Rene Descartes and David Hume lived in two completely different time periods, yet they shared interest in some of the same philosophical categories. Could animals reason? How did humans expand their knowledge compared to animals? Questions like these were answered both by Descartes and Hume even though they had two opposing views. Descartes was the first to address the questions about animal instincts, and later on Hume set out to refute some of his ideas.
Rene Descartes views humans and animals on completely separate levels. He claims that animals do not possess intelligence and only act through their nature. While humans can perform a multitude of tasks by reasoning, animals can only carry out tasks where nature has given them the skills to do so. One of Descartes’ main arguments about animal’s inability to reason is that they are unable to communicate. If animals are born with the same general organ structure as humans, what’s stopping them from communicating with us? To Descartes, it’s their lack of intelligence. Sure parrots and some other animals can mimic human sounds and words, but they lack the ability to think about what they are saying.
Another one of Descartes arguments supporting the separation of humans and animals is that if machines were created to resemble and act like animals, there is no way we would be able to tell them from the real thing. Unlike the animals though, a machine created to resemble a human could never pass off as real. According to Descartes, it would be impossible to get the machine to react to other humans in an appropriate way. Human conversations are too complicated for machines to understand and interact properly without flaw. This is what separates humans from animals. Even the dumbest ma...
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... and wrong. While Descartes believes that all bad things that happen were actually good if we could just see the bigger picture, Hume says this does not matter. The human and animal mind is not created to think of the bigger picture, it is only able to think about what is right in front of it. So in this aspect, humans and animals are both able to perceive what is right and wrong, therefore supporting Hume’s idea that humans and animals aren’t so different.
Despite having polar opposite views, Rene Descartes and David Hume were both very prominent philosophers of their time. They both contemplated the ideas of reasoning within animals and sought to find the truth about the acquisition of knowledge. Both sides had valid points about whether animals can reason, and it really leaves it up to the individual to decide whether animals have the ability to reason or not.
Descartes’ argument for why corporeal things exist follows logically. Descartes begins his argument stating there is a difference between sensory perception and understanding. He explains, “There is in me a passive faculty of sensory perception…but I could not make use of it unless there was also an active faculty, either in me or in something else, which produced or brought about these ideas. But this faculty cannot be in me since the ideas in question are produced without my cooperation and often even against my will (AT VII: 79; p. 55)”. Descartes establishes that when he senses something, he understands it and does not imagine it. Here he also concludes that it is not our discretion whether we sense something or not; we cannot chose to
Regardless of the disagreement between both schools of philosophy that Rene Descartes and David Hume founded, Descartes’s rationalism and Hume’s empiricism set the tone for skepticism regarding knowledge. Rene Descartes rationalism served to form a solid foundation for true knowledge. Although Descartes reaches an illogical conclusion, his rationalism was meant to solve life’s problem by trusting and using the mind. David Hume’s empiricism serves to be the true blueprint on how humans experience the mind. Hume’s empiricism shows that the world only observes the world through their own sense and that there are no a priori truths. For that reason it became clearer that David Hume’s empiricism explains and demonstrates that it is the better way
According to Descartes, “because our senses sometimes deceive us, I wanted to suppose that nothing was exactly as they led us to imagine (Descartes 18).” In order to extinguish his uncertainty and find incontrovertible truth, he chooses to “raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations (Descartes 59).” This foundation, which Descartes is certain to be the absolute truth, is “I think, therefore I am (Descartes 18).” Descartes argues that truth and proof of reality lies in the human mind, rather than the senses. In other words, he claims that the existence of material objects are not based on the senses because of human imperfection. In fact, he argues that humans, similarly to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, are incapable of sensing the true essence or existence of material objects. However, what makes an object real is human thought and the idea of that object, thus paving the way for Descartes’ proof of God’s existence. Because the senses are easily deceived and because Descartes understands that the senses can be deceived, Descartes is aware of his own imperfection. He
Descartes’ argues that the mind and body are two separate entities. The body occupies space, and so it is always divisible, while the mind is made up of thoughts that are immaterial and cannot be divided, thus it is indivisible. Using the idea behind Leibniz’s Law, “different properties, different things”, Descartes’ begins to construct his argument for the reasons he believes that the mind and body are completely different things. I will go over the reason he thinks the body can be divided, while the mind cannot. Furthermore, I will explain why I agree that the body is divisible, but disagree that the mind is always indivisible. Finally, I will support why Descartes’ views of mind and body dualism is a plausible argument, even if I do not think it is a sound argument with what I know about modern advancements in science.
“... the right question for animals is not ‘Can they reason?’ ‘Can they talk?’, but ‘Can they suffer?’ ”
Descartes is hopeful to prove subsistence of the external world (physical objects located in space), and so he returns to a very basic stage and acknowledges the existence of minds as an immaterial substance and God. He then accepts that matter exists as long as it is not a projection of his own mind or God. As Descartes previously established the existence of God as a perfect being, he therefore has concluded that God is not a deceiver. This very clear concept leads him to accept his clear and distinct sensory experiences are a result of external objects of material nature. Once these corporeal things (objects of a tangible, material nature) can be considered as self-evident ideas, they can no longer be products of the mind or God.
