Hegel said in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy: "René Descartes is in fact the true founder of modern philosophy, because modern philosophy is based on the principle of thinking. "Descartes had a merit in the history of philosophy in separating independent philosophical thinking from theological arguments, ending the pathetic state of philosophy as the handmaiden of theology since the Middle Ages. Although Descartes's philosophy still has scum that tries to argue for the existence of God, he has shifted his attention to man, regarding man (not God) as the main object of study of philosophy, and he believes that in addition to the "existence of God", philosophy should also study "the human mind". Thus, it can be said that Descartes was a heroic figure who took the lead in reconstructing the philosophical foundations.
Descartes born at the end of the Renaissance (1596-1650)
Descartes believed that man was the observer of the world, fundamentally different from other animals. Animals are just machines created by God, and although they are delicate and wonderful, they lack a soul and are therefore unable to think. Man, by contrast, is a rational animal, good at doubting, capable of thinking, and possessing a unique nature. Human dignity is not embodied in the upright walking body, but in the rationality of independent thinking. Reason is the most evenly distributed thing in the world, and anyone but children and idiots can possess it in its entirety. Our perceptions are so different not because some people have a little more brain capacity than others, but because we use rational methods differently. Stupid people listen to and believe, superstitious authority, and do not know how to develop their brains; intelligent people are independent, doubt everything, and know how to sort out and correct all the knowledge they have learned.
Since philosophy aims at the pursuit of truth, it should regard reason as its principal object of study. The task of philosophers is to show how to properly guide human reason in order to seek truth in all disciplines. As an innovator in the history of philosophy, Descartes, in "On the Method" and "Philosophical Principles", uses himself as an example to discuss how he got rid of stereotypes, doubted everything, and then found the unquestionable principle, and on this basis, reconstructed the system of thought. He provides us with a model for the correct use of reason, for discovering truth through independent thinking.
Talk about the Method – the birthplace of Cartesian philosophy
From the early childhood of Ya Ya to adult independence, our knowledge is basically learned through indoctrination education. Because, during this time, people's intellect is not yet mature, just as children without viability need parental supervision, and people without independent thinking need to be indoctrinated by books.
At this time, the main role in reason is not thinking, but imagination and memory. We absorb the ready-made knowledge and ideas in books into our minds through repeated memorization and associative memory, and focus on quantity and ignore quality. Thus, as we reach adulthood and our intellect matures, we have accumulated in our minds a great deal of unselected and unexamined knowledge. We don't know which knowledge is reliable and which knowledge doesn't stand up to scrutiny and is accepted by us only because of indoctrination. If we do not use our own reason to systematically reflect and sort out the knowledge in our minds, we will not be able to mark the imprint of ourselves on this knowledge. That is to say, our values, cognitive systems, and judgments of right and wrong are all taught to us by others, and we have nothing of our own, but are just a machine shaped by others.
This preconception-bound annoyance had plagued Descartes, who had been indoctrinated since childhood, who had listened to people and believed that by reading books he could acquire a clear and reliable knowledge of everything that was good for life. However, after he finished all the courses and became a top scholar, he realized how ignorant he was. Stupid people always urge people to read more, but the wise Descartes finds the need to be more skeptical. He was partial to mathematics, believing that the foundations of the discipline were the strongest, but not yet perfect. Philosophy and theology are not reliable enough, with the former already a place of controversy and a thousand philosophers having a thousand philosophical theories; the latter claiming to be above reason and allowing no doubt.
In this regard, Descartes chose to abandon the theory temporarily after becoming an adult, completely abandoned the study of books, and decided to leave the study and travel around Europe. He interacted with people of all temperaments and identities, and gathered all kinds of life experiences, and in his view the nerds' judgments on academic issues were meaningless, because these judgments were not at their personal interests, even if they were wrong; ordinary people had to pay for their wrong judgments and should be more cautious. Is the soul immortal after death? What does this have to do with Plato's health? Will it be a storm tomorrow? - But the fisherman's life is at stake!
If you want to know the truth, you should get rid of the shackles of books, don't be superstitious about the pen of the mouth of nerds, and think independently in life with your own reason.
Descartes opposed scholarly study
In 1620, after joining the Thirty Years' War, descartes shut himself in a warm room in the winter of that year, using contemplation to re-sort the knowledge in his mind.
Everyone's knowledge is granted through different teachers and different books, just like many craftsmen jointly carved a stone statue, after passing through the hands, it has long been unrecognizable and has lost its character. Since we were all children before we became adults, we were all dominated by different teachers for a long time, and they were so uneven. Then, after the maturity of the intellect, we need to use contemplation to sort out the knowledge we have learned.
