DESCARTES PHILOSOPHY

HOANG BAO VAN

LAI NGOC HA ANH
1. INTRODUCTION
2. LIFE AND EDUCATION
3. “ FATHER OF MORDERN
PHILOSOPHY”
4. PHILOSOPHY PURPOSE
5. THE MIND ( CORGITO ERGO
SUM )
6. DUALISM: MIND – BODY
RELATION
7. GOD
8. METHOD
 1. INTRODUCTION

• Rene Descartes is a 17th century, Western

European philosopher. His major
contributions are in philosophy of mind
• Descartes took an approach of Radical
Skepticism about the nature of reality,
starting with a blank slate and step-by-
step deducing what, in fact, must exist.
• His extreme skepticism provided the basis
for modern epistemology. He coined what
is perhaps the most famous statement in
philosophy, "cogito ergo sum", or "I think,
therefore I am.

3
2. LIFE AND
EDUCATION
4
• Rene Descartes ( 1569 – 1650 )
• Born in La Haye, France
• He was sent to the Jesuit school at La Flèche in Anjou,
where he studied for 8 years.
• In 1618, Descartes met Issac Beckham – who rekindled
Descartes’s interest in science and opend his eyes
• In 1619, Descartes began serious work on mathematical
and mechanical problems under Beekam’s guidance
• Travel through Germany to join the army of Maximilian

5
1. Rules for the Direction of the Mind ( 1619 )

2. The World ( 1629 )

• How mechanistic and physics could explain the
vast erray of phenomena in the world
• Asserting a heliocentric conception of the solar
system
3. The Discourse on Method ( Diptique and
Meteos ) ( 1635 - 1636 )
4. Meditations on First Philosophy ( in 1639 )
5. Principles of Philosophy ( 1643 )
• The Principles of Human Knowledge
• The Principles of Material Things
• The Visible Universe and The Earth
Descartes’s
Masterpices
3.
“ FATHER OF
MODERN
PHILOSOPHY “
 DESCARTES - “ FATHER OF MODERN
PHILOSOPHY
DESCARTES
• Descartes was first major figure in the philosophical
movement known as rationalism, a method of
understanding the world based on the use of reason as
the means to attain knowledge.
• Descartes' basic philosophy requires analytical methods.
to analyze every detail of the problem, the first basic
thing that a true scientist must have is skepticism.
• Doubt is a force that motivates people to seek
knowledge, to seek new insights, to gradually come to
true truth.
• If one does not know doubt, human thoughts will
remain in place, this will lead to satisfaction, the cause
of conservatism and ignorance will arise.
SCHOLASTICISM
• This “old” philosophy ( Aristotle’s ) as it was
appropriated and interpreted throughout the later
medieval period.
• Scholasticism was characterized by the effort to
construct a coherent system of traditional thought
• Scholasticism involved methods of interpretation of
traditional texts and methods for combining ideas in
sophisticated ways
• In fact, Aristotelianism was so entrenched in the
intellectual institutions of Descartes’ time that
commentators argued that evidence for its the truth
could be found in the Bible
• Descartes philosophy marks a turning
point of human thought for the
universe, for heaven and earth and
ourselves. Descartes changed his
philosophical view of nature with a
philosophy of spirit.

• Descartes reaped the previous things

and began to form human philosophy or
spiritual philosophy. "I think that I exist,"
his view attracted philosophers like
Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and
Christian Wolff.

9
4. PHILOSOPHY
PURPOSE
10
In the author's letter to the translator of "Philosophical principles" in French,
Descartes reiterated his mission: first, to clarify the concept of philosophy;
second, determine the scope and function of philosophical knowledge, its
position in the system of cultural values ​of each nation, each nation. For the
first task, Descartes emphasized the meaning of the philosophical term left by
the Greeks - Descartes writes: "From philosophy it means the process of
reaching wisdom, and wisdom is understood not only as the wise at work, but
knowledge has perfected all that people can know, that is the knowledge that
guides our lives, for the protection of health, and also for the Intelligent in all
arts
Elsewhere in the letter Descartes writes: "All
philosophy is like a tree, its roots are metaphysics,
the body is physics, and the branches stem from
that tree are all the faculties. Another study,
attributed to three basic sciences: medicine,
mechanics and morality, I consider the last science
to be the highest and most complete science,
assuming full knowledge of other sciences and is
the last rung to reach the highest wisdom, similar to
the non-harvest fruit from the root and the body,
but only from the end of the branch, the specific
usefulness of philosophy depends on its parts. ...
"The view of the unity of specific scientific and
philosophical knowledge has a long history, starting
with Aristole. Flower science has not developed into
specialized sciences with its own system of
reasoning, and the Descartes era has been an era of
the invention boom.
5.THE MIND
13
 Cogito
I THINK, THEREFORE I
Ergo Sum AM

