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Rene Descartes On Critical Thinking References
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Rene Descartes influence on critical thinking and military life.
Nikolay Solovyev
Keiser University
Rene Descartes influence on critical thinking and military life. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician, he was born in 1596 and passed away in 1650, he believed in method of doubt suspends belief. “This method of critical analysis, which has traditionally been preferred in fields such as science and philosophy, begins from a position of skepticism in which we put aside our preconceived ideas (Boss). Critical thinking is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement. So in my own word and in my opinion, it is how you think, analyze, interpret and resolve things, while using your logic.
While
Before students can judge others ideologies they must understand the philosopher first. Rene Descartes, the father of modern western philosophy, was born in 1596 to French parents. Rene Descartes excelled in mathematics. By 1616 Descartes received his baccalaureate and became a licensed lawyer. In 1618 Descartes joined the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau. During his service Descartes never saw combat, but while in the service he was able to travel and explore the world. During his time in Germany Descartes began to inquire about life’s hardest questions regarding logic, reasoning, arithmetic, God and knowledge. By the early 1830’s Descartes continued his conquest of knowledge; he secluded himself from all temptations and began to write. Descartes
In the face of Rene Descartes extreme doubt, he found that he hoped to use skepticism to find complete certainty. When doubting something, Descartes would start by asking if it is rationally possible to doubt everything. When proceeding to do this, he will find if there is any undoubtedly truth. Instead of Descartes trying to examine every belief that he holds, he examines the origins of different types of beliefs. In doing this, he rejects any idea that could be mistaken, and will reject it right away.
Montaigne and Descartes both made use of a philosophical method that focused on the use of doubt to make discoveries about themselves and the world around them. However, they doubted different things. Descartes doubted all his previous knowledge from his senses, while Montaigne doubted that there were any absolute certainties in knowledge. Although they both began their philosophical processes by doubting, Montaigne doubting a constant static self, and Descartes doubted that anything existed at all, Descartes was able to move past that doubt to find one indubitably certainty, “I think, therefore I am”.
The author Vincent Ruggiero defines critical thinking in his book Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking, as a “search for answers, a quest.” It is the idea that one does not accept claims, ideas, and arguments blindly, but questions and researches these things before making a decision on them. From what I learned in class, critical thinking is the concept of accepting that there are other people and cultures in this world that may have different opinions. It is being able to react rationally to these different opinions.
Clear your mind, if you will, of everything you have ever seen or known to be true. To begin understanding Rene Descartes’ method of doubt, you need to suspend all prejudice and prior judgments and start with a clean slate “for the purpose of discovering some ultimate truth on which to base all thought.” (Kolak, Pg.225). Discouraged with much skepticism from his own beliefs, Descartes was embarrassed of his own ignorance. He set out to try and accomplish the task of finding an absolute truth in which he would base his beliefs. Placing upon himself a task to find an axiom or absolute truth to base all thought, “he ventured as a youth in travel to collect a variety in experiences to derive some profit in which he would be benefited.” (Kolak, Pg.225). When analyzing the method of doubt “you must take complex conceptions into their constituents until the irreducible elements are simple, clear, and distinct ideas, and show that all such basic ideas can be derived from, or can depend upon, the primary consciousness of a being that it thinks.” (Durant, Pg.639).
Cartesian Skepticism, created by René Descartes, is the process of doubting ones’ beliefs of what they happen to consider as true in the hopes of uncovering the absolute truths in life. This methodology is used to distinguish between what is the truth and what is false, with anything that cannot be considered an absolute truth being considered a reasonable doubt. Anything which then becomes categorized as a reasonable doubt is perceived as false. As Descartes goes through this process, he then realizes that the one thing that can be considered an absolutely truth is his and every other individual’s existence. Along with the ideology of Cartesian skepticism, through the thinking process, we are capable of the ability to doubt that which is surrounding them. This ability to think logically and doubt is what leads us to the confirmation of our existence.
