PHIL 1000H Chapter 6: Rene Descartes
12 Apr 2019
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Descartes helped philosophy to stand on its own 2 feet. Pre-modern science mathematics is not used as a tool to understand nature. Galileo, the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Use mathematics to get the underlying structure of nature. There is nothing that is absolutely certain. Descartes is not skeptic, but he uses skepticism as a tool. Skepticism means that you can"t have knowledge. External world skepticism; the view that no one can have any knowledge of the external world. If i can doubt something, then for the time being i will reject it. External world is things outside your mind. All of my beliefs about the external world, rest on sense perception. My sense have sometimes mislead me, senses deceive. You have misinterpreted things at least once, so it is not fallible.
