promoted by Spinoza ▪ 'Deus sive Natura' (God or Nature) We are part of Nature as a whole whose order we follow... A substance cannot be produced from anything else : it will therefore be its own cause, that is, its essence necessarily involves existence, or existence appertains to the nature of it. (Spinoza, 1673) 4 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II ▪ who also promoted the inferiority of women (see text or handout) • Empiricism ◦ I need to see it 5 Age of Reason WH 2 Unit II Major Philosophical Movements 1. Rationalism • Getting knowledge with thought primarily • Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Leibniz “I cannot forgive...
Words: 387 - Pages: 2
...named René Descartes (pronounced "ray-NAY day-CART") came up with a way to put these two subjects together. Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, in Touraine, France. He was entered into Jesuit College at the age of eight, where he studied for about eight years. Although he studied the classics, logic and philosophy, Descartes only found mathematics to be satisfactory in reaching the truth of the science of nature. He then received a law degree in 1616. Thereafter, Descartes chose to join the army and served from 1617-1621. Descartes resigned from the army and traveled extensively for five years. During this period, he continued studying pure mathematics. Finally, in 1628, he devoted his life to seeking the truth about the science of nature. At that point, he moved to Holland and remained there for twenty years, dedicating his time to philosophy and mathematics. During this time, Descartes had his work "Meditations on First Philosophy" published. It was in this work that he introduced the famous phrase "I think, therefore I am." Descartes hoped to use this statement to find truth by the use of reason. He sought to take complex ideas and break them down into simpler ones that were clear. Descartes believed that mathematics was the only thing that is certain or true. Therefore, it could be used to reason the complex ideas of the universe into simpler ideas that were true. In 1638, La Geometrie was published. This work was responsible for making Descartes famous...
Words: 828 - Pages: 4
...action was simply the result of his environment sufficient, an inward search to explain actions took place and as such, the concept of psyche was developed. The concept of psyche evolved through terms such as soul and then mind through philosophical debate and mistranslation since this period, and it is the aim of this paper to show how the mind has been conceptualised and the irrationality of associating in like form to that of the body. In order to understand the problems with relating the mind and body – the concept of Cartesian dualism, as theorised by Descartes needs to be examined. Descartes believed in an independent nonmaterial soul inhabiting and finding expression in a mechanically operated body. Descartes used his own words cogito ergo sum, “I am thinking therefore I exist” as somewhat of an unanswerable means of proof. In an attempt to understand everything and break it down to its most simplest form, Descartes the skeptic attempted to doubt everything in order to understand himself. He argues that he can doubt everything around himself, he can even doubt that his own body exists, however he can no doubt that he is doubting, - he could not doubt the existence of his own self, because he could not doubt it unless there was a self to do the doubting. Further to this point, Augustine writes in his City of God - Without any delusive representation of images and phantasms, I am most certain that I am, and that I know and delight in this. In respect of these truths, I am...
Words: 956 - Pages: 4
...premise is that Descartes presupposes something, such as the existence of the all-perfect God, to prove that the premise is true, the existence of the all-perfect God. Many critics argue that he creates a circular argument, hence “Cartesian Circle” and with a circular argument nothing concrete is really being proven. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes argument can be broken down into two main steps (Newman). The first step sheds light in the Third Meditations, where Descartes makes arguments for the existence of an all-perfect God. The second step is where Descartes takes the now established premise to argue that the all-perfect God exists. In short, Descartes is arguing that since he thinks, he exists and since he exists, an all-perfect God exists. Finally, since the all-perfect God exists, he thinks. This creates a circular argument according to his critics. One of the objections to Descartes is in reference to the atheists. Descartes argument would lead us to believe that since atheists do not believe in the existence of the all-perfect God. The example used is the sum of the angles of a triangle equating to the angles of two right angles (Second Objections, DSW, p. 139). The critic would argue that under Descartes philosophy atheists, by default do not believe in the higher being, thus would not be able to have the knowledge to comprehend the idea that two right angles equal the sum of all the angles of a triangle. Descartes somewhat concedes...
Words: 1244 - Pages: 5
