Descartes Vs. Kant

To fully explain the differences between philosophers such as Descartes and Kant from early, we must first step back and look at the structure of philosophy and then go into the factual differences of each philosopher and their beliefs. Philosophy can be broken down into five different subdivisions and schools of thought, which are: aesthetics, metaphysics, logic, epistemology and ethics. However, many philosophers have thought of several different disciplines of philosophy and they are not parallel with one another. Western Philosophy can be broken down into three epochs: the ancient epoch, the medieval epoch and the modern epoch. The ancient epoch was mainly utilized by schools of thought from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. On the other hand, medieval epoch was mostly for Christianity thus incorporates philosophers such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. The modern epoch embraces schools of thought that are ruled by Christianity and lead by Descartes. It is important to note that St. Thomas Aquinas, Plato, and Socrates all agree that particular eternal moral and political realities or actualities are reachable to human reason.

Socrates is thought to be the first great philosopher.

He believes that people can absorb or acquire complete virtue and obtain actuality or reality. He pursued universal doctrines or ethics by following the pure, shared connotation of expressions, and made us all think more about some of the simple questions of knowledge and ethics. This was accomplished by Socrates using the Socratic method, in that he used conversations of questions and answers to sort of turn their answers back on themselves like a lawyer might do to a witness in a court room. In summary, Socrates argued that an individual is at no point supposed to do wrong whether in a direct or indirect manner and no individual who knows or distinguishes what is right will act in an opposing

manner.
Plato was Socrates’ best student and recorded most of his conversations with him. In his theory of ideas, Plato creates this school of thought by viewing arguments that express universal perceptions by turning personal mental thoughts into ideas that are real. Plato came up with the idea that the real world is made up of universal ideas. He also claimed that the world that individuals perceive is developed by these ideas making it less factual because it is always changing.
St. Thomas Aquinas is thought to be one of the best system builders in philosophy from the medieval epoch. This was when philosophers were trying to bring together the schools of thought of Christianity and the Aristotle’s rational expectations. Aquinas came up with the Summary of Doctrine, which contains coming up with questions, asserting oppositions, and then giving replies to each opposition. He tried to settle the rift between faith and reason by telling us that reason ought to consist of realities of nature, but that mystical certainties of revelation have to be acknowledged by faith. Aquinas argues that certain realities, for example, the existence of God are both shown and attestable or can be proved by reason.
Descartes is considered to be one of the greatest philosophers that has ever lived because he was able to bring a clear distinction between the concept of reality and thought. Descartes is the founder of modern philosophy and is different from the ancient or medieval philosophers in that he believed in everything that exists in human beings in an innate conception. Descartes perceived ideas to be thoughts, which is different from Plato and Socrates. He lived his life on the concept that our thoughts are completely dissimilar from the reality that we experience. Descartes would argue with Ancient philosophers that had us believe that ideas, even those that are instinctive or inherent, are reality. Finally, Descartes would disagree with Aquinas, Socrates, and Plato in that the particular moral and political actualities are available to human reason.