SECOND ESSAY ASSIGNMENT- DESCARTES

According to Hegel “the thought of modern philosophy begins” with Descartes. This notion true because Descartes was the very first person who shakes the Scholastic Aristotelianism. Up until then, everyone were sure about the science and its findings. Descartes, as he widely explains in his book Discourse On Method, somehow proves the perception of certainty by doubting everything. Hegel continues his thoughts and he adds that Descartes is a “decisive step in the self-consciousness of philosophy”. This argument and saying of self-consciousness is the best explanation of Descartes’s method according to me. Since he first began with doubting everything, the one and only thing he couldn’t doubt was his own existence, and this arises the term self-consciousness. The fact that being aware of your existence with all your mind means you know your conscious has exist and well-working. 

Before Descartes, the conception of mind, of knowledge and of science was very different. There was no distinction between “What I perceive and what is “out there””. Actually, Descartes was also educated with this perceptions of science and mind until some age, however, this was not satisfactory for him and he knew that something is wrong. Based on these one can conclude that Descartes have changed the view of philosophy inevitably and framed the question of modern philosophy by make a distinction between the perception of I and what is out there. Out there reflects the notion that the real world, like the trees, buildings, the sun… everything around us. He asserted that sensing , imagination and willing are not linked to the world .Contrary to Aristo, because the Aristotelian idea had suggested that the sensing, imagination and willing were simply mental properties.

In part 4, Discourse on Method, Descartes also suggests that, one can doubt everything except his own self and God. The reason that he perceived God as a perfect mind and perfect being, unlike his being or the world around him. So, doubting method couldn’t work on God because something perfect cannot be depended on something as imperfect being. 

To conclude Hegel’s lectures on history of philosophy while examining the thoughts of Descartes, he says “its own conditions of possibility”, which means Descartes had a futuristic mind and he developed these ideas regardless of the obstacles at that time with no help but by his own enthusiasm. Of course these ideas have also developed by the time but Descartes consciously or without knowing that he would create the term of modern philosophy ,helped the philosophy moving forward a lot.