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Similarities Between Descartes And Augustine

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There is only one way to truth, and many philosophers have taken many ways to find this one way. Unfortunately there were also many philosophers who took many ways, to find themselves never finding this way. This way is God. God is the oneness of philosophy that all theory, morality, and logic flow from and search for. It is clearly seen in all the great modern philosophers that God means something. And, that something just happens to be significantly relative to the eyes of each an everyone of them. Skepticism, meditation, self-knowledge, the Divine light, and knowing God are all huge components of the two superstar figures of Descartes and Augustine. They are figures that will enlighten us about what brings us knowledge and truth. …show more content…

Doubt and Skepticism are essential components that set up their methods of reasoning, and without their doubt and skepticism I probably wouldn't be discussing them right now. Through reflection and meditation Descartes and Augustine refine doubts, through their to-be-explained methods. By reflecting they come to a better understanding of the self, which causes them to definitively question the existence of God. Through which they come to reasoned knowledge of God which brings them to a culminating understanding of themselves, and their …show more content…

At this point in each of their processes, I have found that self-knowledge is the most significant turning point in their acceptance of truth. What could be more important than knowing that you exist? I don't really think that there is anything more important than that, especially in philosophy. How could we examine life, if there is none or if it is simply an illusion? Self-knowledge is the stepping stone to salvation for both Augustine and Descartes. One of the most famous lines in all of history appears as a product of Descartes' methodological process in union with the search for truth. In part four of his Discourse on Method Descartes says "I am thinking, therefore I exist" (36). This quote seems to be so simple, and it is. But, that is what makes the quote brilliant, its simplicity. I saw on the contrary that from the mere fact that I thought of doubting the truth of other things, it followed quite evidently and certainly that I existed; whereas if I had merely ceased thinking, even if everything else I had ever imagined had been true, I should have no reason to believe that I existed. (Descartes,

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