AP+Descartes


 * Descartes **

**1. Visual** **2. Descartes**  **3. Bethanie Butler**  4. **Cultural:** René Descartes was a mathematician foremost and a philosopher second. Yet his contributions to philosophy enriched the philosophical society greatly. He challenged the thinking of many philosophers by saying his most famous line, “I think, therefore I exist” (“René Descartes (1596-1650): Overview”). That line impacted the culture of many societies, not just those made up of philosophers, because Descartes drew the conclusion that the act of thinking was enough to prove existence. Even if people’s thoughts are true or false, merely thinking those thoughts is sufficient evidence to confirm people do exist and that reality is genuine. Descartes through this quote “sets up clear and distinct intellectual perception, independent of the senses, as the mark of truth” (“René Descartes”). He may not have been a philosopher first, but Descartes left his cultural impact on society because it forced people to think about existence just by thinking. Descartes simplified philosopher for the everyday person and his ideas still remain relevant today.

 Works Cited “René Descartes”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 3 Dec. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2011.

 “René Descartes (1596-1650): Overview”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 13 Sept. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2011.



2. Term: Descartes

3. Ashley Payne

4. Historical:

As one of the greatest philosophers of the Renaissance periods, René Descartes is known as the Father of Philosophy. For many of his radical beliefs that rejected Aristotelianism, which was the philosophy of the medieval era, he received the name. “Descartes is often called the “Father of Modern Philosophy,” implying that he provided the seed for a new philosophy that broke away from the old in important ways. This “old” philosophy is Aristotle’s as it was appropriated and interpreted throughout the later medieval period” (Skirry). Descartes planted and developed new ideas for philosophy in a time that was so in tune with the philosophies of Aristotle. By breaking away from these traditional believes, he opened many new doors to understanding the premises he introduced. Although he was a French mathematician, his contributions to psychology are largely recognized today in psychology proper. “Les passions is Descartes' most important contribution to psychology proper...it contains Descartes' most extensive account of causal mind/body interactionism and of the localization of the soul's contact with the body in the pineal gland...because it appeared to him to be the only organ in the brain that was not bilaterally duplicated and because he believed, erroneously, that it was uniquely human” (Wozniak). Descartes’ contributions, such as his writings, are still referenced today in “psychology proper.” Descartes identified the mind and body as being separate and it is a philosophy still used today in the nature vs. nurture, in which many philosophers from Descartes’ time and onward try to determine which has the greater effect on humans. The pineal gland, which he “believed, erroneously, was uniquely human” plays into Descartes’ understanding of the human mind.

Works Cited

Skirry, Justin. “René Descartes (1596-1650): Overview”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 13 Sept. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. Wozniak, Robert. "Mind and Body: Rene Déscartes to William James." Serendip. Bryn Mawr College, 1995. Web. 13 Oct 2011.

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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Descartes

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Ashley Payne

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">4. Audience: The uneducated.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Rene Descartes’ targeted audience is the uneducated. The way he communicates his knowledge and philosophies is through teaching. He has many published writings intended to inform. His more well-known philosophy is “Cogito ergo sum” or “I think, therefore, I am.” With this statment, Descartes is trying to communicate to those listening that it is not simply about just existing, it is one’s own mind existing and overpowering doubt; certain knowledge. In one of his published works, The Second Meditation, Descrates wrote: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“I have convinced myself that there is absolutely nothing in the world, no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies. Does it now follow that I too do not exist? No: if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a deceiver of supreme power and cunning who is deliberately and constantly deceiving me. In that case I too undoubtedly exist, if he is deceiving me; and let him deceive me as much as he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something. So after considering everything very thoroughly, I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind.” (Descartes) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Descartes is enlightening people on the essence of their existence, ensuring people they do exist because they can question their existence and conclude that “I am, I exist.” This ties directly to “I think, therefore I exist,” because one must carefully consider their doubts to finally understand that they exist. Gerber agrees, “Descartes’ philosophy begins in doubt. The first step towards certainty, the Archimedean point from which the whole structure will grow, is the discovery of the existence of the self” (Garber). It all begins with doubt. One doubts, then one questions, and that is the “first step towards certainty” to discovering the existence of oneself.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Works Cited

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Audi, Robert. “Descartes’ Epistemology.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 3 Dec 1997. Web. 13 Oct 2011. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Garber, Daniel. “Descartes, René (1596-1650).” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 29 Aug 2003. Web. 13 Oct 2011.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Visual **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Term: Descartes **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Courtney DeWein **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**4. Aim:** As a child <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, René Descartes was often frustrated with the misconceptions and inaccuracies he discovered in the popular philosophies of his time. As a result, Descartes was compelled to establish his own ideas on philosophy, which were largely based on his mathematical findings. First and foremost is his incredibly well-known assertion - found in his //Discourse on Method// - that “I think therefore I am” (The Philosophical Writings of Descartes). Descartes explains that he knows with "absolute certitude that I am a being which at the very least, if nothing else, has conscious experiences, the particular conscious experiences I have" (Magee 87). Descartes recognition of his "conscious experiences" occurred after a conflict between consciousness and unconsciousness, which prompted his conclusion that believing oneself to be awake "is not sufficiently justified" ("Descartes' Epistemology"). Because consciousness cannot be "justified", Descartes believed there must be a "higher spirit whose sole aim is to deceive [me]" (Magee 87). Descartes' belief in a "higher spirit" greatly influenced philosophies about God. Using his method of applying logic to reliable facts, Descartes introduced the world to his theory that God is an "infinite being, eternal and immortal, perfect in every way" (Magee 87). Additionally, Descartes insists that he can trust this " infinite being" and "be certain of the truth of whatever is then presented clearly and distinctly to me as being true" (Magee 87).

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Works Cited <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Corbett, Jack. "I don’t think... and yet here I am". JPEG file.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Descartes’ Epistemology”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 20 July 2010. Web. 13 October 2011.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Magee, Bryan. //The Story of Philosophy:A Concise Introduction To the World’s Greatest Thinkers and Their Ideas//. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2001. Print.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//The Philosophical Writings of Descartes//. Cottingham, John, Stoothoff, Robert, and Murdoch, Dugald. (eds.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Web. 13

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">October 2011.