TOPIC: Question #1 on pg. 111
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In Descartes reading he concluded that there really was no knowledge or wisdom in the world. He realized shortly after finishing school that there was still so much information and different theories that he hadn't even learned about. He thought that with the amount of different opinions on one subject on of them had to be right but the rest were incorrect. The fact that he couldn't figure out a way to decide what was true or not and the fact that schooling did not help was how he came to his conclusion. He thought that his time had made no more advancements then the scientists of earlier times.
ReplyDeleteDescartes believes that simply because of the fact that even some of the greatest minds have studied philosophy and theology and they haven't produced anything that hasn't been disputed or has been marked as uncertain or incorrect, that how can there be anything to gain from such theories. How can there be anything to learn when what one is supposed to be learning is being marked as incorrect or argued. He believes that the is no difference between one that is educated and one that is ingnorant because even the most educated man is still ignorant to some aspect of the world. Therefore concluding to the fact that there is no wisdom or knowledge within this world.
When the question mentioned "no wisdom in the world" it was somewhat hard to understand but reading it, I saw it as not wisdom of the world around him, but wisdom of the world of humanity.
ReplyDeleteDescartes saw no wisdom in the world when he finished school as a young man. He threw away his future education in order to see things within his own eyes and not through the eyes of another person. Anything and everything he had studied and read so far was constantly being attacked for flaws or being reported as wrong, BUT that was not the end, it wasn't long afterword that he resumed his belief in the world and it's wisdom.
After traveling the world and learning that the views that he had believed in since birth weere false. Seeing the different people of the world and finding them not as the barbarians that he has heard of before but as people as reasonable as himself. This is where he threw away the views of the world and made his own. His final conclusion.
As a child, Descartes was taught that books held the answer to everything. When attending the best school, he expected to have a key to all the answers in life. However, as soon as he finished his studies, he realized he had even more questions and doubts then before. As soon as he was old enough, he gave up on his studies, and instead focused on inner truth and knowledge, and truth about nature. Everything he had been told since childhood, every piece of advice given to him, he questioned, and eventually came to the conclusion that they were worthless, unless he added his own opinion. Through travel, Descartes learned that people have there own opinions, and that doesn't make them superior or inferior.
ReplyDeleteDescartes, by doubting all that he once knew to be true in his life, came to the conclusion that there was no wisdom in the world. Instead, opinions were needed to build upon the wisdom. People did not have more or less wisdom then others based upon the ways they did things. Everyone had there own ways of doing things, and everybody is correct in their own way.
Descartes came to the conclusion that there was no wisdom in the world by reading and observing. He read and thirsts for knowledge he went to school and learnt all the teacher could teach him. He studied all his teachers could teach him and all he could read. He found out from that studying he gained nothing. He just realized that there was so much more to know. The more he learnt the more he realized how ignorant he was.
ReplyDeleteHe travelled and studied other communities and found that the people everyone thought of as savages were very much like him. If simple things like that could be debatable then how will anything have a concrete answer? No one can truly be wise if his thinking’s can be disproven or doubted. He had the power to judge others just like everyone else along with his own opinion and this is the closest thing to wisdom that Descartes could come up with.