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Was Descartes an existentialist?

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03 Jul 2009, 10:40 am

Cognito is popularly understood as i think therefore iam but in meditations he says iam i exist surely these are two different things and therefore cant be used as a priori.



Awesomelyglorious
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03 Jul 2009, 11:21 am

Probably not an existentialist. Mind you, I am not an expert on Descartes, but existentialism is usually strongly focused upon phenomenalism, while Descartes was just a skeptical rationalist. I am therefore I exist doesn't aim at 2 different properties, so it does not seem a valid argument.



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03 Jul 2009, 7:18 pm

ists and isms merde



sartresue
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03 Jul 2009, 8:50 pm

Merde Gras topic

Sartre might have also mumbled: Le merde est autre peuple.

Pardon ma francais. :roll:


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Sand
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03 Jul 2009, 10:30 pm

It's a merde, merde, merde world.



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15 Jul 2009, 4:34 am

philosopher wrote:
Cogito is popularly understood as i think therefore iam but in meditations he says iam i exist surely these are two different things and therefore cant be used as a priori.

You are making a good point, the issue is about mind/body split, dualism or dichotomy...
I used to refer myself as being Cartesian, since I am a rationalist, but if I understood properly his Meditations, I consider he makes several logical mistakes, in his questionning of human existence.
Descartes was more of an essentialist.


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ruveyn
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15 Jul 2009, 6:35 am

Sand wrote:
It's a merde, merde, merde world.


Bon mot.

ruveyn



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15 Jul 2009, 9:08 am

Absolutely not.
More than anyone else, Descartes is about ignoring the phenomenal
world as being unreliable and discovering truths through rationalism.
In contrast, the existentialist embraces the phenomenal world she finds
her self in and uses the phenomenal world (and not necessarily
rationalism) as the means of learning about the world.

Existence for Descartes is the end, the conclusion and a mere matter of
rationally sought fact.
Existence for the existentialist is the beginning, the given premise.



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15 Jul 2009, 7:47 pm

Descartes was an idiot.

"I'm going to completely destroy my reality and rebuild it from nothing."

"I assume there is a god."

8O



pakled
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15 Jul 2009, 8:44 pm

Only if he was a time-traveler...;) he was long dead by the time Existentialism came into existence.



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16 Jul 2009, 10:37 am

for the neophytes, merde is the french word for sh1t. <.< And best of all, it's not censored. =P



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16 Jul 2009, 7:55 pm

You are making aDescartes was an idiot. good point,Descartes was an idiot. Absolutely not.What?merde!!



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16 Jul 2009, 10:19 pm

I almost went to a college that is nothing but philosophy (St. Johns), I love philosophy. Descartes is the only philosopher I have ever completely disagreed with and felt was an idiot.

His base assumption that there is a god destroys any other meaningful thoughts he may have had. He might be quite profound as a theologian, but as a philosopher he fails.

You can't say "I will remove all assumptions to find "true" reality" and then go and assume a god.