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Philosopher Rene Descartes: Doubting The Method

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Doubting the Method
The United States Marines have a long-standing warrior ethos; a 241year old tradition in which instant obedience to orders and intensity are hallmarks in teaching hesitation kills. Being a synonym for hesitation, doubt is commonly underestimated in the preliminary planning phase towards achieving goals. The reality is that doubt plays its role in the present and only during instance’s of heightened conflict, consequently, the gravity of its effect in most cases are not considered during the victorious planning stages. Philosopher Rene Descartes advocated for a method of doubt, “in which [an individual] puts aside [their] preconceived ideas and beliefs and begin[s] from a position of skepticism” (Boss, 2016. p. 9). In many ways this method has been utilized over the years by countless individuals to achieve greatness, …show more content…

Descartes’ principles of effective critical thinking, suggests one should not accept for fact, anything that does not appear evident in truth. This is common in today's mass-media outlets, where gossip and hearsay outline fallacies of treason among institutional policy. The reason the false prophets of the biased newsgroups are held in such high regard is because of an assumed position of intelligence and superiority, furthermore, the lack of academic insight among the vast majority of citizens supports this agenda through doubt. Not having the proper information or the inclination to have a justified opinion only leaves doubt in one's situational position in which they are not fully vested. Accordingly, being in observance of personal beliefs and claims can relieve the position of doubt and skepticism when able to adopt foreign viewpoints. It is human nature to support and promote personal beliefs, but from the mature

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The Discourse on Method exhorted the reader to doubt everything. It advised him to take as false what was probable, to take as probable what was called certain, and to reject all else. The free-thinker should believe that it is was possible to know everything and should relinquish doubt only on proof. The senses were to be doubted initially, because they were also the source of hallucination; even mathematics might be doubted, since God might make a man believe that 2 and 2 made 5. With this book, Descartes revolutionized the form of scientific arguments.

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Cass Sunstein explains in his article, “How Facebook Makes Us Dumber”, the tendency of facebook users to seek out information that confirms what they already believe. He explains the “vicious spiral” that occurs when a homogenous community of facebook users share articles that don’t necessarily have any factual truth. The article confirms whatever bias the community holds, and thus strengthening the belief. Readers of these articles don’t feel the need to fact check or seek out any contradictions of the article because they agree with the article’s content, and because every article that is shared within the community features the same opinion, it becomes as if opposition doesn’t even exist. In Leonard Pitt’s “When ears don’t hear, truth is

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Siyi Lin Philosophy Essay 2/Meditation III Word count: As Descartes mentions in Meditation I, we assume God is an powerful demon but how can we prove that God exists? In Meditation III, he tries to prove the existence of God through two ways.

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Notre Dame ID: 902008117 In René Descartes ' Mediations on First Philosophy, Descartes abandons all previous notions or things that he holds to be true and attempts to reason through his beliefs to find the things that he can truly know without a doubt. In his first two meditations Descartes comes to the conclusion that all that he can truly know is that he exists, and that he is a thinking being. In his third meditation, Descartes concludes that he came to know his existence, and the fact that he is a thinking being, from his clear and distinct perception of these two facts. Descartes then argues that if his clear and distinct perception would turn out to be false, then his clear and distinct perception that he was a thinking being would not have been enough to make him certain of it (Blanchette).

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In the fourth set of objections Arnauld claims the descartes is engaging in the a vicious circle in regards to reason that the basis on which establish what we clearly and distinctly perceive is true is because of god exists and that we can only be creating that god exist because we clearly and distinctly perceive this idea. Thus in order to Clearly and decry perceive an idea to be true god must exist but for god to exist we must clearly and silty perceive the idea of god. This's are question circularity pertaining to the proof of god is again Brough into question in the fifth objection. In Descartes response to both of these he refers the objector back to replies three and four to the second set of objections presented by Mersenne. Descartes

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Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, used a method of doubt; he doubted everything in order to find something conclusive, which he thought, would be certain knowledge. He found that he could doubt everything, expect that he was thinking, as doubting is a type of thinking. Since thinking requires a thinker, he knew he must exist. According to Descartes if you are able to doubt your existence, then it must mean that you exist, hence his famous statement cogito ergo sum which is translated into ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes said he was able to doubt the existence of his body and all physical things, but he could not doubt that his mind exists.

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Rene Descartes was essentially saying we cant know anything for sure therefore we cant have real knowledge. Where Russel was more along the lines of its true we cant disprove certain things, but that doesnt make them likely. its entirely possible that we are just brains in a vat but its also highly unlikely and there is no reason to believe that is true. the famous tea pot thought experiment represents this well. what if i told you that between the earth and mars there is a tea pot revolving around the sun?

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Two of the greatest philosophers in modern western philosophy came out of the 17th century. Rene Descartes and John Locke made huge contributions to the world of philosophy that we know today. They attempted to find answers to the same questions. Using their knowledge on epistemology – the branch of philosophy that studies nature, sources, and the limits of knowledge – they concluded some very interesting concepts and many of those ideas clashed with the ideas of Aristotle. Rene Descartes was born on March 31st, 1596 in La Haye en Touraine, France, known today as Descartes, Indre-et-Loire, France.

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Due to the many news sources available, viewers are able to validate and challenge all views. Although viewers have the option to question if what is on tv or the media is true, many chose to only believe selected perspectives. People who are up to date with the news want to create biases, opinions and views. It is important for viewers to validate these biases. Viewers want to get desired views validated for the reason that other news sources, discussing different viewpoints, could possibly make viewers question what is said on the media and threaten selected biases.

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Rene Descartes is considered as one of the most important founders of modern day philosophy. His greatest contribution to philosophy is his meditations. This paper aims at establishing what wax represents in Descartes meditations. In his second meditation, Descartes introduces the idea of wax freshly obtained from honeycombs.

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Historically, philosophers and scholars have been known to argue and disagree about the most trivial matters because of the prejudices and biases towards the subject matter. Descartes popularized the methodological doubt because he realized that throughout his life he had acquired and maintained certain opinions and beliefs that he later discovered were false. Methodological doubt was a process that sought to attain the truth that was beyond dispute or was doubted by human beings and his fellow philosophers. Therefore, the methodic doubt was an approach to knowledge that would filter and sift through all the beliefs and opinions that people had and categorize then to create indubitably true knowledge. It was important in establishing a firm foundation of unchanging facts and knowledge from which people could base or dispute the knowledge, beliefs, and information they had amerced in their lifetimes.

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