René Descartes

René Descartes

Rene Descartes was born in La Haye, Touraine 31 March 1596.  In 1607, late because of his fragile health, he entered the Jesuit Collège Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche where he was introduced to mathematics and physics, including Galileo's work. After graduation in 1614, he studied two years 1615–1616 at the University of Poitiers, earning a Baccalauréat and Licence in Canon and Civil Law, in accordance with his father's wishes that he should become a lawyer. From there he moved to Paris.
Even though he lived in a predominantly protestant region, he was a Roman Catholic.

Because of his ambition to become a professional military officer, in 1618, Descartes joined the Dutch States Army in Breda under the command of Maurice of Nassau.

Facts:
-He was French, but he lived in the Netherlands and Sweden.

-He was not only a philosopher but he was also good at mathematics and physics.

-He went to college and had three alma mater.

- Cartesian Plane and Cartesian Coordinate System

-Descartes never married, but he did have a daughter, Francine, born in the Netherlands in 1635


One of his most known works: 

 

How the Methodic Doubt works.

In order to determine whether there is anything we can know with certainty, Descartes says that we first have to doubt everything we know.

 Since sense experience is sometimes deceiving, it is obvious to Descartes that "a posteriori" claims cannot be the basis for claims of knowledge. "A posteriori" means knowledge you gained from actual experience, like saying that the milk in the fridge is sour because you tasted it and it was sour.

Descartes says that in order to know if something is true we must first doubt everything we know.
When we dream we imagine things happening often with the same sense of reality as we do when we are supposedly awake. Just as a person who has an amputated limb has real sensations and feels real pains in a hand or a foot that no longer exists, we sense that we have a body and interact with other bodies. This means that we can be fooled by our own body or by our surroundings into thinking something that isn't real or true is real or true.

Epistomology related to Skepticism

Epistemology is related with Skepticism because the definition of Epistemology is the Study of Knowledge, therefore epistemology and the cartesian doubt are similar because when we use the cartesian doubt process we try to find answers and by getting the answers you get more knowledge

Cartesian Doubt related to Skepticism

Skepticism is when you doubt of a situation, you are a skeptic when  you try to question the answers.

Skepticism is a really profound theme because everything could be correct or wrong because the point of being a skeptic is in doubting everything and don´t believe everything they tell you.

Being Skeptic could be really helpful or really unproductive because you could loose a lot of tries trying to find an answer that you don't believe

The cartesian Doubt relates with Skepticism because the cartesian doubt is a branch of Skepticism, with this doubt we can't believe anything because everything needs to be questioned.

What is the Cartesian Doubt?

Cartesian Doubt

The Cartesian Doubt is a form of skepticism that is associated with Rene Descartes. It is also known as Cartesian Skepticism, Methodological Skepticism, and Hyperbolic Doubt. It is a systematic process where you are skeptical or that you doubt about everything, including the believes of people. This was largely popularized in Western Philosophy. Rene Descartes doubted the truth of all of his believes in order to see if it was true. This is subjective to all knowledge claims and has a goal to determine which are true claims and which are false claims. Its purpose is to use doubt as a route of certain knowledge by finding those things that can't be doubted because we know it is true. Sensory information is a form of Cartesian Doubt because we all see everything differently and to determine if it is true you have to go to several steps.

These steps are:
1. Only accept what you KNOW is true
2. Break down the truth into smaller units
3. Solve the simple problems first
4. Doubt everything

Sources

Klein, Peter. "Skepticism". Plato.stanford.edu. N.p., 2001. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.


Biography.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.


 Smith, Kurt. "Descartes' Life And Works". Plato.stanford.edu. N.p., 2001. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.


"Cartesian Skepticism". Princeton.edu. N.p., 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.
 

Philosophy.tamu.edu. N.p., 2016. Web. 4 Oct. 2016.

The Philosophical Writings Of Descartes, 3 vols., translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (Volume 3 including Anthony Kenny), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.