Descartes (1596-1650)
? New vision of the world came to him one day after a night of vivid dreams.
? He now gained clarity & decided to abandon the army & settle in Holland.
? Engaged in a major project about the universe (understanding it)—math, geometry, physiology, meteorology.
Sep 9, 08
Phil 2020- Reason, God & the Mind (Lecture 1)
• Medieval Philosophy: 800/900’s-1400’s
• Thomas Aquinas too Plato & Aristotle’s texts and harmonized them into Christian theology.
• Medieval period philosophy was second to theology- philosophers supplied theologists with rational explanations, they’re job was not to question but to explain.
• Ockham’s Razor (great medieval philosopher)- all things being equal the simplest solution is probably the best- KISS (keep it simple stupid!)
• Nominalism- the view that whatever is; is particular i-e. Everything is unique; there are not two identical things in the universe b/c everything is absolutely distinct (no twins exist).
• Descartes & Descartes were sympathetic to Nominalism.
• Descartes big fan of clarity & dislikes big fat vague terms (disliked qualitative explanations) but rather mathematically based explanations, in which language nature is written in.
• Medieval philosophers would often revert to qualitative explanations in order to explain natural phenomenon. These kind of explanations go back to Aristotle’s explanations (appeal to some mysterious q ...