René Descartes and his contribution to philosophy
René Descartes, a fifteenth -century French rationalist philosopher, hesitated all the knowledge disseminated by the scholastic and church in the modern era after verifying it. To solve this problem, he created a method of pythagorean influence and following the deductive mathematical model. I would submit to all your knowledge to ensure that this is truthful making us not falling into error again and thus discovering the evidence of the cogito. Descartes began what a revolution would be at that time after questioning the Church and therefore it is necessary to understand its philosophy to understand knowledge.
In ancient and medieval philosophy with Plato. Subsequently, the philosophers San Agustín and Santo Tomás in the S.IV and XIII opted for a less rationalist posture. After the appearance of Hellenism and Christianity they defended the existence of God through faith, which subordinated to reason. The patristic with Agustín joined theology with the philosophy, of neoplatonic inspiration, thus produced the conflict faith reason. With Santo Tomas and the scholastic, there is a more Aristotelian influence and the reason and faith feedback one of the other. At that time the relationship between religion and philosophy was stronger than ever until the S. XIV Guillermo de Ockham separate them.
In modernity, the so -called Protestant reform with Calvin and Luther and the scientific revolution is produced. Philosophers and scientists such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo or Newton, performed at the S. XV-XVI various discoveries that unmasked the falsity of the previous ones disseminated by the Church. Some of them were heliocentrism, elliptical orbits, universal gravitation law or the concept of force. After these discoveries, Descartes begins to doubt all its knowledge, of the Church, of the Scholasticism and the Aristotelian logic and that is how its solution is born: the method.
The theory of knowledge will now be the main axis of Cartesian philosophy along with the method. Descartes as a rationalist sustained reason as a tool to obtain true knowledge, mathematics as a deductive model and the presence of innate ideas since we were born just as Pascal, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz or Plato in their theory of reminiscence.
The Cartesian method was composed of four rules. The first is the evidence. This is essential not to fall into false knowledge again. It consists of accepting as true something that looks clear, with distinction and in which he does not fit the minimum doubt. The second is the analysis. All problems would be divided into how many more possible parts until something obvious to be found than not to doubt. The third is the synthesis. All parts obtained above would order in a deductive way starting from the easiest to the most complex as well as mathematics. The last rule is the enumeration. Consisted of making counts and reviews to ensure that nothing has been omitted. The Cartesian method was deductive and pythagorean influence. It was the fall in medieval and logic Aristotelian knowledge. Descartes in systematic doubts advocated that it was not skeptical, that is, there were the possibility of knowledge. In it he doubted the senses unlike the empiricists.
Descartes, not to cause a social stir, use provisional moral. Through it he fulfilled the established laws and the religion of his country with moderate behavior, he behaved firmly with the decisions he made and subject his personal desires to reason. Descartes I doubt the senses and postulated the hypothesis of sleep and evil genius. I thought the senses deceived us by not knowing if we are dreaming or not. He also thought about the existence of an evil genius that deceives us and this is where he discovers the evidence of the cogito. Descartes also defended the mechanism theory through which our body (extensive res), made of matter, follows material and mechanical rules as if it were a clock that gives Rope God as a watchmaker.
Descartes had three certainties. The cogitans, the res infinite and the extensive res. He established a dualism between the self and God deducting that the perfection of our thinking comes from it, which is the guarantee of the existence of the outside world (extensive res). At this time he returns to medieval scholasticism with the antological argument of Anselmo de Canterbury (S.XI). Thus postulated that the only thing we cannot doubt is the evidence of the cogito because while we think we exist. We are thinking, thinking substances, therefore "Cogito Ergo Sum": I think, then I exist. René differentiated 3 types of ideas: the adventitories that come from outside the subject, the factitions built in the imagination and the innate ideas connected with the infinite res.
As we see in the text belonging to rules for the direction of the spirit, we can observe the defense that DESCARTES of reason, logic and use of the method to submit to knowledge. In it there is a reference to Plato and another to the scholasticism along with the church. Defends, like Plato, the difficulty of accepting something new as true by making an analogy with the sun of the cave myth that provides true knowledge. He criticizes scholasticism after the falsehood transmitted referring to it as the "cultivation of letters". He advocates that it is not necessary.
For Descartes, as a rationalist philosopher, true knowledge comes from reason, while for empiricists like Locke (S. XVII) and Hume (S. XVIII) came from experience and senses. There is also a difference in the knowledge system that for Descartes was deductive but for empiricists, inductive. Empirism unlike rationalism did not defend the existence of innate ideas. We can relate the fall of medieval philosophy to the Cartesian method since after several contributions, mainly of the scientific revolution (S. XVI-XVII), many data that spread the medieval church were wrong. The appearance of rationalist philosophers such as Descartes also contributed to the collapse of it, which was based on faith mainly.
In conclusion, Cartesian philosophy contributed the method based on reason and mathematics, of which he even hesitated. He continued the devastated path of scholasticism, church and Aristotelian logic but still affirmed dualism and the existence of a perfect supreme being with the characteristics of God. His position was the opposite to the empiricism of Locke and Hume that defended the senses, experience and induction. Platonic influence made his philosophy, despite being more rationalist, had many strokes such as mathematics, dualism or innate ideas. Subsequently with Kant (S. XVIII) The two positions will combine following illustrated ideas. Many of the Cartesian ideas were equivocal but there is no doubt that they supposed a great advance and a solution in modernity.
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