The French Philosopher Rene Descartes
by Barry Wright
Essay: The French Philosopher Rene Descartes
Pages: 10
Rating: 3 stars
Download Links:
• The French Philosopher Rene Descartes.pdf
• The French Philosopher Rene Descartes.doc
The French Philosopher Rene Descartes The French philosopher Rene Descartes lived from 1596-1650. He was the
son of an aristocrat and traveled throughout Europe studying a
wide-variety of subjects including math, science, law, medicine,
religion, and philosophy. Descartes was greatly influenced by other
thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment.
Descartes was a rationalist. Like many philosophers, novelists, and
poets of his time, he questioned his own existence, and his reason for
being, man's purpose in the scheme of the universe. Descartes set
forth a number of philosophical trends. The questions he asks is where
do I fit? Decartes was concerned with how we come to ourselves, our
identity. He wished to discover truths where there could be no doubt.
He believed in a dualism of mind and body, that they were two separate
parts. This allowed him to uncover the only truth he could not deny "I
think, therefore I am." In Philosophy Now, Paula Rothenberg Struhl and
Karsten J. Struhl claim: However, Descartes argues that there is one
thing that is absolutely certain. I cannot doubt the existence of the
self that has these doubts. Thus, for Descartes, "I think, therefore I
am" is the fundamental axiom from which all philosophy must begin. The
"I" that thinks is defined simply as a thinking thing, and from this,
it follows that the essential nature of the self is the mind, as
distinct from the body. (Struhl, Paula Rothenberg, and Struhl Karsten
J., editors, Philosophy Now. Random House: 1980, P. 87)
Descartes develops a correspondence theor...