Descartes Philosophy Definition

lilen gomez | Jan. 2022
Professor in Philosophy

The French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650) is often regarded as the founder of the modern philosophy. His contributions in the field of thought not only confined to the philosophy, but also reach different sciences, such as physics and mathematics (he is credited, for example, with the formulation of the laws of refraction of light, analytical geometry, etc.).

Bertrand Russell argues that Descartes was the first thinker whose philosophy was profoundly influenced by the new physics and the new astronomy that resulted from the Revolution Copernicana, started in the 16th century.

Descartes considered it necessary to demonstrate the objective nature of reason, which could be achieved methodically. This mode of proceeding of reason to achieve objectivity will be exposed, in the first instance, in the Rules for the direction of the mind (1628) and in the method discourse (1637), whose metaphysical foundation will later appear in the Metaphysical Meditations (1641) and in Principles of Philosophy (1644).

The rules of the method

The Rules, which are reformulated later in a simplified way in the Discourse on Method, consist of directives to prevent the mind from taking the false for the true. The first rule insists on this: nothing should be taken as true that is not known with evidence, it is necessary to carefully avoid haste and prejudices. The second is the rule of analysis, according to which it is easier to study a problem once it is reduces it to minor parts, down to the evidence, namely, those simple things of which we cannot doubt. The rule of analysis is followed by that of synthesis, which transforms the reduction to simple inarticulate elements into a complex reconstruction of the whole, now illuminated by thought. Finally, the fourth rule involves listing and reviewing all the previous steps, in order to correct any possible errors.

radical doubt

Although Descartes still retains certain traits of scholasticism —typical of the medieval period prior to his developments — his thinking is usually described as a radical break with philosophy previous. Even when the author does not make explicit a rupture will, in his Metaphysical Meditations he points out, nevertheless, the need to completely reject the edifice of knowledge erected by his predecessors, in order to build a new one from scratch on foundations solids. The Meditations expose the foundations of the criteria followed by the method to know reality reliably. That is, they explain what these solid foundations consist of.

There, the starting point of the philosopher is the rejection of all knowledge that we can doubt, that is, of everything that we "know" without certainty. Knowledge, to be such, must be absolutely indubitable, otherwise it should be abandoned. to this suspicion hyperbolic or exaggerated, carried forward as a method to distinguish true knowledge from that without scientific foundation, it is known as radical doubt or methodical doubt.

The radical poses to doubt absolutely everything, forcing doubt to its very limits. The justificationmetaphysics of the rules of the Cartesian method is that such rules allow us to arrive at indubitable knowledge.

The ego cogito and the proof of the existence of God

The first thing that is subject to doubt is the knowledge of the senses. We know that, on certain occasions, the senses deceive us (for example, when we observe that some objects "break" when they cross the surface of the water), why not suppose that they always deceive us? If we take doubt to the extreme and suppose that everything we perceive and even our reasoning are false, we can still be sure that we are thinking and, therefore, that we exist.

The me it is the first indubitable certainty, the touchstone to which Descartes arrives following the rules of the method. Taking that certainty as a starting point, then, the Meditations proceed in the proof of the divine existence: the awareness Human consciousness contains the idea of ​​God and, to the extent that we are certain that our consciousness exists, then such an idea must have a certain degree of reality, since it is its content. The existence of God, once proven, will function as a guarantee of the criterion of truth by which we can distinguish genuine knowledge from error and falsehood.

Bibliographic references

Giovanni Reale and Dario Antiseri (1992) History of philosophical and scientific thought. II. Of

humanism to Kant. (Il pensiero occidentale dalle origini ad oggi. Volume II. Editrice La Scuola, Brescia, fifth ed. 1985), trans. by Juan Andres Iglesias, Barcelona.