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Plato Vs Descartes

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Student’s Name: Professor’s Name: Course: Date: Comparing and Contrasting Plato and Descartes Philosophy is the study that examines fundamental and general problems that face various matters such as existence, values, reasons, knowledge, language, and mind. Some of the earliest philosophers were Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Descartes. In our research, we shall focus on the ideas and values of Plato and Descartes and how they were influential during their time. Plato was a philosopher in classical Greece and is famous for being the founder of the Academy in Athens, which is the first institution of higher learning in the western world. He is believed to live between c.428 to 347 B.C. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, …show more content…

This makes him doubt everything that he was taught. He claims that what he believes is from his own senses, which sometimes may be deceived. He compares this with a basket of apples. In that basket there are rotten apples, therefore we shall be forced to remove all the apples from the basket so that we can return those apples we are sure of to avoid all apples rotting. The same way human beings tend to discard all beliefs according to Descartes and examine each and the importance it has to our lives. Descartes believes that our lives may be dreams that we are forced to believe to be reality including our own bodies and forced to believe in physical existence. Descartes argued that there is a mind and consciousness that doubts or believes the perceptions hence came up with the formulation that states, “I think therefore I am.” He stated that even mathematics can be false and the evil be deceiving us to believe in mathematical judgments (Descartes R. 1911: 14-17). Here he came up with the Cartesian theory in mathematics, which people still believed in despite theorizing about the devil deceiving …show more content…

He claims that the same way we believe in finite, infinite and mode is the same manner that we need to believe that God exists. We all have an idea that God is an infinite being since we believe that God is innate. According to Descartes, our perception of God being an infinite being must also have an infinite object reality. Therefore whoever caused this idea of the existence of an infinite being is the God. This makes Descartes believe in the existence of God. The proof that Descartes offered is that the meditator has an idea with an infinite degree of objective reality. This means that the creator of all things that exist has more objective reality than the ideas that represent finite substances (Descartes R. 1984). This made people believe that there is God who is in control of nature and may be angered or amused by the way we behave. People believed that if we made him happy he will make our plans and actions

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