Rene Descartes Perception Of Truth

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Undeniably searching for what is the truth in one's life, will lead to a path involving antics of universal questioning and doubt. In regards to the ideas of Rene Descartes, specifically the involvement of using one's senses to distinguish what is true, and it is the absorption of this into practice that will inevitably lead to unraveling the truth through the thought of doubt. Descartes does so through building the foundation for using the senses to easily pick up on erroneous ideas to eliminate any faults that will hinder the search for what is truly true. This ultimately leads to the epistemological question of, is anything in this world valid and if it is, why? Rene Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, was born on March 31, 1596 …show more content…

The following passage: “Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, Therefore (3) it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.” (Descartes, 1), manifests in its entirety of the ideals that Descartes desires of the reader to consume and fully understand what it means to distinguish between truth and fallacy. Taking into the consideration the meaning behind the aforementioned passage, there is much to take from it. Essentially, when we actually sit back and contemplate what we know, do we actually believe what we see and hear in regards to it being verifiable? Every waking day, we are told of stories and ideas so nonchalantly that we instantly believe it to be the bona fide fact. Most of us don’t fact check what we see and hear to actually deem it correct or not, we just go along with our day without a care in the world. However, does living a life with the blissful ignorance that is so ingrained into our brains result in the illusion that everything is as black and white as we perceive it to be? This is what Descartes is trying to get across the masses who are living fully in ignorance. Descartes wants …show more content…

Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is the story of a sociopathic young man who indulges himself in a life of murder, rape, and other malicious activity with his group of friends or “droogs”. This connection is rather extreme, but it holds a paralleling factor in regards to how we doubt the world around us. Alex, the young man, lives his malicious and malintent life without any thought otherwise. He doubts any idea that he is in the wrong and continues forward with his idea of what is true. It's the dismemberment with the rest of society that parallels with this idea. Once Alex is sent to prison and is psychologically altered to reject all the sociopathic tendencies and replace that with normal actions and thoughts that are in line with society. It there where he sits back and questions what is true and what is erroneous. Where he starts from the bottom and build up to the point where he can perceive an idea or thought to be correct. That in its entirety embodies the excerpt from Descartes Meditations and takes into practice the ideals of Descartes

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