HUMA 1160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Exegesis, Middle Ages, Cartesian Doubt
17 Mar 2016
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Famous for saying i think, therefore i am . Descartes believed that humans senses (sight, touch, hear, taste, and smell) are very unreliable and could not be trusted: seeing something wasn"t enough. However, thinking (i. e. , him thinking he exists) was proof in knowing. Meditations = thinking = therefore, problem solving. There are ordinary people (people using senses) and non-ordinary people. Hyperbolic doubt (or cartesian doubt): is a form of methodological skepticism or skepticism associated with the writings and methodology of ren descartes. Ability to doubt the philosophies of previous philosophers and the information gained from one"s senses. Therefore anything and everything that can be doubted should be rejected. There are three questions (according to kant) that philosophers try to answer: what can i know? (epistemology, what ought i to do? (obligation and responsibility, ethics or morality, what can i hope for? (eschatology) Rene descartes" regulae (directions of the mind) summarized:
