As you would remember from HUM111, Plato was an idealist philosopher. That is to say, he thought other than our physical world that we perceive through our senses, there exists a metaphysical world -or universe- where "the true forms" of beings exist which only those who philosophize could reach. If you don't remember that, you can go and re-read The Cave Allegory in The Republic book VII. After reading Descartes a little bit, I saw some parallels with him and Plato. Descartes also thought humans should not trust their senses, and scientific picture of the world should be perceived with mathematics. Additionally, Descartes thought humans can have knowledge of what is appearant, but the foremost goal of humans is to penetrate behind the appearance and acquire general principles of beings (physical laws, for example).
What do you think? Do you think Descartes had been influenced by Plato? I do think these parallels does not seem coincidental, and Descartes is highly influenced by Plato!
I definitely agree with you when you say that Descartes was affected with the philosophy of Plato, especially from the Allegory of the cave. Plato believes that we shouldn't trust our senses and Descartes believes that we should be able to forget everything we learnt and open our minds to new ideas.
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