The Truth of Proust and Descartes
In the Overture, Marcel first puts forth his task: to "piece together the original components of [his] ego." (Proust 6) In his synopsis of the Meditations, Descartes, too, puts forth his goal: to attain the "most certain and most evident… knowledge of our mind and of God" (Descartes 10). These projects are parallel: in two remarkably different literary forms and through two very different philosophical processes, the authors, Proust and Descartes, through their narrators, seek to comprehend truth. Ultimately, each finds his truth, and draws from it a conception of himself and of his divinity.
For Marcel, truth occurs as intense and complete emotional understanding. Marcel accesses this understanding, his truth, in two ways: through memory and through writing. In the Overture, Marcel is only able to piece himself together from a flood of involuntary, composite memory, "like a rope let down from heaven" (Proust 5). In Combray, Marcel’s novelist "sets free within [him] all the joys and sorrows in the world" (Proust 92). As God is the source of Marcel’s involuntary memory, so too is the novelist that of fabricated, lyrical memory (memory captured in writing). To Marcel, both provide limitless imagined sensory experience, the source of
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Just as the authors’ Judeo-Christian God created man in his own image, Proust and Descartes fashion their creator-narrators as themselves—Marcel, as Proust, a writer in search of complete description (the expression of complete feeling); the Meditator, as Descrates, a thinker in search of complete knowledge. The authors are the self-referential sources of their narrators’ (and of their own) quests for truth. In this way, from their ideas of truth and of themselves, both Proust and Descartes, indeed, conceive their own
In Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous and Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, philosophers George Berkeley and René Descartes use reasoning to prove the existence of God in order to debunk the arguments skeptics or atheists pose. While Berkeley and Descartes utilize on several of the same elements to build their argument, the method in which they use to draw the conclusion of God’s existence are completely different. Descartes argues that because one has the idea of a perfect, infinite being, that being, which is God therefore exists. In Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, Berkeley opposes the methodology of Descartes and asserts that God’s existence is not dependent on thought, but on the senses and
“Allure, Authority, and Psychoanalysis” discusses the unconscious wishes, effects, conflicts, anxieties, and fantasies within “Frankenstein.” The absence of strong female characters in “Frankenstein” suggests the idea of Victor’s desire to create life without the female. This desire possibly stems from Victor’s attempt to compensate for the lack of a penis or, similarly, from the fear of female sexuality. Victor’s strong desire for maternal love is transferred to Elizabeth, the orphan taken into the Frankenstein family. This idea is then reincarnated in the form of a monster which leads to the conclusion that Mary Shelley felt like an abandoned child who is reflected in the rage of the monster.
This idea begins the philosopher’s ongoing discussion on the body and the mind. The first thing he must do is prove he exists beyond a doubt. Descartes declares, “If I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed” (4). This idea rests on the ability of his mind, if he did not actually exist, he would not be have any sort of mental activity. From this early point in the text, Descartes foregrounds the superiority of the mind. As Blackburn puts it, “he is forced to recognize that his knowledge of his self is not based on knowledge of his embodied existence” (20). For Descartes, the ability the think defines the self (the mind/soul)– he cites thought as the one thing that cannot be separated from him. He believes if he stopped thinking he would stop existing. His ability to think sustains him, at this point in his meditations he is only a mind, his mental existence is the only thing he has
Glance, Jonathan. “Beyond the Usual Bounds of Reverie”? Another Look at the Dreams in Frankenstein. 4 April 2011 .
In the second meditation, Descartes is searching for an Archimedian point on which to seed a pearl of certainty. By doubting everything in his first meditation, Descartes consequently doubts his own existence. It is here that a certainty is unearthed: “If I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed”(17). However, Descartes “does not deduce existence from thought by means of syllogism, but recognizes it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind,” or in other words, by natural light (Second Replies:68).
The purpose of the wax argument is designed to provide a clear and distinct knowledge of “I”, which is the mind, while corporeal things, “whose images are framed by thought, and which the senses themselves imagine are much more distinctly known than this mysterious ‘I’ which does not fall within the imagination” (66). Through the wax argument, Descartes’ demonstrates that corporeal things are perceived neither through our senses nor imagination, but through our intellect alone. In this argument, you will see that there is cause to doubt Descartes’ analysis of the wax and his method of philosophical reasoning.
