Introduction to Philosophy - Essay Example

He continues to argue that this method is sufficient to proof the doubt within a concept. This argument contradicts with Kant’s notion of existence of things. According to Kant, a thing is understandable and definable. Separation of rationality and existence of things in the spatial world is the only existing proof of things. Descartes’ method of self-consciousness indicates that the existence of an individual is equivalents to the things that the individual recognize their existence. Existence and non-existence of things introduce the subject of doubt in the argument.

Kant considers this argument as illogical and full of doubt. Kant argues that the reasoning behind Descartes’ thoughts does not account for thinking and imagination. He continues to argue that doubting one’s existence is an indication of self-consciousness and, therefore the theory of things and self-consciousness lacks a basis. Descartes views on consciousness emphasis that our sensory perception is our mind. Desecrate explained this idea through his famous classical wax model. This model tried to explain that wax has distinct size, smell, shape texture, and color among other properties.

He argued that through our sensory perception we are able to describe the wax from simple analysis and experimentations. Desecrate believed that our sensory perception and deductive mind is the basis of enquiry on the nature of objects and their existence. However, according to Descartes this observation had no any philosophical background. Descartes argued that our sensory perception does not give certainty on existence of things. Descartes’ ideology uses the existence of a thing to introduce the awareness and existence of material world in our mind.

Things and their existence in the physical world would remain the same in our minds even without our sensory perception. This perception explains Descartes’ belief of body and mind dualism. Generally, Descartes’ description of the world implies that that the existence of thing in the real world is similar to their existence in the thinking world (Meiklejohn, 1787). Descartes argued that this ideology was not philosophical. Descartes’ argument was based on problems resulting from the ideology.

His argument was also constructed from common problem that the ideology could not explain. Descartes argued that the priori and posteriori truths in the ideology were insufficient to support the metaphysic claim in the ideology. Kant also stated that the argument could only be understood if, a person distinguishes artificial from analytical truths. The concept of occupying space is an analytical truth since the predicate is contained within the subject. The artificial truth in this claim however, lacks a predicate.

Kant’ argument implied that Descartes’ ideology was based on synthetic truths since it had no any analytical proof. I consider Kant’s argument on existence to be more logical than Descartes’ arguments. 2. Elaborate upon Hume’s distinction between an impression and an idea. What would he say about the idea of God or the immortal soul? Do you think that Hume’s impression/idea distinction is useful as a basis for epistemology? Provide a brief outline of your own epistemology or theory of knowledge.

In his book the Treaties, Hume tries to distinguish between impression and ideas through his theories. According to the theories, the content of