Essays on Rene Descartes

Many associate dualism with the religious themes seen amongst the works of dualist philosophers, such as Rene Descartes, often discrediting it amongst “most scientifically minded people.” (Gertler, 303) Many of which support the contrasting belief of physicalism, the belief that everything exists in a physical…

Descartes feels that man is far from just a complex machine or animal. In Part Five of his Discourse on Method, he establishes two means by which to identify if a machine is really a rational human being or not. The two means are separate…

Descartes and Dreams In Meditation I, René Descartes attempted to break down the information he had learned throughout the entirety of his life in an effort to rebuild his knowledge starting from a clean slate, free of falsehoods that he realizes much of his past…

The Reason for Freedom In order to be an individual you first need to desire individuality. Once the realization that total individuality is impossible is factored in, all that remains is the desire to desire. With this insatiable quest comes no reason or responsibility. Yet…

Descartes has six meditations listed in his book. He vividly discards the need for believing in things that are not necessarily certain. In his books, he tries to state the relevant things that people he claims people should know for sure. According to the way…

Have you ever wondered if it was possible to actually know another person’s or even another animal’s conscious state? This question has sparked numerous discussions and debates which basically summarizes the idea of consciousness. What is consciousness? By checking Oxford Dictionary of English and to…

Descartes and Locke are both considered as two of the primary early modern philosophers in the seventeenth century. Descartes and Locke are both attempting to find an answer to the same questions in epistemology such as what is knowledge and is their certainty in knowledge?…