Rene Descartes And Blaise Pascal - 1619 Words

Rene Descartes and Blaise Pascal were philosophers with a common goal – bringing others to the truth of the existence of God. They both had a desire to help others scale the heights of religion, using the path of reason, and bring them to the other side with a firm perception and knowledge of the reality of, not just a god, but the one, true God. Though their goal and method was similar, that of using doubt as a vehicle to traverse the oppositional arguments of unbelievers, they arrive at different ends of logical belief. In this essay I will seek to analyze each philosopher’s method and conclusion and determine its implications for the concept of Idealism. The philosophy of Idealism is a system of thought that, in a nut shell, claims that knowledge and reason are dependent upon the mind. This idea is in contradiction to Descartes and Pascal’s belief in dualism. The concept of dualism sets a distinction between mind and body, whereas idealism believes they are one and the same, that thought is a direct consequence of the mind/body system. In his book, Meditations, Rene Descartes covers this idea beginning with doubt and stripping away all elements of the physical world. He begins by stripping the doubter, himself, of all possible influences. Eliminating prompts and effects, Descartes begins to understand this doubt that he has based upon the realities he is still left with – that despite the absence of any sensory input, he is still thinking and therefore, he knows heShow MoreRelated Philosophy in Mathematics Essay3045 Words   |  13 Pagestechnology. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), G. W. Leibniz (1646-1716), and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) (Ebersole, S. (#5)) are the three philosophers. Though all three of these philosophers contributed their own reviews on the subject of mathematical philosophy, they all saw the world and thus it‘s mechanical contributions â€Å"as being controlled by mathematical principles.† (Ebersole, S.). Rene Descartes was born, March 31, 1596 near Tours, France (Weisstein, E.), to an important family; Descartes’ fatherRead MoreDescartes And Descartes s Theories Of Skepticism And Search For The Truth1109 Words   |  5 Pagesto so-called life questions, but experts like Blaise Pascal and Rene Descartes have examined and reasoned with the norms of the enlightenment era. The theologians and philosophers during that time have produced such popular works that they have been used as a foundation for reason today. In Pascal s Pensees, and Descartes’ Discourse on Method, they take steps to examining and reflecting on their own answers to life questions. If Pascal and Descartes conversed with each other about skepticism andRead MoreThe Roman Catholic Church Responded Treatment1645 Words   |  7 Pagesscientific man believes in empiricism. Rene’ Descartes, 1596-1650, was a French mathematician who invented analytic geometry. He developed a scientific method based on ra tional deduction rather than empirical induction, stressed national speculation and reflection. Descartes believed that he could rationally prove the existence of God. His ideas impacted the way the modern world would come to look at knowledge and truth, this created a kind of dualism. Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, he was French mathematicianRead MoreSimilarities Between Galen, Paracelsus, Spinoza, And The Modern Medical World917 Words   |  4 PagesChapter 16 Assignment #2 16.3 - 16.6 VOCABULARY: Galen, Cavendish, Paracelsus, Vesalius, Descartes, Scientific Method, Bacon, Spinoza, Pascal 1. Galen. Galen was a physician of Greek descent and was well known for his influences on the medieval medical world. Galen mainly did experiments on animals rather than humans which caused his humanistic generations to be inaccurate. Galen was able to take color of a patient’s urine to be able to tell what was wrong with him/her. 2. Cavendish. Margaret CavendishRead MoreWhy I Don t Think Philosophy Is A Secret Society1485 Words   |  6 Pagesmaterialistically and hence unaware that the sensible world is but a tiny portion of what is real.† The next philosopher is Descartes’- he is best known for this saying â€Å"I think therefore, I am.† He is known as the father of modern philosophy. He believed that thinking was a sufficient condition for existing, and not a necessary condition. According to Hatfield, Descartes believed â€Å"as children, we are naturally led by our senses in seeking benefits and avoiding bodily harms. As a result, whenRead MorePlato And Aristotle s Views On Philosophy1107 Words   |  5 Pagesknowledge, rationalist believed that everything could be determined with inerrant reasoning. The originator of this line of thought was Rene Descartes. Some say that he is on his own level of original philosophy that the ancient philosophers are on; however, one can see with scrutiny that Aristotle was the source on a couple of his ways of thinking. Besides Descartes, another rationalist that followed Aristotle was Benedictus de Spinoza; reason being was that even though he believed in God, he believedRead More Skepticism Essays1139 Words   |  5 Pagesfinished products. The most radical introduction of Greek skeptical traditions back into the Western tradition occurred in the works of Blaise Pascal and Renà © Descartes. Both thinkers refused to accept any piece of knowledge whatsoever as true, and both tried to rebuild a Christian faith based on this radical questioning of truth. Descartes set about reinventing Western epistemology with a radical perspective: what if nothing were true? How, if you doubted everything, could you findRead MoreScientific Revolution Summary Essay1014 Words   |  5 Pagesencouraged people to search for their own understanding of nature, believed that science’s practical purpose was human improvement, and increased the support for science throughout Europe. Then, Renà © Descartes created a scientific method that relied on deduction rather than empirical observation. In 1637 Descartes published Discourse on Method, which advocated thought based on math and divided things into 2 categories, mind and body. Thomas Hobbes gave philosophical justification to central, absoluteRead MoreEssay about Baroque Period (1600-1750) General Background890 Words   |  4 Pageshad studied the work of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and many other giants of science, and laid the groundwork for classical mechanics—the laws of gravit ation and motion—in his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy (1687). Renà © Descartes 1596-1650), Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), and Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) advocated the separation of philosophy and science from religious dogma; Francis Bacon (1561-1626), John Locke (1632-1704), and David Hume (1711-1776) inRead MorePascal’s Wager vs. the Ontological Argument2450 Words   |  10 PagesPascal’s Wager vs. the Ontological Argument Pascal’s Wager was a groundbreaking theory posed by the French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal. Pascal, who is said to be the father of modern probability, felt that that religion should be approached as a gamble. It was one of the first efforts to incorporate the concept of infinity. The wager stated that, even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, one should wager as though God exists, because living