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What was the primary reason that Descartes doubted so many things?
Descartes believed that it was hard to find if there was any belief that was truely certain. This quote from Descartes describes his view, "Some years ago i was struck by the large number of falsehoods that i had accepted as true in my childhood... I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations" (M 1.17, 12)
What awards did René Descartes receive?
Descartes, René (1596-1650)René Descartes, often called the father of modern philosophy, attempted to break with the philosophical traditions of his day and start philosophy anew. Rejecting the Aristotelian philosophy of the schools, the authority of tradition and the authority of the senses, he built a philosophical system that included a method of inquiry, a metaphysics, a mechanistic physics and biology, and an account of human psychology intended to ground an ethics. Descartes was also important as one of the founders of the new analytic geometry, which combines geometry and algebra, and whose certainty provided a kind of model for the rest of his philosophy.After an education in the scholastic and humanistic traditions, Descartes' earliest work was mostly in mathematics and mathematical physics, in which his most important achievements were his analytical geometry and his discovery of the law of refraction in optics. In this early period he also wrote his unfinished treatise on method, the Rules for the Direction of the Mind, which set out a procedure for investigating nature, based on the reduction of complex problems to simpler ones solvable by direct intuition. From these intuitively established foundations, Descartes tried to show how one could then attain the solution of the problems originally posed.Descartes abandoned these methodological studies by 1628 or 1629, turning first to metaphysics, and soon afterwards to an orderly exposition of his physics and biology in The World. But this work was overtly Copernican in its cosmology, and when Galileo was condemned in 1633, Descartes withdrew The Worldfrom publication; it appeared only after his death.Descartes' mature philosophy began to appear in 1637 with the publication of a single volume containing the Geometry, Dioptrics and Meteors, three essays in which he presented some of his most notable scientific results, preceded by the Discourse on the Method, a semi-autobiographical introduction that outlined his approach to philosophy and the full system into which the specific results fit. In the years following, he published a series of writings in which he set out his system in a more orderly way, beginning with its metaphysical foundations in the Meditations (1641), adding his physics in the Principles of Philosophy (1644), and offering a sketch of the psychology and moral philosophy in the Passions of the Soul (1649).In our youth, Descartes held, we acquire many prejudices which interfere with the proper use of our reason. Consequently, later we must reject everything we believe and start anew. Hence the Meditations begins with a series of arguments intended to cast doubt upon everything formerly believed, and culminating in the hypothesis of an all-deceiving evil genius, a device to keep former beliefs from returning. The rebuilding of the world begins with the discovery of the self through the 'Cogito Argument' ('I am thinking, therefore I exist') - a self known only as a thinking thing, and known independently of the senses. Within this thinking self, Descartes discovers an idea of God, an idea of something so perfect that it could not have been caused in us by anything with less perfection than God Himself. From this he concluded that God must exist which, in turn, guarantees that reason can be trusted. Since we are made in such a way that we cannot help holding certain beliefs (the so-called 'clear and distinct' perceptions), God would be a deceiver, and thus imperfect, if such beliefs were wrong; any mistakes must be due to our own misuse of reason. This is Descartes' famous epistemological principle of clear and distinct perception. This central argument in Descartes' philosophy, however, is threatened with circularity - the Cartesian Circle - since the arguments that establish the trustworthiness of reason (the Cogito Argument and the argument for the existence of God) themselves seem to depend on the trustworthiness of reason.Also central to Descartes' metaphysics was the distinction between mind and body. Since the clear and distinct ideas of mind and body are entirely separate, God can create them apart from one another. Therefore, they are distinct substances. The mind is a substance whose essence is thought alone, and hence exists entirely outside geometric categories, including place. Body is a substance whose essence is extension alone, a geometric object without even sensory qualities like colour or taste, which exist only in the perceiving mind. We know that such bodies exist as the causes of sensation: God has given us a great propensity to believe that our sensations come to us from external bodies, and no means to correct that propensity; hence, he would be a deceiver if we were mistaken. But Descartes also held that the mind and body are closely united with one another; sensation and other feelings, such as hunger and pain, arise from this union. Sensations cannot inform us about the real nature of things, but they can be reliable as sources of knowledge useful to maintaining the mind and body unity. While many of Descartes' contemporaries found it difficult to understand how mind and body can relate to one another, Descartes took it as a simple fact of experience that they do. His account of the passions is an account of how this connection leads us to feelings like wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness, from which all other passions derive. Understanding these passions helps us to control them, which was a central aim of morality for Descartes.Descartes' account of body as extended substance led to a physics as well. Because to be extended is to be a body, there can be no empty space. Furthermore, since all body is of the same nature, all differences between bodies are to be explained in terms of the size, shape and motion of their component parts, and in terms of the laws of motion that they obey. Descartes attempted to derive these laws from the way in which God, in his constancy, conserves the world at every moment. In these mechanistic terms, Descartes attempted to explain a wide variety of features of the world, from the formation of planetary systems out of an initial chaos, to magnetism, to the vital functions of animals, which he considered to be mere machines.Descartes never finished working out his ambitious programme in full detail. Though he published the metaphysics and the general portion of his physics, the physical explanation of specific phenomena, especially biological, remained unfinished, as did his moral theory. Despite this, however, Descartes' programme had an enormous influence on the philosophy that followed, both within the substantial group that identified themselves as his followers, and outside.
