Descartes and Actualization of Modernity

After 14th century, people in Europe started to be interested in other topics than Christianity. They've read other religions' teachings. They were also able to reach the texts of antiquity. Moreover, they were able to study political, mathematical and scientific information from other regions (especially the discoveries and scientific findings of Islamic Golden Age scientists). Rene Descartes was one of the most important people of the Renaissance Era, because he was able to reach and study all the texts and data that I've written above. So we can say that Descartes was sort of an engendered human form of the Renaissance era. In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel writes, “with Descartes the culture of modern times, the thought of modern philosophy really begins to appear.” I totally agree with Hegel, because Descartes doubted everything that he knew, he investigated and criticized deeply the information that he had, and reached a conclusion about what is true and what is not. Rene Descartes became a role model for his successors, and his method of investigation and criticism inseminated the seeds of modern science and modernity in general.

Although Descartes was able to reach, study and understand a considerable amount of information that existed in Europe at that time, he was not satisfied with what he knew. Actually, he were in confusion because several things that he studied and knew were in contradiction with each other. Because of this, he spared a time to think about everything he knew and reach the ultimate truth. He'd done this for the sake of a better life and also better knowledge. In his Discourse on Method, he wrote ". . . as regards all the opinions to which I had until now given credence, I could not do better than to try to get rid of them once and for all, in order to replace them later on, either with other ones that are better, or even with the same ones once I had reconciled them to the norms of reason." In order to reach his goal, he developed an algorithm so as to reach the truths, which will also be used several times by him and also by other philosophers of that era too. He described this algorithm as this: "The first was never to accept anything as true that I did not plainly know to be such . . . The second, to divide each  of the difficulties I would examine into as many parts as possible . . . The third, to conduct my thoughts in an orderly fashion . . . And the last, everywhere to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that I was assured of having omitted nothing." Descartes used these methods and their variations so as to reach the ultimate truths. The followers of him imitated Descartes, so they too doubted everything they knew that is truth, and filtered their ideas. By this sequence of doubting and trying to find the most true information, modernity actually began to replace traditions and dogmas, thus Descartes can be counted as the initiator of modern philosophy, as Hegel said.

In short, what we now call modern philosophy was once did not exist. A modest and clever man, called Descartes, tried to learn everything that he could reach, and then got confused by them. In order to emerge from this confusion, he doubted everything that he learned and knew, and organized a method to find what is the truth. Inspired by his skepticism, people who read Descartes too wanted to know what is the truth. As a result, Descartes happened to be the person who is the initiator of constant questioning, and hence the modern philosophy really began with him.