Descartes and a revisitation of Plato

4 Commentsby   |  09.20.10  |  Renaissance/Premodern (Part II)

In my mind Descartes is one of the greatest thinkers of all time. When I was first shown his ideas and his way of determining certainty it revolutionized my life. The idea that you can determine certainty through yourself was beyond my comprehension. But I never realized how profound the rest of his ideas were before. The other day in class when we discussed in more depth his thoughts I was amazed. It never occurred to me that his philosophy could be applied to psychology. But the more I thought about it the more it made sense and fit into what all my professors and mentors have been saying since I got to college: we need to discover the truth on our own. People can show us the way, but we really need to discover it on our own. This is probably old news to everyone else, but it really struck me. No one else can force you to understand “Cogito ergo sum”, it’s all up to you to decide to figure it out. We all talked about truth a lot with the last unit and Plato, but this also is a big part of it. It doesn’t matter who tries to enlighten us or take us out of the cave, whatever the cave may be, but until we decide we’re willing to leave the cave and find the Truth, it’s all for nothing. This gives us more independence. I’m going out to try to find truth, no one can bring it to me.

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4 Comments

  1. Jason Herrington
    1:16 pm, 09.20.10

    I think that this was good realization and thought you had some great points. I think that it is important to remember that we need to find our own truth because many times people have it spoon fed to them. I also believe that it is important to have mentors and professors that challenge us to find truth instead of telling us what to believe.

  2. Earl Popp
    1:31 pm, 09.20.10

    So, you can totally find a free download pdf version of Discourse on Method online. I have a copy on my pc back home. The text makes more sense when someone helps you to understand the meaning behind his words. You sound like you would enjoy the read. Every time I look over it, I want to try new things. It’s liberating.

  3. Kameron Allen
    3:26 pm, 09.20.10

    I completely agree with you that truth is a very personal decision. People have to make the decision that they are willing to at least explore truth. We can have other’s perceptions of truth shoved down our throats forever and it would ultimately mean nothing because we have not made the decision to seek the truth ourselves.

  4. Stephanie Bell
    4:08 pm, 09.20.10

    I like the way you talked about how leaving the cave must be our personal decision. I find this to be very true because many people can be shown the truth over and over again and still choose not to recognize that their way of thinking was wrong.

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