This kind of combing is more similar to the renovation of buildings, we must first examine the foundation of the entire knowledge building, judge whether the instilled knowledge is reliable, and carefully avoid ignorant prejudices and stubborn stereotypes. However, after more than ten years of accumulation, the knowledge in the mind has become incalculable in quantity, and it is impossible to correct each piece of knowledge through the ruler of reason. For the sake of convenience, Descartes chose to adopt the practice of "doubting everything". That is to say, we directly assume that all the instilled knowledge is unreliable and needs to be re-tested. In Descartes' words, it is:
In the pursuit of truth, we must doubt everything as much as possible once in our lives. Everything that can be doubted should also be considered false.
Doubt is the best way to break the authority and avoid brainwashing, and through doubt we can clean up the prejudices that others publicize and instill. Before we were adolescence, knowledge was taught to us, and the ability to doubt was inherent in our reason, the embodiment of the self. In the application of reason, doubt is placed first. We do not blindly follow or believe any point of view, but directly assume that all foreign knowledge is unreliable, or that those who instill knowledge have bad intentions, or that our senses are deceptive. To this end, we must take a cautious attitude before accepting a certain point of view. We doubt any argument that has no argument, anything that has not been tested in practice. You know, in this world, there are far more doubtful things than there are credible things. It is better to be suspicious and indecisive than to be gullible to others, and to use doubt to eliminate all stereotypes.
In contemplation, doubt is used to cleanse stereotypes
Unlike the classical skepticism, Descartes did not aim at doubt, but as a means. By doubt, we can uproot all unreliable knowledge; thus the remaining unquestionable things become the solid foundations of the new system. In Descartes' view, "Cogito, ergo sum" is a piece of knowledge that cannot be uprooted by doubt, saying: "I accept this truth without any doubt as the first principle of the philosophy I have studied." ”
Descartes thought that I, as an entity, could conceive of the world in which I was, the place in which I was located, but I could not conceive of myself as non-existent, because I was the "imagined subject." According to Spinoza, the so-called "I think, therefore I am" and "I am a thinker" are equivalent assertions. I can imagine that the world does not exist, but I cannot assume that I am not a thinker, because without a thinker, the idea is meaningless. We do not comment on whether this proposition is as indisputable as Descartes put it, but adopt his central idea that the purpose of doubt is to find a reliable base of knowledge and use that knowledge as the foundation of our system of thought.
This reliable knowledge generally appears in the form of axioms, such as Locke's "one thing cannot exist at the same time and does not exist", "one plus one equals two", "all people will die", etc., which are all knowledge that has been repeatedly verified and recognized by countless generations. And the views of so-and-so great men, the creeds of so-and-so religions, and the theories of so-and-so authority are not worthy of juxtaposition with these principles, and apart from these axioms, no theory is unquestionable and cannot be put out for open discussion.
Descartes believed that truth has the character of clarity and clarity, that it is not a mysterious word of God, nor is it an unknown revelation. As long as it is true and reliable, it can be clearly expressed. Although truth is blinded by errors and lies, once truth is confirmed, it will never be replaced by error again.
I can't imagine that I'm not a thinker
The purpose of doubt is to weed out the stereotypes that others have instilled in us, leaving only reliable knowledge. After that, we rebuild our own systems of thought on top of this reliable knowledge. In Descartes' words:
I am not doing this to imitate skeptics who doubt for the sake of doubt and pretend to be perpetually hesitant, for on the contrary, my whole plan is simply to seek for myself a reason for conviction, to remove the floating soil and sand in order to find the rock or clay.
The knowledge that has been instilled since childhood, apart from the part of prejudice, the reliable content will remain as rocks, which, together with the experience of life as clay, are piled on a solid foundation and become the material for building the building. The construction of knowledge is not like a simple tool for making iron: in order to make iron (to learn knowledge), you must first have a hammer (books, teachers), and if you want to make a hammer, you must have another hammer or other tool (read other books, find another teacher), and so on to infinity.
The reconstruction of the body of knowledge should be as follows: starting from the most certain and firm axioms, as if it were to create simple tools first, and then on its basis through independent thinking to gradually deduce, step by step, from simple and crude tools to complex tools, from simple axioms to systematic systems of thought, and so on step by step, to infinity.
Therefore, independent thinking is divided into four stages: first, to leave the book and obtain reliable experience from life; second, to eliminate the stereotypes instilled through doubt; third, after doubt, to find those reliable knowledge as a basis; fourth, to get rid of doubt and rebuild the knowledge system on a solid foundation.