Ren Descartes Philosophy 1000 Dr. Alexander Izrailevsky, Ph.D.

November 25, 2013 South City Campus Amor S. Sanchez www.amorsanchez.weebly.com

Amor Sanchez Dr. Alexander Izrailevsky, Ph.D.

PHILOSOPHY 1000 25 November 2013

Ren Descartes
Ren Descartes, born on March 31, 1596 in La Haye, France. In honor of The Father of Modern Philosophy, the town was later named Descartes, France. Ren was given this title because it seemed as if his ideas were much more beyond his time, though they werent all entirely new, he presented them in a different light. Descartes was very well rounded, he made very notable contributions in areas of anatomy, mathematics, and cognitive sciences. He was a believer of all sciences are based on math, this led him to invent the Cartesian coordinate system. Ren contributed so much in very many aspects during his time, and even now we are still referring to many of his work as major material to study. Descartes father, Joachim, and mother, Jeanne Brochard had three children together. Descartes beginnings were hard, his father didnt make much to support a family and his mother passed within a year of his birth due to complications trying to deliver another child. His father, had decided that he and his two siblings, Pierre and Jeanne should be raised by their maternal grandmother. Joachim was always worried about education, so shortly after moving in with his grandmother, Descartes left and started to attend boarding school at Jesuit College of La Fleche. Ren had very fragile health growing up. Due to his conditions, he received special attention at school, he was able to sleep a little later and have his breakfast in bed, he used this extra time to think. This developed as a habit that he would carry later on throughout his life. By 1615 he had received his degree at the University of Poitier. He received his baccalaureate and license in Law

at Poitier. The rigorous academic schedule kept Descartes busy, and prepared him well to be one of the most noted mathematicians and future philosophers. At age 22, Ren enlisted in the Army of Breda for the Prince of Nassau. Service in the military was a tradition in his family, his duties during his enlistment are not proven, though it is thought to be directed towards engineering or education to assist soldiers during battle. During his time in the army, Ren met Dutch philosopher and scientist, Isaac Beeckman. Isaac became very highly impressed with Descartes intelligence. This meeting caused sparks with science again for Descartes. The two developed a very close relationship, one of a teacher and student. It is realized that Beeckman is one of the most influential people in Rens life. Descartes points out a specific couple of nights in November of 1619, he had dreams, dreams that changed his view on life. He considered these visions prophetic. Through this revelation, he declared to "devote all of my life to cultivating reason and advancing as far as I could the knowledge of the truth.. (Rodis-Lewis) He started the Methodic Doubt by taking the first step to disregard everything that he knew, he asked, what can I know 100%? By clearing everything off the table, he pieced everything together, and with that he began with the statement I Exist. Stemming from that, his most famous statement: Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I exist was made. The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt. -Rene Descartes In the knowledge of Galileo being condemned from the church for his work in Dialogue, Descartes decided to withhold the release of Le Monde, his studies on physics. Ren feared that his fate would be the same as Galileos if he had published his findings. The World continued on

to being released in smaller work, proceeding onto a lot of the material to be found in the Discourse. Ren only had one child, his daughter named Francine, she was born on June 19th, 1635. Francines mother was a serving woman named Hlne Jans. Ren was never married and he passed Francine off as his niece, having plans for her to be educated. Tragedy struck as Francine was ill with scarlet fever in 1640 and passed away soon thereafter. Descartes began an affectionate romance with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, she had read the Discourse on Method. During the romance, Descartes had started a another book entitled, Principles of Philosophy which he had dedicated to Princess Elizabeth. The Princess and Descartes were a great match; she intrigued him about issues that he hadnt dealt with before, such as: free will, passion, morals. Princess Elizabeth opened Rens mind immensely. He was then inspired to write a treatise named, The Passions of the Soul. Descartes question is, What can I know 100%? as mentioned before, Rens questioning led him to to believe that there are two Is in me: a. an actor; b. an observer; He points out that the observer is much more important than an actor. What is our thinking process? a. priori: before experience; b. posteriori: after experience; Rens Coherence Theory of Truth: every sensual, factual proof is imperfect by definition, it can be challenged;

In 1639, Descartes started to write the Meditations, this is Rens most famous literary work. Ren claimed to be a devout Roman Catholic, which is one of the purposes of this book he has stated is to defend his Christian faith. Meditations opens with questions, probing the reader to be skeptic and discover the possibility of knowledge. The purpose is to clear all preconceptions, and rebuild all knowledge from the ground. He wanted his readers to meditate, look through his eyes to find the conclusion along with him. Following is a summary of what is found in Meditations: MEDITATION I 1. A foundation for science needs truth that is certain, reject beliefs that cause any possibility of doubt, and what is left is considered certain. 2. You dont have to go through each belief individually, they are all based on a more essential belief, so to doubt one, you are equally doubting all others. 3.All my beliefs are based on a fundamental belief , but my own beliefs are not certain, they could be illusions put there by a powerful being. MEDITATION II 1. Even if my experiences were doubtful, could there be a truth that is certain? Yes, because I exist. 2. Since I cannot prove that they physical world (my body) exists, at least I can prove that I exist, but maybe only as a mind. 3. I am certain of my minds existence more than I am of my bodys existence. 4. The only evidence of my existence is my experiences, so I am absolutely certain that I am a thing that thinks. (a mind) MEDITATION III

