Sor Juana’s letter Response to Sor Filotea, Aphra Behn’s short story Oronooko, and Rene Descartes’s methodology statement The Discourse on Method all touch on the consequences of knowledge. Consequences of knowledge are present in each author’s work, and their explanation fits with the certain time of their work was published. When Descartes’s The Discourse on Method was published he received criticism; stating that his methodology was close to atheism; since the things that could be doubted were infinite. Descartes method was introduced during the Enlightenment period; a time when everyone yearned for all the knowledge available. In this period knowledge equaled power, but Descartes stated that known facts can be doubts if there is uncertainty. …show more content…
Descartes’s method of doubt was based on one thing, and that is that a contradiction is always possible. His stance on knowledge was to doubt everything that can be contradicted. Leading to Descartes main solution in this work; that God is the only certain thing. When he becomes unsure of his existence, he searches for the most certain things in life; certain knowledge. Descartes talks about his existence on pg. 112, he states “ But immediately afterwards I observed that while I thus desired everything to be false, I, who thought, must of necessity be something; and remarking that this truth, I think, therefore I am, was so firm and so assured…”(Norton). In the time that Descartes explains the statement, God is the most knowledgeable one in existence. That fact concludes in the only certain thing; that God exists and anything that surrounds God is certain. Sor Juana yearns for more knowledge, can’t stop learning, and values education.
To her, studying was a passion that led her to punish herself and deny things which in turn affected her mind; not eating cheese. In Response to Sor Filotea, Sor Juana’s goal was not to have fame for writing this letter to the bishop but to state her reasons for pursing education. She states, “Even when she was prevented from studying, just observing the world around her, allowed her to explore the mysteries of science. Sor Juana confesses on pg. 256, “I confess that I am far indeed from the terms of Knowledge and that I have wished to follow it, though “afar off.” But all this has merely led me closer to the flames of persecution, the crucible of affliction; and to such extremes that some even sought to prohibit me from study” (Norton). From observing the spinning top rotate, or boiling eggs, Sor Juana’s interest to educate herself was uncontrollable. When she was constrained from writing while in the convent, she felt boarded from the outside knowledge that she hadn’t discovered. In comparison with Descartes’s method, Sor Juana is more open-minded to the knowledge around her. She doesn’t accept everything, but she is certain of information and God’s existence. In the letter to the bishop, Sor Juana tells us that when she was denied books in the convent, she began to study things around her. Her curiosity of things lead to the creation of the “universal machine; which is also somewhat accepted …show more content…
in Descartes method. This machine includes everything that has be discovered, and recognized by her to certain. Sor Juana doesn’t claim to know the knowledge of the entire universe, but yearns to know as much as she can. In Aphra Behn’s Oronooko, she uses the tale of a “royal slave” to state her knowledge of slavery, royalty, colonialism, and unfamiliarity.
Focusing on her short story, Oronooko, Behn was knowledge of the "royal slave" was supposedly based on her own experiences. She's certain that Oronooko is unlike the others, mainly because of his royal blood, but that information can also be a contradiction to what she actually knows since she's a part of the upper class. But Aphra stance on slavery is clearly viewed in the text. At the end of the story, Oroonoko’s death is seen as justified, and Behn’s continuous defense for Oronooko becomes silenced. Before his death, Oroonoko’s defense against his captors fail, and his death is a punishment. Caesar (Oronooko) lists his concerns being enslaved on pg. 239, “But Caesar told him, there was no Faith in the White Men, or the Gods they Ador’d ; who instructed ‘em in Principles so false, that none perform’d so little… and never to Eat or Drink with Christians without his Weapon of Defense in his hand; and, for his own Security, never to credit one Word they spoke” (Norton). In this story, Behn gives Oronooko a royal status, but he is still considered the “other” when he dies. Her knowledge of slavery, and royalty helped create Oronooko as a prince, but he died as commoner due to his enslavement. When served as a spy for her country, she likely saw treatments of slaves, and used that knowledge to create a “heroic slave”. Her knowledge is
limited because she’s outside of the enslaved population; but she uses what she knows to create the story of Oronooko.
The political climate in the United States has recently been very intense, all beginning with Trump and his negative remarks against the immigrant community. His most famous and derogatory words calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers (Reilly), sparked a huge uproar in the defense of the Mexican people who have chosen to immigrate to the United States. Along his path to the presidency he has time after time belittled Mexicans and their culture. That, however, has not stopped the Mexican band, Calibre 50 from shedding light on an all too real journey and attempting to fortify their fans for a common cause. Almost a year into Trump’s presidency Calibre 50 released the music video for their song, “El Corrido de Juanito.” The music video follows the journey of a man crossing the border to which it then shows him trying to make a life for himself in the United States as a gardener and a chef. The video attempts to show what it is like to illegally
The story, Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave, written by Aphra Behn, depicts the main character, Oroonoko, as being an African prince that lives among his people, whom all abide by a code of virtue and fidelity. When Oroonoko is faced with a dilemma in his own country and living among a “civilized” white society, that are devout Christians, he is confronted with the burden to uphold his code of virtue and maintain a title of being a “Noble Savage” by means of loyalty, religious beliefs, and honor.
The novel Oroonoko by Aphra Behn reveals a story about the popular business in the 1640s of the British slave trade. Shipments of slaves were sent off to a country in South America named Suriname where they worked on the rich sugar crop fields. In the novel, the main character, Oroonoko, was prince of an African country, Coramantien, and possessed qualities of a highly educated Englishman. Oroonoko’s life changed when he met the beautiful Imoinda who later is stolen by his grandfather and sent off to Suriname after a major conflict. Furthermore, Oroonoko was deceived into slavery, but also made foolish decisions along the way that could have prevented many tragic circumstances. Some see him as a victim during his hardships, while others view him as the instigator of his own befall. In this story, Oroonoko is meant to be looked at as an unsympathetic figure.