I DOUBT, I THINK
THEREFORE I AM
 • Build on the idea of radical doubt, in which nothing that is
perceived or sensed is necessarily true. The only thing that
remains true that there is a mind or consciousness doing the
doubting and believing its perceptions, hence the famous
RADICAL DOUBT formulation, ‘I think therefore I am’, or ‘Cogito ergo sum’

• Decartes leaned toward an inward approach towards defining

To subject our beliefs toradical “knowledge”. Specifically, we can consider the correctness of a
belief right from our own thoughts.
doubt and then seewhich of
• Moreover, he believe that these beliefs serve as the standard for
them will beaccepted all other beliefs, including those that are most likely to be true,
rather than absolute and impossible beliefs. We can find the
criterion of truth and justification from considering the ideas or
thoughts that come from our minds.
 • Take our beliefs and subject them to doubt.

• The main point is that we treat all our beliefs as

false until we find a foundation which is
undoubtable, and we used the undoubtable
things to build up everything on it.

• The method of doubt will be elaborated based

on: doubting the senses, doubting the physical
world (dream), and imagining that there exists an
evil genius.

RADICAL DOUT
It is the knowledge
of our self that will
give us the criteria
of truth and
eliminate doubt.
• Descartes used an architectural metaphor
for knowledge – Building a great tower
requires very firm foundations – Similarly,
knowledge depends on a foundation of
propositions known with absolute
certainty – One model for this is axiomatic
geometry, first codified by Euclid.
• Two features
• ● The axioms are ‘self-evident’ – cannot
be false – are absolutely certain
• ● The theorems follow from axioms –
Follow by pure logic – Inherit certainty
• Euclid’s Fifth Postulate – Another way to
state it: if you have a line and a point off
that line, there is exactly one line which is
parallel to the first line – Is this ‘self-
evident’?
6. DUALISM:
MIND AND
BODY
RELATION
 • In Meditation Six entitled “Concerning the Existence
of Material Things, and Real Distinction between the
Mind and Body”, one important thing Descartes
explores is the relationship between the mind and
body.

• Descartes believes the mind and body are separated

MIND and and they are two difference substances. He believes

BODY this to be clearly and distinctly true which is a

Cartesian quality for true knowledge.
SEPARATION • He believes that mind can exist without the body
 A real distinction is perceived when one
substance can be clearly and distinctly
understood without the other.

1) The mind is a substance

2) The mind can be clearly and distinctly

understood without any other
substance, including bodies

3) God could create a mental substance

all by itself without any other created
substance.
MIND AND BODY
 • The nature of the mind is understood to be
“something quite simple and completed” therefore,
indivisible.

• The nature of body is not indivisible

• Hence, mind and body must have two completely

different natures in order for each to be able to be
understood all by itself without the other.

• It nevertheless follows from their respective

abilities to be clearly and distinctly understood
without each other that God could create one
without the other.
MIND AND BODY

22
7. GOD
The Causal Arguments
• At the beginning of the Third Meditation only “I exist” and
“I am a thinking thing” are beyond doubt and are,
therefore, absolutely certain. From these intuitively
grasped, absolutely certain truths, Descartes now goes on
to deduce the existence of something other than himself,
namely God.
• Descartes begins by considering what is necessary for
something to be the adequate cause of its effect. This will
be called the “Causal Adequacy Principle” and is
expressed as follows: “there must be at least as much
reality in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of
that cause,” which in turn implies that something cannot
come from nothing.
• Here Descartes is espousing a causal theory that implies
whatever is possessed by an effect must have been given
to it by its cause.
• First, the objective reality contained
in an idea is just its representational
content; in other words, it is the
“object” of the idea or what that
idea is about. The idea of the sun,
for instance, contains the reality of
the sun in it objectively.
• Second, the formal reality
contained in something is a reality
actually contained in that thing. For
example, the sun itself has the
formal reality of extension since it is
actually an extended thing or body.
25
• Finally, a reality is contained in something
eminently when that reality is contained in it
in a higher form such that the thing does not
possess that reality formally, but it has the
ability to cause that reality formally in
something else. For example, God is not
formally an extended thing but solely a
thinking thing; however, he is eminently the
extended universe in that it exists in him in a
higher form, and accordingly he has the ability
to cause its existence. The main point is that
the Causal Adequacy Principle also pertains to
the causes of ideas so that, for instance, the
idea of the sun must be caused by something
that contains the reality of the sun either
actually (formally) or in some higher form
(eminently).

