【SAT写作素材】人物经典事例：笛卡尔

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Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is one of the most important Western philosophers

of the past few centuries. During his lifetime, Descartes was just as famous as

an original physicist, physiologist and mathematician. But it is as a highly

original philosopher that he is most frequently read today. He attempted to

restart philosophy in a fresh direction. For example, his philosophy refused to

accept the Aristotelian and Scholastic traditions that had dominated

philosophical thought throughout the Medieval period; it attempted to fully

integrate philosophy with the "new" sciences; and Descartes changed the

relationship between philosophy and theology. Such new directions for philosophy

made Descartes into a revolutionary figure.

The two most widely known of Descartes' philosophical ideas are those of a

method of hyperbolic doubt, and the argument that, though he may doubt, he

cannot doubt that he exists. The first of these comprises a key aspect of

Descartes' philosophical method. As noted above, he refused to accept the

authority of previous philosophers - but he also refused to accept the

obviousness of his own senses. In the search for a foundation for philosophy,

whatever could be doubted must be rejected. He resolves to trust only that which

is clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt. In this manner, Descartes

peels away the layers of beliefs and opinions that clouded his view of the

truth. But, very little remains, only the simple fact of doubting itself, and

the inescapable inference that something exists doubting, namely Descartes

himself.

His next task is to reconstruct our knowledge piece by piece, such that at no

stage is the possibility of doubt allowed to creep back in. In this manner,

Descartes proves that he himself must have the basic characterisitc of thinking,

and that this thinking thing (mind) is quite distinct from his body; the

existence of a God; the existence and nature of the external world; and so on.

What is important in this for Descartes is, first, that he is showing that

knowledge is genuinely possible (and thus that sceptics must be mistaken), and,

second, that, more particularly, a mathematically-based scientific knowledge of

the material world is possible.

Descartes' work was influential, although his studies in physics and the

other natural sciences much less so than his mathematical and philosophical

work. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, Descartes' philosophical ghost was

always present; Locke, Hume, Leibniz and even Kant felt compelled to

philosophical entanglement with this intellectual giant. For these reasons,

Descartes is often called the "father" of modern philosophy.

This article provides an overview of Descartes' philosophical thought

following the order of his most famous and widely-studied book, the Meditations

on First Philosophy.