Rene Descartes Meditations: Aristotelian Philosophy

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In this essay, I will argue that Rene Descartes shows some Aristotelian influences in his philosophy. In his Meditations, Descartes deals with similar subjects than that of Aristotle in his treatise De Anima, such as senses, souls and Gods. Descartes’ position is defined by his rejection of Aristotelian ideas. He starts in a position the Aristotelian readers would agree on, to further persuade them away from they customary opinions.

SENSES: Aristotle was an empiricist, and therefore believed that all we know comes from our senses. In the first Meditation, the Meditator suggests that most certain knowledge comes from the senses, but falls into doubts and starts to question Aristotelian epistemology. Descartes’ method of doubts challenges Aristotelian philosophy by saying that even information we receive from our senses should be called into question. He states examples such as the “Dream Argument” to suggest that our …show more content…

Aristotelian philosophy also believed in God, as a prime mover. God was seen as the cause of all motion. Descartes’ physics do not explain what causes things to move. We could assume that God could be the force that moves everything, that God is re-creating the world at every instant, or that God is building natural laws into the universe that do the moving for him.Aristotle thought that the chains of efficient causes must stop at some "unmoved movers"—that is, things that are themselves unmoved but produce motion to other things. distinguished all substances into two sorts: thinking things (res cogitans) and extended things (res extensa). He took the essence of mind to be thought and that of matter extension. Unlike Aristotle, he thought that matter was inert (since its essence is that it occupies space). Yet, there are causal connections between bodies (bits of matter) and between

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