Descartes, Leibniz, And Spinoza Essay - 700 Words

If these great thinkers (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) were to discuss instead the soul’s connection to the body, what might each say (both on his own behalf and in response to the other)? Would they find any places where they might agree? If not, why not? (These are, after all, smart guys!) nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Though this sort of meeting would strike me as a debate with as furiously disparate and uncompromising ideals as one would find in a meeting of Andrew Weil, Jerry Falwell, and David Duke, I expect that the philosophers would find some surprisingly common ground. Descartes, the Christian outcast, Spinoza, the Jewish outcast, and Leibniz, the creative mathematician all acknowledge that what we know better than†¦show more content†¦Although Descartes’ claims of the body’s necessary existence follows from the cogito – if the mind exists, then it must exist in contrast to other, external things - I presume that both Spinoza and Leibniz would take the opportunity to point out that Descartes presupposes the existence of the god that necessarily created his body and mind before speculating on whether or not his body and mind exist. Nice claim, bad explanation. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Spinoza’s staunch, pantheistic monist view of the world establishes that the mind and body are not separate entities in themselves, but only two of an infinite amount of attributes of the same and only substance in existence – God. One can relate this reasoning to two attributes of a red-hot poker – red and hot. Does this entail that red and hot are always dependent on a poker and that they are in essence the same thing? Although this is not a likely conclusion, Spinoza raises the important question of how far we can analytically separate parts of a world that are always interacting with each other. Try getting a metal poker to glow red without heating it, or heating a poker without eventually having it glow red. This is improbable, albeit possible in theory. The mind and body may be two separately identifiable things, but one will more than likely find the two cooperating with each other as attributes of the natural world. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Such cooperationShow MoreRelatedRationalism - Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz1731 Words   |  7 PagesRationalism is the principle that maintains that through reason alone we can gain at least some positive knowledge of the world. The three major rationalists, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Welhelm Leibniz, used this idea in order to defy skepticism and expose the true nature of reality. However, each philosopher is frequently in disagreement. The idea for ‘God’, and what constitutes substance, matter and reality are the four key structural beliefs that aid each rationalist in the formingRead MoreKant vs Aristotle1314 Words   |  6 Pagesformed their own theories of God, existence and the material world. Through these individual theories I will show how each fits into the category of either Rationalist or Imperialist. The Plutonian philosophers to be discussed will include Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. And the Aristotelian phi losophers will include Locke, Berkeley and Hume. 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(Markie 1) The philosophers who held this view most clearly were Spinoza and Leibniz, whose attempts to unders tand the epistemological and metaphysical problems raised by Descartes led to the development of rationalism. Both Spinoza and Leibniz asserted that, ideally, all knowledge (including scientific knowledge) could be gained through the use of reason alone, though they both observed that this was notRead MorePlato And Aristotle s Views On Philosophy1107 Words   |  5 Pageseverything could be determined with inerrant reasoning. The originator of this line of thought was Rene Descartes. Some say that he is on his own level of original philosophy that the ancient philosophers are on; however, one can see with scrutiny that Aristotle was the source on a couple of his ways of thinking. Besides Descartes, another rationalist that followed Aristotle was Benedictus de Spinoza; reason being was that even though he believed in God, he believed that emotional wellbeing was the mostRead MoreThe Mind Body Problem, By Rene Descartes Essay1331 Words   |  6 Pages Mind-Body Problem Oluwadamilola Kamson Philosophy 101: Introduction to Philosophy November 2016 INTRODUCTION The Mind-body problem dates back to Plato and was well received by the scholastic philosophers. However, it was Rene Descartes the famous French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. The mind-body problem is not, of course, a single problem at all, but a large collection of problems which focuses upon the fundamental issue of reality and knowledge in so far as such analysisRead More Descartes Essay1269 Words   |  6 Pages In the early 17th century a philosopher named Descartes, questioned his existence. His life was dedicated to the founding of a philosophical and mathematical system in which all sciences were logical. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Descartes was born in 1596 in Touraine, France. His education consisted of attendance to a Jesuit school of La Fleche. He studied a liberal arts program that emphasized philosophy, the humanities, science, and math. He then went on to the University of Poitiers where