Descartes most famous statement is , I think, therefore I exist.” With this argument, Descartes proposes that the very act of thinking offers a proof of individual human existence. Because thoughts must have a source, there must be an “I” that exists to do the thinking. In arguments that follow from this premise, Descartes points out that although he can be sure of nothing else about his existence—he can’t prove beyond a doubt that he has hands or hair or a body—he is certain that he has thoughts and the ability to use reason. Descartes asserts that these facts come to him as “clear and distinct perceptions.” He argues that anything that can be observed through clear and distinct perceptions is part of the essence of what is observed. Thought and reason, because they are clearly perceived, must be the essence of humanity. Consequently, Descartes asserts that a human would still be a human without hands or hair or a face. He also asserts that other things that are not human may have hair, hands, or faces, but a human would not be a human without reason, and only humans possess the ability to reason. The Attainability of Knowledge Descartes firmly believed that reason is a native gift of humans and that true knowledge can be directly gleaned not from books but only through the methodical application of reason. The expressed aim of many of his books was to present complex scientific and philosophical matters in such a way that the least sophisticated readers could understand them. Because Descartes believed that every human possesses the “natural light” of reason, he believed that if he presented all his arguments as logical trains of thought, then anyone could understand them and nobody could help but be swayed. In the original edition of Discourse on the Method, in fact, Descartes declares his aim with the subtitle “In which the Author… explains the most abstruse Topics he could choose, and does so in such a way that even persons who have never studied can understand them.” In an attempt to reach a wider audience, Descartes occasionally wrote in French, the language of his countrymen, rather than Latin, the language of scholars, so that people without a formal education could understand him.
Posted on: Wed, 08 Oct 2014 07:43:09 +0000
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