Mind, Matter and Descartes :: Philosophy essays

Mind, Matter and Descartes   Cogito Ergo Sum, I think, therefore I am, the epitome of Rene Descartes system of logic. Born in 1596 in La Haye, France, Descartes studied at a Jesuitical College, where his acquaintance with the rector and childhood frailty eachowed him to lead a leisurely lifestyle. This opulence and lack of daily responsibility gave him the liberty to offer his discontentment with two contrived scholasticism, philosophy of the church during the Middle Ages, as well as extreme skepticism, the doctrine that absolute knowledge 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 one C in ancient Greece. In fact, the word philosophy is the Greek term for love of wisdom (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 known as the Middle Ages, the world was dominated by dogma of the Catholic Church. Scholasticism allied with severe punishment for heresy prevented rationalization outside of religion. Descartes was the first to bring philosophy to its Renaissance (Strathern 7-9). He questioned the reality of everything, including God. 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 nates upon which further scientific developments would be established. His devotion to maths methodic nature and invariability lead him to apply these concepts to all other ideas. He hypothesized that those propositions which one could come to understand in all would be self evident, since ones knowledge about them would not depend upon knowledge of any other propositions theref ore they were suitable 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 each person has an innate idea of a perfect being.