6 Characters...& Descartes
Let's continue our reading of Pirandello's 6 Characters in Search of an Author.
The father of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes lived from 1596-1650, and revolutionized the world with his ideas about life and science.
The Method of Doubt: Descartes was trying to separate truth from skepticism. How can we believe anything to be true? By using his method of doubt, he proposes or posits that we can use the exaggerated idea that we can doubt everything. By using skeptical arguments, we end with the idea that perhaps the whole world is just a dream or illusion, as it can be doubted that the universe really exists. After all, we can't trust our senses. Perhaps God made us prone to error in our reasoning. Or perhaps there is no God, which suggests that we are imperfect creations on our own. He then uses the idea that perhaps a demon is deceiving us. If we can answer the question "Could a demon be making me believe this even though it was false?" to everything we doubt, and if we answer "yes" we see the concept is open to doubt. It is then that he comes up with his next idea:
The First Certainty: Because each individual can say "I am, I exist." We can realize that if we can think we exist, we know it to be true (at least for us), as this is an intuition, not a concluding argument. The first certainty helps establish knowledge as truth. The knowledge that "I am, I exist" is a thought that "I think" must be true because this is true knowledge. I cannot rationally doubt I exist, if I think I exist. To doubt one is thinking, is to think, ergo a thinking thing.
Cartesian Dualism: In Descartes' 6th Meditation, he provides the premise that the mind and body are two different substances (the body is physical and the mind is immaterial, but both able to interact with one another).
More info about how his arguments are presented in his Meditations can be found here.
HOMEWORK: Please read about these various important philosophers and wrestle with their ideas:
Be prepared to examine Modern & Contemporary Philosophers next class. You will be asked to summarize ideas and present a "3-minute philosophy" on a philosopher you sign up for.
The father of modern philosophy, Rene Descartes lived from 1596-1650, and revolutionized the world with his ideas about life and science.
The Method of Doubt: Descartes was trying to separate truth from skepticism. How can we believe anything to be true? By using his method of doubt, he proposes or posits that we can use the exaggerated idea that we can doubt everything. By using skeptical arguments, we end with the idea that perhaps the whole world is just a dream or illusion, as it can be doubted that the universe really exists. After all, we can't trust our senses. Perhaps God made us prone to error in our reasoning. Or perhaps there is no God, which suggests that we are imperfect creations on our own. He then uses the idea that perhaps a demon is deceiving us. If we can answer the question "Could a demon be making me believe this even though it was false?" to everything we doubt, and if we answer "yes" we see the concept is open to doubt. It is then that he comes up with his next idea:
The First Certainty: Because each individual can say "I am, I exist." We can realize that if we can think we exist, we know it to be true (at least for us), as this is an intuition, not a concluding argument. The first certainty helps establish knowledge as truth. The knowledge that "I am, I exist" is a thought that "I think" must be true because this is true knowledge. I cannot rationally doubt I exist, if I think I exist. To doubt one is thinking, is to think, ergo a thinking thing.
Cartesian Dualism: In Descartes' 6th Meditation, he provides the premise that the mind and body are two different substances (the body is physical and the mind is immaterial, but both able to interact with one another).
More info about how his arguments are presented in his Meditations can be found here.
HOMEWORK: Please read about these various important philosophers and wrestle with their ideas:
And Galileo.
Be prepared to examine Modern & Contemporary Philosophers next class. You will be asked to summarize ideas and present a "3-minute philosophy" on a philosopher you sign up for.
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