Decartes
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Descartes
Rene Descartes (1596-1650), was one of the greatest philosophers of our time. He was influential not only in physics, natural sciences, mathematics, but most importantly his work on philosophy. Although his way of thinking may be skeptical, and rather harsh, his conceptions of hyperbole doubt, “I think, therefore I exist,” and the relationship between the mind and body is rather convincing.
One of Descartes most famous principles is the hyperbole (exaggeration) doubt. Descartes starts out by simply doubting everything at first. Although this is being carried out to the extreme, it is important to understand what his goal is. Descartes wants to take away all doubt and rebuilt our knowledge of the world from scratch. In order to do that, he proposes to doubt “everything doubtable first and then moves on once one finds certainty” (text; 25). This means that whatever he doubts, he rejects, and only takes facts that he can sure to be true.
At first glance, hyperbole doubt seems overwhelming. If he is trying to find only the ultimate truth to things, then can he possibly go through everything we have learned in our life time? There is a lot we have learned about our surrounding and our environment, but it will take a life time to figure out everything that is only true, especially since we are discovering new things everyday. For example, for the longest time, people used to believe that the world was flat, but after lots of work, we have discovered that the world is indeed round. So, in Descartes lifetime, he would not be able to reach every possible truth that there is. Also, there are some things, like the concept of God that cannot be proven. The most interesting thing here is that Descartes believes in the existence of God, but is it because he was a devoted Catholic who was taught Catholic teaching since his early ages?
As stated earlier, hyperbole doubt can be overwhelming, and can easily have a negative effect to it. But at the same exact time, hyperbole doubt can help us today to cope with every day things. We all expect certain things, often positive, to happen to us, but sometimes those things just do not occur. So, if we doubt everything at first, then we will not be disappointed if it does not occur.
Another interesting thing about Descartes is that although he doubts everything at first, he does not doubt his very own existence. Descartes not doubting his existence brings us to his next point, which is “I think, therefore I exist.” He says that he is a thinking being, therefore he exists. Another way to look at this is by saying that if a person is actually debating weather or not they exist, they must exist. If we do not exist, then we would not be here thinking if we exist or not. Because we have the capability to think weather or not we exist is the reason why we exist. Therefore, Descartes is correct with his concept of “I think, therefore I exist.”
Several different questions can arise from the previous concept. One problem with this is that at one point do we stop thinking? Do we stop thinking when we are dead? These questions are too complicated