Together, David Hume and Emanuel Kant, have a very crucial influence to modern philosophy. Hume challenges conventional philosophical views with his skepticism as well as his new take on what is metaphysics. His views and ideas where influential to many, including Kant, however they lead to his philosophical reasoning and empiricism to be viewed lead to negatively and atheistically. Kant, whose philosophy was so strongly influenced by Hume that in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics wrote “I openly confess that my remembering of David Hume was the very thing which many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave me new investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a quite new direction” (Kant, Preference) defends and overcomes Hume by advancing philosophy in a revolutionary way. Kant’s philosophy has its foundation on Hume’s work, specifically his skeptical view on causality.
One of the ways in which Descartes attempts to prove that the mind is distinct from the body is through his claim that the mind occupies no physical space and is an entity with which people think, while the body is a physical entity and cannot serve as a mechanism for thought. [1]
... part of Descartes philosophy deals with his belief that the mind and body are separate. Although the origins of the philosophical separation of mind and body, called dualism, can be traced back as far as the Greek philosophers, and probably before them, Descartes was the first person to write a systematic account of it. Now, Descartes wanted to prove two more things. One, that he actually was an immaterial thing, and two, that there is in fact an external corporeal world
Although philosophy rarely alters its direction and mood with sudden swings, there are times when its new concerns and emphases clearly separate it from its immediate past. Such was the case with seventeenth-century Continental rationalism, whose founder was Rene Descartes and whose new program initiated what is called modern philosophy. In a sense, much of what the Continental rationalists set out to do had already been attempted by the medieval philosophers and by Bacon and Hobbes. But Descartes and Leibniz fashioned a new ideal for philosophy. Influenced by the progress and success of science and mathematics, their new program was an attempt to provide philosophy with the exactness of mathematics. They set out to formulate clear and rational principles that could be organized into a system of truths from which accurate information about the world could be deduced. Their emphasis was upon the rational ability of the human mind, which they now considered the source of truth both about man and about the world. Even though they did not reject the claims of religion, they did consider philosophical reasoning something different than supernatural revelation. They saw little value in feeling and enthusiasm as means for discovering truth, but they did believe that the mind of an individual is structured in such a way that simply by operating according to the appropriate method it can discover the nature of the universe. The rationalists assumed that what they could think clearly with their minds did in fact exist in the world outside their minds. Descartes and Leibniz even argued that certain ideas are innate in the human mind, that, given the proper occasion, experience would cause...
Rene Descartes certainly didn't lack for credentials. As the "Father of Rationalism," "Father of Modern Philosophy," and originator of Cartesian geometry, he had more than enough interests to fill his spare time. But his role as "Father of Skepticism" helped popularize a major change in thinking about the nature of human experience. Dualism, or the doctrine that mind and body are of two distinct natures, is one of the key philosophical problems inherited by psychology. In both philosophy and psychology there have been several attempts to reconcile the mind and body.
Descartes believes that the mind and body are separate of one another causing the problem to form in the transmission of information between the mind and the body. Hume does not conquer this task of mind and body one or separate. He is more concerned with the idea of self and how one is maintained over a period of time. He believes there is no such thing as self. That each moment we are a new being due to the fact that we are forever changing and nothing remains constant within ourselves. Yes, our DNA may be the same but that is not
From this place of doubt, Descartes comes to the conclusion that he has no senses, and that body, shape, extension, movement and place are fabrications. This philosophy leaves one wondering if they too do not exist whilst being surrounded by things that seem not to. Descartes approaches this wonder with the fact that the mere perception of one’s own existence in turn proves the existence of their mind. Following this idea, one can conclude that the only aspect of ourselves which definitely exists, is our mind. In a society where the physical body is what determines existence and being, one begins the wonder what they are. This wonder led Descartes to the idea of the mind and the body and how they coexist. He determines that the body is defined as a physical thing and the mind is defined as a thinking thing. Taking into account the previous meditation on senses and dreaming, Descartes determines that the body is almost irrelevant when it comes to observing reality because it is purely based off of senses. Thus, leaving thinking as the only thing inseparable from himself and therefore the only thing determining existence. “Were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist.” (Descartes, 18). This philosophy leads Descartes to the conclusion that one is only a thinking thing, which is defined as a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions. The idea that we are just thinking things completely disproves the thought that we can only exist in reality. Descartes says: “My mind enjoys wandering off and will not yet submit to being restrained within the bounds of truth.” (Descartes, 20). If our thoughts and therefore existence can
During the enlightenment era, rebellious scholars called philosophers brought new ideas on how to understand and envision the world from different views. Although, each philosopher had their own minds and ideas, they all wanted to improve society in their own unique ways. Two famous influential philosophers are Francis Bacon and John Locke. Locke who is an empiricism, he emphasizes on natural observations. Descartes being a rationalist focus more on innate reasons. However, when analyze the distinguished difference between both Locke and Descartes, it can be views towards the innate idea concepts, the logic proof god’s existence, and the inductive/deductive methods. This can be best demonstrate using the essays, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”
Although their minds are not as advanced as a human's, animals are still capable of thought. Frans de Waal, author of "The Whole Animal", feels that humans and animals are closely related, through anthropomorphism. I agree with anthropomorphism, but not with anthropodenial. I also disagree with Rene Descartes' statement that animals are machines, because just as humans have different individual personalities, animals of the same species also have different behavioral characteristics. For example, some cats are arrogant and rude, while others are kind and playful, just like people. Georgia, the chimpanzee who spit water on unsuspecting visitors, did not do this out of instinct. Instinct would have told her to swallow the water.