"well ...Descartes believed that everything should be questioned ...that is, approached with doubt. And if you could find one thing that cannot be false, that one thing would serve as a foundation for all other knowledge claims.So, unlike John Locke, Descartes doubts that knowledge comes ...
Descartes goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic “as if noone had written on these matters before”. Many elements of his philosophy haveprecedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century,
The fact that we perceive God's timeless actions from our time-limited perspective does not imply that He is involved in time; it only shows our limitation. While we cannot be rid of these, the use of analogy can help us in understanding God's eternity as it can all His other infinite...
One thing I learned from several atheists is the importance of skepticism and doubt. Indeed, while certainty leads to arrogance, uncertainty leads to humility. We open up the conversation and value diverse experiences when we approach the world with a perspective of “I’m not sure” or “I...
Was this withdrawal-into-self not accomplished by Descartes in his universal doubt and reduction to cogito, which, as Derrida points out in his “Cogito and the history of madness,”[1] also involves a passage through the moment of radical madness? Are we thus not back at the well-known ...
In fact, we not only believe our thoughts to be True, but we fully identify with them. Weareour thoughts, our inner-thinker, the little “me” voice in our head who talks to us all day and night. As Descartes wrote, “I think therefore I am,” and indeed this continues to d...
This is the Cartesian Coordinate system, and it’s still in use more than three centuries after Descartes’ death. So X, Y and Z cover three of the five axes in 5-axis machining. What about the other two? Imagine zooming in on Descartes’ fly in mid-flight. Instead of only describing...
René Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”. Modern neurobiology says: “I feel, therefore I am.” Rituals strengthen the bonds of human communities. Hand-shaking and saying hello are rituals. Religions offer rituals. Cultures offer rituals. Why do some people not believe? Well, they ...
Another philosopher,Benedict Spinozaquestioned Descartes’ idea. Spinoza realized that the brain does not process ideas the way that Descartes proposed. He suggested that,“people believe every assertion they understand but quickly ‘unbelieve’ those assertions that are found to be at odds with other...