Critical thinking is the process in which one challenges their emotive, self-centered way of thinking. It causes one to test their own assumptions and question their reasoning. Critical thinking is the process in which one mentally explores deeper than the superficial matters at hand into the deeper layers in order to find out what the real issues are. Successful critical thinking is a process that allows one to creatively problem solve, seek innovative solutions, and essentially "think outside of the box." It also allows one to become more open minded to various situations. Logic and perception both play a role in critical thinking. However, when it comes to weighing their beneficial impact on the critical thinking process, logic and perception are by no means equal. While logic is firmly rooted in reason, perceptions are just as firmly rooted in one's senses, and can easily be corrupted. Therefore, perception is certainly not reality. This is a lesson that I had the opportunity to have reinforced in a recent in-house promotion at work.
Method of doubt is a systematic deduction where all beliefs are rejected, and on the next step they are checked whether they are true with certainty or not before they become knowledge. Father of this method is Renee Descartes. Since Descartes felt that the knowledge wasn’t on solid grounds, he started his search for truth with two tools: doubt and analysis. Starting by doubting everything for finding truth, doubt is pivotal tool for him.
Rene Descartes, a 17th century French philosopher believed that the origin of knowledge comes from within the mind, a single indisputable fact to build on that can be gained through individual reflection. His Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641) contain his important philosophical theories. Intending to extend mathematical method to all areas of human knowledge, Descartes discarded the authoritarian systems of the scholastic philosophers and began with universal doubt. Only one thing cannot be doubted: doubt itself. Therefore, the doubter must exist. This is the kernel of his famous assertion Cogito, ergo sum (I am thinking, therefore I am existing). From this certainty Descartes expanded knowledge, step by step, to admit the existence of God (as the first cause) and the reality of the physical world, which he held to be mechanistic and entirely divorced from the mind; the only connection between the two is the intervention of God.
According to The Foundation for Critical Thinking (2007), "Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism (Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2007).
Skepticism puts everything into doubt, and states that which can be doubted must be unreliable for reasoning. Information acquired through the senses can appear real in situations where it may be false, such as the impression of a dream. This is a basis for argument that any belief about the outside world derived from one’s senses is faulty information. Perception is like a shadow casted over us which hides from us the truth of our existence. In “Meditations on First Philosophy”, Rene Descartes practices skepticism by doubting all the beliefs he considers to be true.
Under the program of radical doubt, you are supposed to doubt everything that cannot be proven and pretty much getting rid of the idea of faith. Descartes came up with the idea of Methodological Skepticism in order to find the unshakable certainties and truth of the world. In order to find the concrete truths of the world, Descartes tried to remove all possible falsehoods by doubting anything that could be doubted. If one takes Methodological Skepticism at face value, Descartes’ program of radical doubts would seem to make a lot of sense.
Descartes cared deeply about discovering the truth. Like everybody, he had certain beliefs about the world that he thought to be correct. However, Descartes differs from the vast majority of human beings in that he was not content with these beliefs. Instead, he set himself an ambitious goal: to discover the ultimate truths behind the universe itself. To do this, Descartes started by doubting his opinions.
René Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who is dubbed the father of modern western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In Meditation One of Rene Descartes’ Meditation on First Philosophy, he says that he had discovered so many false beliefs and opinions which he had always thought of to be true. And because of all these false believes, he came up with some principle which would help him and those who would listen to him. One of his principle was “never to accept anything as true that he did not plainly know to be such, that is to say, carefully to avoid hasty judgment and prejudice and to include nothing more in his judgments than what it presented itself to his mind so clearly and so distinctly that it leaves no doubt.
Critical thinking means accurate thinking in the search of appropriate and dependable knowledge about the world. Another way to describe it is sensible, insightful, responsible, and skillful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. Critical thinking is not being able to process information well enough to know to stop for red lights or whether you established the right change at the supermarket.