Second Essay Assigment Descartes

DESCARTES

            Rene Descartes is considered as the father of modern philosophy. Before his ideas, thoughts of scholastic period were dominant on the western world. However, with the advent of his philosophy, people began to understand things differently. He thought that everything should be questioned and suspected. Scepticism is at the centre in his world. He examined the importance of nature and emphasized the place of it within the life of the man. Reason was crucial in understanding the outer world and everything that existed could be understood through sceptic reasoning according to him. Also, the famous statement “I think, so therefore I am” shed light for many philosophers and the only thing he was not sceptic about was the thinking activity itself. So, he could be certain about his existence in the world through this kind of philosophical opinion.

            When we focus on the opinions of Voltaire about Descartes, we can see that there are both criticise and compliment for him. Voltaire thought Descartes as a highly imaginative man.  According to him, Descartes had an innate imagination and through philosophy, he reflected that kind of imagination on his works. He even considered him as “poet” which means that Descartes fictionalized his philosophy which searched for the certain truth of the object. For Descartes, reason should be at the centre of lives and while he gave so much importance to the reasoning, it is interesting that Voltaire considered him as a “dreamer.” The level of criticism that Voltaire addressed to Descartes is not limited with that one. He also thought that Descartes was wrong about everything that he considered. It is a very challenging criticising because Descartes is known as the father of modern “thinking” and Voltaire thought that he thought “wrongly” about everything he put effort in science and philosophy. He was in clash with Descartes in the opinion for abstract systems, which is empirical evidence and concrete applications should not be ignored. In order to understand and analyse what the abstract things and are and mean, people must take help from concrete world that is physical world. So, Voltaire thinks that while doing the wrong, Descartes functioned as a wrong example and some kind of warning for other philosophers and scientists. Again according to him, when Descartes abandoned Geometry which provides certain knowledge, he did the wrong thing and turned into a romance that is novel or other kind of literature writer. For a philosopher, this means a kind of “insult.” Because literature genres such as novel or romance are generally the things made up. They are subjective and for some, there is no any grain of objectivity. His perceptions towards religious issues, nature of the soul and other similar things were all wrong according to Voltaire.

            While heavily criticizing him, Voltaire also emphasized an important point. He thought that Descartes was wrong with many things, however; although this kind of misbelief and misdoings asserted by Voltaire, he nevertheless thought that Descartes made these mistakes according to a methodology he created. He wasn’t a person without any way in which he planned to express his views. He had his own methodology. Voltaire also acknowledges that Descartes used his reason and abolished some kind of chimeras or misgivings. There is a reference to scholastic thought here. As known, scholastic thought was effective and dominant in middle age Europe. Descartes was referenced to abolish this kind of thought in philosophy and Voltaire also accepts he did a novelty in reasoning of the mind.

            In conclusion, Voltaire criticizes Descartes for being a highly imaginative person for a philosopher and he thought that Descartes was wrong about everything he considered as science and philosophy. In the world of thinkers, such kind of accusation means insulting and there is no any judgement that one can think wrong in such level. So, it is a heavy judgement for a philosopher. In spite of this satirise, Voltaire acknowledged him in the way that Descartes did what he did through the way of reasoning, which was not a common thing in those years when scholastic view was dominant. Reviving of the reason was accomplished through Descartes and Voltaire knew it.