Aphra Behn's tale of Oroonoko is not only a tragic love story. It is also a story about slavery and how it can kill a person. The relationship between Oroonoko and Imoinda is described as pure and innocent. Their story compliments the point that Behn was trying to make about slavery. Slavery can kill hope, purity, and innocence. Slavery does not only kill the human spirit. It slaughters it.
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
Although their methods and reasoning contrasted one another, both philosophers methodically argued to come to a solid, irrefutable proof of God, which was a subject of great uncertainty and skepticism. Through Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous and Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes and Berkeley paved the way towards an age of confidence and faith in the truth of God’s perfect existence actively influencing the lives of
In his work, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes narrates the search for certainty in order to recreate all knowledge. He begins with “radical doubt.” He asks a simple question “Is there any one thing of which we can be absolutely certain?” that provides the main question of his analysis. Proceeding forward, he states that the ground of his foundation is the self – evident knowledge of the “thinking thing,” which he himself is.
Descartes asserts knowledge is done through experimentation using a scientifc method to removing opinions, and come up with a solution to conflicts. In the Discourse on Method, Descartes describes his unique style of reasoning, and makes clear that his main goal for writing is to solve epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. Similar to Socrates, Descartes sensory perceptions cause a false belief in the world around us, he believes one needs to be thinking on the intelligible level, however Descartes provides a different method to achieving this goal.
Is it possible for human beings to rise above the sensory interpretation about the world and become an intellectual? Both Plato’s “The Allegory of the Cave” and René Descartes’ “Cogito, Ergo Sum” examine this issue, and come to the conclusion that it is possible, and from this ascent, to become certain and rational. For each author, though, this is accomplished in different ways. Plato’s allegory points out that we need to look beyond the surface of the knowledge we learn and let the idea of good be our basis in life. Descartes expresses that we need to eliminate doubt in order for us to know certainty and feel comfortable in our knowledge.
Descartes’ first two Meditations are arguably the most widely known philosophical works. Because of this, one can make the error of assuming that Descartes’ method of doubt is self-evident and that its philosophical implications are relatively minor. However, to assume this would be a grave mistake. In this paper, I hope to spread light on exactly what Descartes’ method of doubt is, and how, though it furnishes challenges for the acceptance of the reality of the external world, it nonetheless does not lead to external world skepticism.
Rene Descartes decision to shatter the molds of traditional thinking is still talked about today. He is regarded as an influential abstract thinker; and some of his main ideas are still talked about by philosophers all over the world. While he wrote the "Meditations", he secluded himself from the outside world for a length of time, basically tore up his conventional thinking; and tried to come to some conclusion as to what was actually true and existing. In order to show that the sciences rest on firm foundations and that these foundations lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes must begin by bringing into doubt all the beliefs that come to him by the senses. This is done in the first of six different steps that he named "Meditations" because of the state of mind he was in while he was contemplating all these different ideas. His six meditations are "One:Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", "Two:Concerning the Nature of the Human mind: that it is better known than the Body", "Three: Concerning God, that he exists", "Four: Concerning the True and the False", "Five: Concerning the Essence of Material things, and again concerning God, that he exists" and finally "Six: Concerning the Existence of Material things, and the real distinction between Mind and Body". Although all of these meditations are relevant and necessary to understand the complete work as a whole, the focus of this paper will be the first meditation.
How do we know what we know? Ideas reside in the minds of intelligent beings, but a clear perception of where these ideas come from is often the point of debate. It is with this in mind that René Descartes set forth on the daunting task to determine where clear and distinct ideas come from. A particular passage written in Meditations on First Philosophy known as the wax passage shall be examined. Descartes' thought process shall be followed, and the central point of his argument discussed.
While on his journey to reveal the absolute truths and debunk anything that could be considered doubtful, Descartes’ experiences using this form of skepticism has allowed him to
...ll true knowledge is solely knowledge of the self, its existence, and relation to reality. René Descartes' approach to the theory of knowledge plays a prominent role in shaping the agenda of early modern philosophy. It continues to affect (some would say "infect") the way problems in epistemology are conceived today. Students of philosophy (in his own day, and in the history since) have found the distinctive features of his epistemology to be at once attractive and troubling; features such as the emphasis on method, the role of epistemic foundations, the conception of the doubtful as contrasting with the warranted, the skeptical arguments of the First Meditation, and the cogito ergo sum--to mention just a few that we shall consider. Depending on context, Descartes thinks that different standards of warrant are appropriate. The context for which he is most famous, and on which the present treatment will focus, is that of investigating First Philosophy. The first-ness of First Philosophy is (as Descartes conceives it) one of epistemic priority, referring to the matters one must "first" confront if one is to succeed in acquiring systematic and expansive knowledge.
It is evident that Behn believes that the dehumanization of the colonized other is wrong, and that Britain should cease it's overseas expansion, or at least change it's methods of interaction with the colonies inhabitants. The manner in which Behn distinguishes the white men from the natives and Africans attests to her anti-colonization position. Despite this fact, it becomes problematic in analyzing Behn's position on slavery, because of the frequent distintness made between the characters. The narrator makes us feel sympathy for Oroonoko, but he does not seem to have much in common with his people and is obviously separate from them in status as he takes slaves as well. One wonders that upon closer examination of the narrator's rationale and reasoning throughout the work, that Behn is not completely against slavery, but rather the treatment of slaves.