intro to phil101

response back to these two post with a 100 word minimum

-Why doesn’t Descartes simply determine what’s real by looking around him and use his sense experience?

Descartes had a unique approach to philosophy for his time which is that he believed that you had to go beyond the appearances and use reason in order to develop a theory.

Descartes believed that most people relied way too much on there since of experience and that got in the way of their true clarity on things. That is why he used a “Method of Doubt” to help get rid of anything he could not be completely sure of with his theory. This helped him reassure his facts and not just go off personal experiences. Descartes was driven to make sure that he had at least one fact first that he could then build his philosophical system off of. Without this solid foundation, he would not be able to build the rest of his theory. Descartes genuinely wanted to start over from scratch in his approach to philosophy. He believed that we could be deceived by nearly anything, so it brought up the thought of “What do a really know”.

Descartes is part of modern rationalism which is associated with the mixture of mathematics and philosophy. Modern rationalism is the view that beliefs must be justified by the mind and not by your experiences. This way of thinking helps to mold modern science into testing and retesting their theories to rule out there since of experience compared to the true facts of their theories. Descartes wanted people to be skeptical of everything until they could eventually be left with just the facts about things.

-In Meditation II, Descartes states, “I am; I exist – this is certain.” Explain why Descartes claims that his knowledge here about this cannot be doubted?

From my understanding on the reason, Descartes claims that this is true and cannot be doubted was that the fact he began with convincing himself that absolutely nothing in the world existed such as the sky, earth, or his memories and senses to name the few, which led him to the question if he existed as well. Believing if there is a “higher power” or an “evil demon” giving him thoughts that can give him the impression of being deceived then he would not be able to convince himself of nothing existed in the world. If he was able to give himself those thoughts to convince himself then it showed that he was in control of his mind giving him a reason that he does exist. Even if he was able to let himself be or not to be deceived then that in itself also gives him a reason that he does exist because you would have to be something to be able to be deceived. Also, he stated “let him deceive me all he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing while I think I am something” from the passage in Meditation II, my interpretation on that quote is that even though he is receiving deceitful thoughts he is still able to believe his own manifested opposite thoughts on the matter giving Descartes the conclusion on if he asserts it or think it then his existence must be true, believing it in his mind even if some of his thoughts are true or false it would not matter because is actively engaging with himself.