Are there any aspects of your work which have not gone so well?
Yes
Did kandinsky win any awards for his art work?
Not even one award
How do you authenticate artwork by Charles Willson Peale?
Any provenance that accompanies the art work will help. Only a valid appraiser or museum can authenticate the work.
Did Rene' Descartes have any special awards or recognition?
Rene Descartes did win any awards or special recognition.
Did Rene' descartes have any siblings?
Rene Descartes was an only child. He was born to Jeanne Brochard and Joachim Descartes on March 31, 1596, in La Haye en Touraine. His mother died when he was one-year old.
Are there any monuments for René Descartes?
A memorial and ashes of Descartes is at Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris. Also, a memorial to Rene Descartes is inside Adolf Fredriks Kyrka, Stockholm.
Can you pls give me the names of famous mathmaticians or websites to go to i have a project to do and i can't find any?
Rene Descartes, Anders Celsius, Gabriel Fahrenheit
Was Rene descartes ever interested in any activities?
Yes, René Descartes was interested in various activities beyond his philosophical pursuits. He enjoyed mathematics, physics, and music. He also served as a soldier for a brief period and traveled extensively throughout Europe.
How did Rene Descartes believe truth was determined?
Descartes believed that truth could be determined through reasoning and skepticism. He emphasized the use of doubt as a method to arrive at clear and distinct ideas that could be considered true beyond any doubt. This approach led to his famous statement "I think, therefore I am" as the foundation for knowledge.
Which philosopher is noted for the statement you think therefore you are?
The philosopher known for the statement "I think, therefore I am" is René Descartes. This famous statement is from his work "Discourse on the Method" and is often considered a foundational element of modern Western philosophy.
Are their any modern changes or updates to the theory or contributions of Rene Descartes?
Not lately. He hasn't published anything in quite a while. But there are some rumors going around, repeated by some very reliable experts in the field, that Rene is working on a major manuscript, and that when he releases it, it'll really shake up a lot of the foundations of math. We should be ready.
How did Rene descartes try and prove that god was real?
Descartes argued that the existence of God could be proven through his famous Ontological Argument, which posits that the idea of a perfect being must have originated from a perfect being himself. He believed that God's existence was necessary for all other knowledge claims to be valid, as doubts and deceptions would undermine the foundation of any knowledge without God. Ultimately, Descartes saw God as the guarantor of the truth and reliability of knowledge.
Who is the french mathematician that invented Cartesian coordinate plane?
Rene Descartes, the surname means ( some charts or some maps) Descartes theorized than any equation can be expressed in graphical form, form follows family names! Descartes and the Cartesian idea became associated with the Cartesian diver, a toy deep-see diver that rises and falls owing to buoyancy and openings in the diver figure. It is probable this came along long after the death of M Descartes, but was bestowed in an honorary fashion- as were many of the (Inventions) of Leonardo Da Vinc i and closer to home, Franklin.
Did René Descartes have any hobbies?
Thinking.
What is the aim or purpose of Descartes Meditations?
Descartes hopes to find out what he can know for certain, without any doubt, about the world and nature.
