Post by Caillin on Oct 28, 2017 0:10:30 GMT -5
The more I dabble in philosophy and metaphysics (most recently with the help of Dr. Ed Feser books, other writings, and lectures), the more and more intrigued I'm becoming by just how detrimental an impact Rene Descartes, the "Father of Modern Philosophy", had on the world. It seems like a Vatican II like impact, significantly undermining true thinking, faith, and morality throughout history.
The brief critique in the video below (it's not me, in case anyone wonders) concisely exposes the fundamental problem at the root of the philosophy of Descartes. As the speaker says, his philosophy caused a major shift away from ancient philosophy (the highest development of which is found in the Aristotelian-Thomistic system, or Scholasticism). Ancient philosophy held a view of ontology predicated on the notion that we are objects with a participation relation to the external world. Descartes’ ontology shifts to a subject-perception relation to the external world. I think it's easy to see just on the surface how this leads to Skepticism, Relativism, and other major problems we currently see in the world.
The speaker concludes with two points:
1. The principle of non-contradiction, an immediate consequence of the most evident idea of being, is the most fundamental principle and law of metaphysics and reality. This is opposed to Descartes' proposition that "I think" and "I exist" are the foundational and most self-evident truths on which all knowledge and philosophy is predicated. Without the principle of non-contradiction preceding Descartes' proposition, "I think, therefore I exist" can not stand, as Garrigou-Lagrange demonstrates below, following Etienne Gilson.
2. When we are deceived, we are not deceived by the senses, as Descartes claims, but rather, we are deceived by our intellect and our judgment. This is important, since Descartes' idea that everything we sense should be doubted leads to the conclusion that reality is deceptive and everything can be doubted except for the fact that we are thinking (since we are thinking by doubting).
Here is the Garrigou-Lagrange quote. It seems the entirety of Cartesianism is effectively dismantled in these few sentences:
The brief critique in the video below (it's not me, in case anyone wonders) concisely exposes the fundamental problem at the root of the philosophy of Descartes. As the speaker says, his philosophy caused a major shift away from ancient philosophy (the highest development of which is found in the Aristotelian-Thomistic system, or Scholasticism). Ancient philosophy held a view of ontology predicated on the notion that we are objects with a participation relation to the external world. Descartes’ ontology shifts to a subject-perception relation to the external world. I think it's easy to see just on the surface how this leads to Skepticism, Relativism, and other major problems we currently see in the world.
The speaker concludes with two points:
1. The principle of non-contradiction, an immediate consequence of the most evident idea of being, is the most fundamental principle and law of metaphysics and reality. This is opposed to Descartes' proposition that "I think" and "I exist" are the foundational and most self-evident truths on which all knowledge and philosophy is predicated. Without the principle of non-contradiction preceding Descartes' proposition, "I think, therefore I exist" can not stand, as Garrigou-Lagrange demonstrates below, following Etienne Gilson.
2. When we are deceived, we are not deceived by the senses, as Descartes claims, but rather, we are deceived by our intellect and our judgment. This is important, since Descartes' idea that everything we sense should be doubted leads to the conclusion that reality is deceptive and everything can be doubted except for the fact that we are thinking (since we are thinking by doubting).
Here is the Garrigou-Lagrange quote. It seems the entirety of Cartesianism is effectively dismantled in these few sentences:
As Gilson [143] well remarks, Thomistic realism is founded, not on a mere postulate, but on intellectual grasp of intelligible reality in sense objects. Its fundamental proposition runs thus: [144] The first idea which the intellect conceives, its most evident idea into which it resolves all other ideas, is the idea of being. Grasping this first idea, the intellect cannot but grasp also the immediate consequences of that idea, namely, first principles as laws of reality. If human intelligence doubts the evidence of, say, the principle of contradiction, then—as Thomists have repeated since the seventeenth century—the principle of Descartes [145] simply vanishes. If the principle of contradiction is not certain, then I might be simultaneously existent and non-existent, then my personal thought is not to be distinguished from impersonal thought, nor personal thought from the subconscious, or even from the unconscious. The universal proposition, Nothing can simultaneously both be and not be, is a necessary presupposition of the particular proposition, I am, and I cannot simultaneously be and not be. Universal knowledge precedes particular knowledge. [146].
- Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought.
- Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. REALITY—A Synthesis Of Thomistic Thought.