Rene Descartes On Personal Identity

This essay here will insert a reference to ‘Leibnitz’s Law’ or otherwise the relatively intuitive principle that for two things to be the same thing, they must share all the qualities of each other. Descartes does not specifically do so, but it is heavily inferred from his argument. Descartes now concludes that since minds are indivisible and bodies are, that according to the Leibnitz’s law they cannot be the same thing and hence:

There is no way to know everything there is to know. This means that knowledge will always be inherently limited by numerous different factors. According to DesCartes, knowing can only be applied to what one has clearly observed to be true (111). Observable knowledge can be limited by things such as background and sex. However, the greatest limitation may be lack of skepticism, whether it be questioning oneself or an authority. If a person does not know they are unknowledgable, it is because they did not question it to begin with. By contrasting limitations at work in excerpts from Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, The Poet’s Answer to the Most Illustrious Sor Filotea de la Cruz by Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz, and Rene Descartes’ Discourse of Method, the range of knowledge throughout the pieces can be compared. Prince Oroonoko, the least knowledgeable with respect to Western knowledge of the time, is limited by his own lack of skepticism. Secondly Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz is quite knowledgeable, but limited by her gender. Leaving Rene Descartes (maybe the most knowledgeable) to only be limited by his own questions of what can be considered knowledge.

In this paper I will lay out his arguments in the following order: (1) The purpose of the method of Universal Doubt and its strategic approach towards the foundation for a new system of knowledge, (2) The most basic foundation of the new system – the fact that “I exist” and how it achieved an absolute certainty, (3) The subsequent absolute certainty and ultimate key to all absolute certainty in knowledge, namely the existence of God and (4) An evaluation of Descartes’s argument for God’s existence. As Galileo shook the foundation of Aristotelian ideals on the scientific ground, Descartes attacked them on the philosophical front and paved a concrete step towards the rise of a new science, yet the importance of his

This clear and distinct perception is an important component to the argument that Descartes makes in his fifth meditation for the existence of God. This paper explains Descartes ' proof of God 's existence from Descartes ' fifth meditation, Pierre Gassendi 's objection to this proof, and then offers the paper 's author 's opinion on both the proof and objection.

In chapter 5, “The Problem of Personal Identity” from Problems of Philosophy, authors James and Stuart Rachels discuss the everlasting wonders of what makes you, you. Rachels speaks about the question, of who we are and how we define our identity. The chapter discusses theories that philosophers have come up with to help us get a better understanding of what defines us and gives us an identity. The authors described the theories like The Bundle-Theory, The Same-Body Theory, and The Memory Theory and examined the argument and counter argument.

Annotated Bibliography Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. T.Tegg and Son, 1836. Locke, one of the most prominent philosophers of his time and till this day, his works have influenced political philosophy, and modern liberalism. His philosophy on human

In this essay, I will begin with describing John Locke’s Memory Criterion. I will then object to his theory by stating that a ‘something’ cannot exist and not exist and then continue to exist again. Objection two will deal with double-teletransportation. I will then provide a brief account of the story of the ship of Theseus, which will then lead to the ‘Brave Soldier’ story. Before my conclusion, I will mention compound and simple ‘somethings’ and inanimate and animate ‘somethings’. Throughout this essay, I will follow John Locke’s definition of a person as being “an intelligent thinking being that can know itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places” (Uzgalis, 2016, para. 5).

When we think about our personal identity, we finally come to a question: “Am I the same person that I’ve been earlier in my life?”, and usually we end up with an opinion that even though our bodies change over time, we still remain being the same persons. Of course excluding the cases of severe memory loss or any other similar condition.

In America, English settler colonialists beheld “A new Eden.” This “paradise” was soon filled with the anguished cries of enslaved Africans. These unfortunate souls would soon wrench from the virgin earth the bounty upon which the colonialist’s new nation could be built. Despite their wealth, the colonists found themselves yet under the control of a distant ancient power, Britain. To resist this, they marshaled all the most advanced political ideas of the day.

In John Locke’s, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke develops an argument for the existence of God. In the the following paper, I shall first reconstruct Lockes’ argument for his claim of God’s existence. I shall then identify what I take to be the weakest premise of the argument and explain why I find it in need of justification.

Topic: René Descartes’s argument that the fundamental basis of our knowledge should be doubted and looked upon to see the reality of our mind and our false experiences. I agree with Descartes arguments for the following point given above and from research.

The second meditation is based on the connection between a conscious and an existing body. Descartes has one main problem that he wishes to solve “How can he be sure that any of his beliefs are true?” In the second meditation, Descartes uses this cogito of consciousness and existence to assume that the mind is distant from a body. “I am, I exist”. This essay I will clearly discuss an outline of Descartes cogito in the second meditation and how it deals with the subject of existence and also Descartes’s strongest and weakest arguments in this case.

Innatism refers to a philosophical belief in innate ideas and knowledge which suggests that one is born with certain ideas and knowledge. This contradicts tabula rasa, an epistemological argument that the mind is a blank state at birth. In the history of philosophy, innatism has been widely discussed between rationalists and empiricist. While rationalists assert that certain ideas and knowledge pre-exist in the mind independently of experience, empiricists claim that all knowledge is gained through one’s experience. However, Plato’s story of a slave boy in Metaphysics and Epistemology, the study of neuron system, and research of infants’ representations of events support the argument of rationalists with convincing evidences; therefore, I agree

Descartes and Hume. Rationalism and empiricism. Two of the most iconic philosophers who are both credited with polarizing theories, both claiming they knew the answer to the origin of knowledge and the way people comprehend knowledge. Yet, despite the many differences that conflict each other’s ideologies, they’re strikingly similar as well. In this essay I will attempt to find an understanding of both rationalism and empiricism, show the ideologies of both philosophers all whilst evaluating why one is more theory is potentially true than the other.

Hume (1738) aptly challenged Descartes in claiming that it is impossible to conceive of a disembodied mind. He argues that for an idea to be legitimate it must be traceable back to sense impressions that have been acquired through experience (The Copy Principle). However, it is not possible to gain an impression of the mind, so it is not possible to have a legitimate idea of the self. We cannot gain an impression from our outer senses, since the mind is non-physical; or through introspection, since I can only introspect a given impression, not the thing that possesses it. While I am introspectively aware of e.g. feelings of anger, I am never aware of the self (the mind, the thinking thing) that contains the anger. When I try to conceive of the self, I do not think of the mind but bodily behaviour, i.e. physical displays of anger. If we cannot gain an impression of the mind, then we cannot possess an idea of the self. The assertion that Descartes has a clear and distinct perception that he is “... a thinking thing” is therefore made redundant and his conceivability argument is