Rene Descartes Thesis - Philosophy Essay Sample

Rene Descartes was a French philosopher who was very much involved in the battle between rationalists and empiricists; he was in support of rationalism. Rationalists like Descartes claimed that there were significant ways through which the concepts of human beings and knowledge are realized autonomously about sense experience. Moreover, rationalists develop their views in two ways; they argue that there are instances where knowledge or the content of our concepts outstrip the kind of information that sense experience can provide. This paper is going to give invaluable insights on how Rene Descartes thoughts resonate with some theses.

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According to the Intuition/Deduction Thesis, some propositions in a specified subject area, S, are known to us through intuition only; still, others are recognizable by being deduced from intuited propositions. In essence, intuition is a form of rational insight and falls in line with Rene Descartes way of thinking. Concerning matters revolving around intuition and deduction, Renes way of thinking constructs accounts of how reason in one way or another offers that additional information regarding the world. Descartes ideas were contrary from empiricism because he did not think humans are born with a mind comparable to a blank slate i.e. tabula rasa; but one with innate ideas such as those of the existence of a higher being than them, of God. The Innate Knowledge Thesis posits that human beings possess knowledge of some truths in several subject areas, S, as part of their rational nature. The Innate Knowledge Thesis is the very basis or rationalism; the belief that human beings are created with reason; the primary test of knowledge and the chief test of knowledge. Descartes was a believer and proponent in the premise that rationalism is a school of thought or methodology whereby the decisive factor of the truth is never sensory but deductive and intellectual.

The Innate Concept Thesis, the Indispensability of Reason Thesis, and The Superiority of Reason Thesis are highly related with the Innate Knowledge Thesis. The innate concept thesis states that some human concepts are not gained from experience but are part and parcel of our rational nature in a way that in as much as sense experience may be the cause of a process through which humans are brought to consciousness. The Indispensability of Reason Thesis posits that the understanding we acquire in a discipline area, S, by deduction and intuition, as well as the thoughts and examples of information in S that are innate to all of us as human beings, could not have been realized by us via sense experience. Finally, the Superiority of Reason Thesis states that we gain in subject area S by intuition that is innate and deduction or have innately is superior to any knowledge gained by sense experience. In a nutshell, experience does not provide concepts to human beings, but rather people use their innate perceptions and insights to deal with some experiences.