Aristotle And Descartes Reflection Paper

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Recommended: Aristotle's theory of the soul

Aristotle has stated that knowledge about the soul is the number one thing we should know about. He speaks about the soul in the book two of De Anima, in chapters one and two. There must be an approach that is specific to the soul. He questions whether if the soul is one, or if it had multiple parts. He also questions if body and soul are not separable than the soul cannot survive when the body dies. Rene Descartes speaks in his first mediation on the first philosophy in which the existence of God and the Distinction between mind and body are demonstrated. He speaks about how he no longer believes in his beliefs that he grew up with. Descartes doubts himself throughout the whole mediation through madness, dreaming and God. In his second mediation, …show more content…

Aristotle felt that the soul is first being-fully-itself of a natural body that has life as its potency. His book had stated the different ways the define and describe what the soul is. The soul had four potencies, which were self- nourishment, locomotion, perception and thinking. Some of these potencies are connected to body or soul. The soul is part of the substantial being, which include material, form, or a composite of both. The soul is what we are as a person but Aristotle also speaks about plants and animals. Plants souls are divisible which includes self-nourishment, locomotive and perceptive potencies. Descartes written two meditation that deals with the doubt that he recently discovered. He learned that everything is false and how certain things can be doubted. He believes if there is a small amount of doubt in something then it could be completely doubted. He had discovered these things through three hypotheses that he had which were madness, dreaming and omnipotent. He stated the use of imagination would lead to unreal things to be seen as real things. He believed that God is the reason why we doubt things because he doesn’t occupy space. He believes that if things didn’t occupy space then it couldn’t be doubted. He also believed that we could not believe in the things that we

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