On the Philosophy of Descartes
On the Philosophy of Descartes
Seven men have come to stand out from all their counterparts in what has come to be known as the ‘modern’ period in the history of philosophy: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant.” Essentially these modern philosophers, with perhaps the exception of Kant, have been classified into two distinctive streams of philosophical thought rationalism and empiricism. The following discussion will focus on understanding the division between these streams of philosophy. The focus will primarily concentrate on understanding the contrasting views relating to the origin of ideas, with particular emphasis on Descartes theory of innate ideas. The report will argue that Descartes provided not only a more optimistic and encouraging understanding of the faculties of the mind, but in relation to the empirical response, also a more plausible one.
Undoubtedly the father of modern philosophy, but more specifically of rationalism Rene Descartes approached philosophical dilemmas influenced predominately by the progress and success of science and mathematics. Descartes attempted to answer epistemological issues with the assurity of math and science. Similarly Spinoza and Leibniz, inspired by of Descartes developed his philosophical arguments with the same level of exactness in mathematics . The rationalists set out to formulate clear rational principles that could be organized into a system of truths from which accurate information about the world could be deduced. Fundamentally their emphasis was upon the rational capacity of the human mind, which employed the principle of reason which had precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge.
Contrastingly developed the school of philosophical thought of empiricism, which John Locke has been attributed with being the founder of this style of thought. Empiricism evolved with a more modest objective, “clearing the ground a little and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge.” However, Locke developed a bold and original interpretation of how the mind works and one that challenged rationalist understanding. The scope of our knowledge according to Locke, “is limited to and by our experience.” Locke called into question the assumptions of Descartes that there was no problem that human reason could not solve if the correct method was employed. Locke developed a resistance “to the assumption that the human mind has capabilities that enable it to discover the true nature of the universe.” Descartes and other rationalists contrastingly viewed the workings of the mind...