Rene Descartes’ natural light is his saving grace, and not Achilles’ heel. Descartes incorporates the concept of natural light within his epistemology in order to establish the possibility of knowing things completely without doubt. In fact whatever is revealed to the meditator via the natural light is considered to be indefeasible. The warrant for the truth of these ideas does not rely on experience or the senses. Rather the truth of the idea depends on viewing the concept through clear and distinct perception. Descartes’ “I am, I exist”, (Med. 2, AT 7:25) or the ‘cogito’ is meant to serve as the basis for knowing things through clear and distinct perception. Descartes’ cogito is the first item of knowledge, although one may doubt such things as the existence of the body, one cannot doubt their ability to think. This is demonstrated in that by attempting to doubt one’s ability to think, one is engaging in the action of thought, thus proving that thinking is immune to doubt. With this first item of knowledge Descartes can proceed with his discussion of the possibility of unshakeable knowledge. However, Descartes runs into some difficulty when natural light collides with the possibility of an evil genie bent on deceiving the meditator thus putting once thought concrete truths into doubt. Through an analysis of the concept of natural light I
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.
The consumption of alcohol during any gestation of pregnancy equates into alcohol fetal consumption, which can cause detrimental physical and neurological defects. Infants born with the varying degrees of detrimental effects of prenatal alcohol ingestion can have an array of disorders which are described as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders [FASD] (May & Gossage, 2011a). The most profound effects of prenatal alcohol exposure are on the fetus’s brain development, which includes cognitive and behavioral effects that follow (Riley, Infante, & Warren, 2011). The incidence of FASD is believed to range from 0.2 to 2 per 1000 live births (Douzgou et al., 2012). Alcohol yields teratogentic effects in all the gestations, with peculiar features in relationship to the trimester of pregnancy in which the alcohol is consumed (Paoletti et al., 2013). Due to the fact that there is no exact dose-response relationship between the amount of alcohol ingested during the prenatal period and the extent of damage caused by alcohol in the fetus, abstinence from alcohol at conception and during pregnancy is strongly recommended (Paoletti et al., 2013).
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!” A child has most likely heard that phrase at some point in their life. Although, it is not ethical or legal for a mother to “take her kid out of this world”, it does bring up a good point that it was through her body, that the child was born. One of the most important responsibilities in this world is a mother carrying a child in the womb. There are many divine processes that take place during gestation, but there are also many contributing factors from the mother that can affect the developing human. These factors may include what a woman ingests and exposes her embryo or fetus to. Sadly, alcohol use during pregnancy is an ongoing problem that can have detrimental affects on the fetus, including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Choosing to drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy is a choice, a risky choice. Unfortunately some women don’t even know they are making a risky choice by consuming alcohol because it is in the early stages of pregnancy. It is common for a female to not find out they are pregnant until at least the fifth or sixth week after fertilization. In 2006, 49% of all pregnancies in the United States were reported unintended on a national survey.1 The highest rate of preventable birth defects and mental retardation is due to alcohol use.2 In this paper, I will further discuss FAS, the potential effects of binge drinking during the embryonic stage of gestation, and what actions need to be taken in order to reduce the incidences of alcohol related birth defects.
Chudley, A., Conry, J., Cook, J., Loock, C., Rosales, T., & LeBlanc, N. (2005). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Canadian Guidelines for Diagnosis. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 172(5). doi:10.1503/cmaj.1040302
The teaching of Descartes has influenced many minds since his writings. Descartes' belief that clear and distinct perceptions come from the intellect and not the senses was critical to his ultimate goal in Meditations on First Philosophy, for now he has successfully created a foundation of true and certain facts on which to base a sold, scientific belief structure. He has proven himself to exist in some form, to think and therefore feel, and explains how he knows objects or concepts to be real.
In 2004, the term “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders” was agreed upon by a group of national experts to be used as an umbrella term to encompass all the disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure. When signs of brain damage appear following fetal alcohol exposure in the absence of other indications of FAS, the conditio...
Alcohol, also known as ethanol, is a legal substance, which causes a person to become relaxed and “care-free”. Once alcohol is consumed, it is released into the bloodstream, which causes the brain to react, causing side effects. When a woman drinks alcohol while being pregnant, it can cause some physical and mental damage to the fetus. When a fetus is affected by alcohol exposure, it is called Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). If the affects are severe, it is then termed Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). The abnormalities occur in the central nervous system, facial structure, growth, and neurobehavioral development of the child. Severity of the damage depends on the amount of consumption, frequency, and timing of the consumption (Ungerer, Knezovich and Ramsay, 2013). Approximately 1 in 100 births have FASD effects. In the United States, 2-7 out of 1000 births are affected by FAS. 2-5% of young children in the United States and Western Europe are affected by FASD, while in Italy, the rate of FASD is 20.3-40.5 per 1000 births (Riley, Infante, Warren, 2011). These results are happening because 10-20% of women in the United States, 40% in Uruguay, and 50% of Italy consume alcohol while pregnant (Valenzuela, Morton and Diaz, 2012).
...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.