26
27
8. METHOD
• The method of doubt teaches us to take our
beliefs and subject them to doubt. If it is
possible to doubt, then we treat them as
false, and we need to repeat this process until
we are unable to find something to doubt on.
The main point is that we treat all our beliefs
as false until we find a foundation which is
undoubtable, and we used the undoubtable
things to build up everything on it. The
method of doubt will be elaborated based on:
doubting the senses, doubting the physical
world (dream), and imagining that there exists
an evil genius.

29
• How did Descartes know that he was not really in
insane or dreaming? He answers this question by
saying that our immediate impressions are so vivid
that they must be real. However, Descartes
contradict his answer by saying that he always
dreamed of sitting before the fire while writing,
and some of these dreams becomes visible to him
quite vividly. Hence, he could not be sure that he
was not dreaming at that moment. According to
this doubt, Descartes confirmed that all the
knowledge received through the senses must be
temporarily prevented from continuing because
there are not certain. In addition, we can doubt
that what our senses give us is accurate, but they
cannot be the foundation of building true
knowledge or certainty.

30
• Francis Bacon rejected Copernicus and
Kepler, misunderstood Galileo, but still his
book The Great Restoration has been
immensely influential. He popularized the
notion that scientific; all knowledge must
proceed from induction. The Inductive
method: one made careful experiments,
then systematic observations; correct
generalizations about your findings. Bacon
assumed that with this method, humans
could conquer nature, and understand its
details and use it to human advantage.
This idea has been at the heart of
scientific pursuit ever since.
31
• Rene Descartes: proposed a different
approach. In his Discourse on Method,
Descartes emphasized deduction and
mathematics. One could start with self-
evident truths, and deduce more complex
conclusions (the Deductive Method). This
complemented Bacon’s approach;
however, it was Isaac Newton that
synthesized the two approaches. Thus,
scientific method began with systematic
experiments, which were used to arrive at
general concepts. New deductions derived
from these general concepts and were
verified by precise experiments—thus, the
modern scientific method.
32
EVALUATION
• In Descartes’s Meditations, he admits to
being frustrated time and time again by
finding out that something he thought
was true was actually untrue, and thus
desires to find at least one single thing
that is undeniably and unshakably certain.
He decides to doubt everything and
anything that he thinks he could possibly
be wrong about, until he reaches
something that he believes must be true:
that he is a thing that thinks.
• Thinking for Descartes is very important since thinking for him determines ones existence.
The act of thinking is the self guarantee of thinking. The act of thinking provides the
ground for realizing that one exist. Human beings have a natural propensity to think
therefore he or she can prove his or her existence. Thinking can never be false, because it
is a process, thinking itself is beyond judgment, the thoughts that come from thinking are
always real we only make mistakes in our judgment. Descartes explains in the second
meditation using the honeycomb wax as an example of what kind of existence we can
perceive and have since the wax changes its form but yet we know it is still the same wax
Descartes thought that perhaps this is the true existence we are not just body and limbs
but we are beyond that because we can still change and still be the same and this is how
our minds works it has something innate that enables us to know it distinctively.

35
CONCLUSION

36
• Rene Descartes Philosophical theory on Existence and
Reality was in fact a science which was way ahead of its
time. His philosophy on doubting everything so as to
arrive at certain knowledge can be seen as something
radical and impractical and it is no doubt that this
philosophy is indeed a radical form of Philosophy and an
impractical one at that because one will just waste his
time doubting and questioning everything one sees and
this is just an impossible task. Rene Descartes is
someone who was obsessed in knowing the truth and
this led him to create this philosophy that before we can
have certain knowledge we must first doubt. To have
knowledge one must first doubt, this philosophy of
Descartes becomes practical if we do not take to the
extreme by really questioning everything, Descartes
main point is that for man to use his reason rather than
just accepting opinions, Descartes believes that reason is
higher that any kind of opinion, He wants us to use our
reason and there is nothing radical about using our
reason.

37