display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
11 ideas
| 1569 | Descartes impoverished the classical idea of logos, and it no longer covered human experience [Roochnik on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Descartes attacked and fundamentally altered classical logos. The result is an impoverished conception of reason, one that is unable to do justice to the significance and value of human experience. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason Prol. Xii |
| 24024 | The secret of the method is to recognise which thing in a series is the simplest [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary, in a series of objects, to recognise which is the simplest thing, and how all the others depart from it. This rule contains the whole secret of the method. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 06) | |
| A reaction: This is an appealing thought, though deciding the criteria for 'simplest' looks tough. Are electrons, for example, simple? Is a person a simple basic thing? |
| 2248 | Reason says don't assent to uncertain principles, just as much as totally false ones [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Reason now persuades me that I should withhold my assent no less carefully from opinions that are not completely certain and indubitable than I would from those that are patently false. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.18) |
| 3603 | Methodical thinking is cautious, analytical, systematic, and panoramic [Descartes, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Descartes' four principles for his method of thinking are: be cautious, analyse the problem, be systematic from simple to complex, and keep an overview of the problem | |
| From: report of René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §2.18) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 24018 | One truth leads us to another [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: One truth discovered helps us to discover another. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 01) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be one of the key ingredients of objectivity. People who know very little have almost no chance of objectivity. A mind full of falsehoods also blocks it. |
| 2857 | Since Plato all philosophers have followed the herd, except Descartes, stuck in superficial reason [Nietzsche on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Since Plato all philosophers have followed moral 'instinct', or 'faith', or (as I call it) 'the herd'. One might exclude Descartes, the father of rationalism, who recognised only reason - but reason is only an instrument, and Descartes was superficial. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil §191 |
| 3659 | I know the truth that God exists and is the author of truth [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I have very clearly deduced the following truths, that there is a God who is the author of all that is in the world, and who is the source of all truth. | |
| From: René Descartes (Preface to 'Principles of Philosophy' [1647], p.180) |
| 3641 | It is circular to make truth depend on believing God's existence is true [Arnauld on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: How does the author avoid reasoning in a circle when he says that we are sure that what we clearly and distinctly perceive is true only because God exists? But we can be sure that God exists only because we clearly and distinctly perceive this. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.71) by Antoine Arnauld - Objections to 'Meditations' (Fourth) 214 |
| 4524 | Descartes is right that in the Christian view only God can guarantee the reliability of senses [Nietzsche on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Even Descartes had a notion that in a Christian mode of thought (where God is a good creator), only God's veracity guarantees to us the judgements of our senses. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.71) by Friedrich Nietzsche - The Will to Power (notebooks) §436 | |
| A reaction: An unusual defence of the notorious Cartesian Circle. Of course, Descartes claims that God guarantees reason (as 'clear and distinct conception'), not senses, and only reason led Descartes to God. |
| 3612 | Clear and distinct conceptions are true because a perfect God exists [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: That the things we grasp very clearly and very distinctly are all true, is assured only because God is or exists, and because he is a perfect Being. | |
| From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §4.38) |
| 2290 | Once it is clear that there is a God who is no deceiver, I conclude that clear and distinct perceptions must be true [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Once I perceived that there is a God,…and that he is no deceiver, I then concluded that everything that I clearly and distinctly perceived is necessarily true. | |
| From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §5.70) | |
| A reaction: spotted by Arnauld |