1. Every idea has been caused by something, if I didnt cause the idea, there must be something besides me that exists. 2. Ideas of material reality can originate with me, but the idea of God, cannot because I am imperfect. 3. The idea of God, is only caused by God. Therefore, He exists. MEDITATION IV 1. Only someone imperfect could cause deception. Conclusion: God is not a deceiver. 2. My thought of process, and judgement comes from God. If I follow, I can do no wrong, I only makes mistakes when I judge things that I do not have knowledge of. 3. God gave me free will; it is far beyond my intellect and that is where the possibility to deceive myself comes. It gives me freedom to judge things I dont completely understand. 4. By limiting myself, and only judging what I am certain of, then I will not be mistaken, because God is no deceiver. MEDITATION V 1. By imagining ideas of geometrical shapes, I can discover truths pertaining to them, I can do the same with God. He gives us an idea of the perfect being, perfect = lacking nothing. 2. I cannot invent geometric shapes, though I am able to discover geometric truths and figures but I cant imagine. 3. Like the ideas I have with geometrical shapes, I am able to discover truths about them, I can do the same with God. I have the idea of a perfect being, perfect means lacking nothing. 4. God is perfect, not a deceiver, I couldnt have uncertainty if I didnt have God. MEDITATION VI

1. It is impossible to doubt everything, I am in the process of removing doubts where there is proven certainty. 2. Nature is in Gods order, it has truth to be told to me. 3. I make judgements on my own, against natures teachings 4. I commit errors when my body sends me misleading signals, How can God permit this? 5. By using multiple senses and memory, I will be able to avoid any wrong doing of my senses. I will be able to have faith in my truth if I rely on this process as long as they are consistent with each other. 6. Knowledge of objects does not come through senses, their ideas originated outside of me, my body belongs to me, though I dont have certainty that there is a connection between my mind and my body. Cartesian dualism is the theory that there are fundamentally two states, those are: mind and matter. He proposes, that the body, is like a machine, it has material properties and as for the mind, it was nonmaterial, it doesnt follow laws of physics. Dualism, (dua->two) these two coexist within each other: There are two mes in me: a. bodily me: male, in space, aggressive, engineering, reversible; b. intellectual me: female, in time, passive, memory, compassionate, irreversible; In the third Meditation, Descartes proves Gods existence, he states that he agrees with St. Thomas Aquinas Five Proofs of God, but they were too cold and abstract, Ren wanted to make it feel more personal, he proved that he could, he went on to proclaim that he had a sixth proof, it was: a. Humans: 1. limited 2. imperfect

b. God: 1. unlimited 2. perfect After much of his work was released, Descartes spent much of time defending his arguments. He published Principles of Philosophy, the purpose of the release was to analyze and break down his arguments from Meditations. In 1649 Descartes had decided to accept an invitation to move out to Stockholm to tutor Queen Christina in philosophy, he did so but her request was to begin her studies at 5 a.m.. Descartes had become habitual about sleeping in later and spending his mornings in bed that this caused a shock to his body. The climate change and working at that hour in the morning took a complete toll on Descartes body. Just a short year later of moving to Stockholm, at 53 years old Ren had passed away from pneumonia. Descartes left an enormous impact on society, during his time until now. As mentioned before he made a considerable amount of discoveries that were beyond his time, and for this he took the harassment along with it. Ren Descartes was the jack of all trades. His genius wasnt appreciated during his time, but he is now one of the greatest philosophers to have ever lived. He is seated not only with philosophers, but amongst commendable astronomers, mathematicians, and scientists. His brilliance brought a lot to the table as far as perspective on God and the separation between our minds and our bodies, and much, much more. Bibliography "Descartes' Life and Works." Stanford University. Ed. Smith Kurt. Stanford University, 09 Apr. 2001. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-works/>. Rodis-Lewis, Genevive. "Rene Descartes." Rene Descartes. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://home.wlu.edu/~mahonj/Descartes.Bio.htm>.

Ren Descartes. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 02:23, Nov 25, 2013, from <http://www.biography.com/peo13ple/ren%C3%A9-descartes-376>. Skirry, Justin. "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy." Descartes, Ren: Overview . Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 13 Sept. 2008. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/>. Anderson, James T. "Summary of Descartes' Meditations." Summary of Descartes' Meditations. Sandiego.edu, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. <http://home.sandiego.edu/~janderso/10/descart.html>. "Rene Descartes." Philosophers. Trincoll.edu, n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. <http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/descartes.html>.