Connecting Descartes and Hume - Student Essays on Modern Philosophy

Below are some great student essays from our introduction to Modern Philosophy and readings from Descartes' Meditations, Berkeley's Three Dialogues, and Hume's Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 

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"In George Berkeley's dialogue between a skeptic and his student, Philonous, the skeptic, makes the claim that there are no material things outside of the mind. He observes the fact that all things that we perceive (i.e. all material things) can be broken down infinitely. For example, a cake is a whole thing, yet it can be broken down into ingredients; the ingredients are broken into the plants and animal products they are made of. All physical things are composed of atoms, yet there are parts of the parts of the parts of an atom. Because of this seemingly infinite separability of material things, Berkeley concludes that there must be something that is not material that is indivisible. These indivisible things, which are the root of all divisible, material things, are ideas. It is the fact that ideas cannot be separated that brought Berkeley to the conclusion that they are the most real, fundamental thing. Interestingly enough, as we see with many modern philosophers, Berkeley was not the first to have an issue with infinite divisibility in the materials world. The Pre-Socratic, Zeno, had a similar thought process. The way he illustrated it was with a person moving from a point A to a point B. In this image, the person moved halfway from A to B. Once there, he moved halfway from that point to B, then halfway to B again, and on and on infinitely. Zeno wrestled with this paradox of infinite divisibility in a similar way to Berkeley, but in the world of the Pre-Socratics, Aristotle had a different solution. As opposed to jumping to the conclusion that the mind was the source of indivisibility as Berkeley did, Aristotle found that there were forms, not originating in the human mind nor inherent only to to humans, but present in all things. Yes, matter may be infinitely divided, but it finds its ground, its 'one-ness' in its form - the form of a thing being its whatness, its essence." - Student SA 

"The split of philosophy into two schools of thought begins with the goals that these schools are trying to answer. Both schools, the Rationalist and the Empiricist, are looking to answer a question of what is most certain. This question revolves, not on objective reality, but what the human mind can fully grasp. So the Rationalist philosopher begins at Descartes, reading how truth is found in the mind. This creates a worldview of doubting the physical reality. Rationalists are most certain about the mind and that everything exists because of the mind. This philosophy takes the One of the Pre-Socratics and applies it to the mind, how the physical or the many exists only by the mind or the One. However, there is another side of this split in philosophy. The Empiricist, who claims their certainty in the physical. While Descartes wrote alone in his cabin, the world was developing and new scientific revelations were arising. The advancement in science created a question, why is there a need to search for the metaphysical? This question had a skewed answer, because the perspective leans for viewing didn't look for truth but rather for certainty. The answer was to ignore the metaphysical, to turn to the physical nature of ourselves and the world around us as certain. The Empiricist philosopher uses science to collect data, which he compiles into one fact. That is the major split from the Pre-Socratics, the division of body and soul, many and one. This division causes the main difference of Rationalist and Empiricist. Each chose a side of the Pre-Socratics and an order of existing. The Rationalist with the mind, and the order of knowing. The Empiricist with the body and the order of being." - Student SC

"In the first quote, Hume essentially gives the central idea of his philosophy. He says that there are only two speculative sciences, and completely disregards the realm of the metaphysical, thus setting the 'framework' for his argument and philosophy. He believes that only that which is perceived by the senses, the physical world, exists. And even so, as he says, the ultimate causes of the physical world cannot be known. Rather, we only make assumptions, or 'matters of fact' as he calls them, regarding events based on our past experiences. For example, there is no way to prove that the sun will rise every morning. We simply say this matter of fact because it has risen every other morning and thus will likely rise again. But this is only known through experience, and because it cannot be empirically tested, it is impossible to assign an ultimate cause to that effect. Because he disregards the reality of ultimate causes, he establishes his belief that he world is not ordered, and that there are no governing idea which frame the way that we view the world: 'These ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry.' However, the second quote, if nothing else, totally contradicts his philosophy in the very mode of his statement. In establishing 'a general proposition which admits of no  exception', he is making a universal claim about the world which he claims can never be otherwise, despite his earlier statement that no matter of fact can be said to be always true. The entirety of Hume's argument is a contradiction of his radical empiricist philosophy. From the beginning, he frames his mode of thinking with axioms, or first principles, which characterize our metaphysical mode of knowing. he takes his statements that there are 'only two speculative sciences', or that universal principles cannot be known, as universal statements themselves, a huge irony in his argument, which shows the absurdity of the modern philosophical thought which Hume adopts" - Student CG

The problem is that Descartes, Hume, and Kant as well ... Modern philosophy is not concerned with being or truth, but with my certainty of those things. And they judge being and truth based on human certainty of them. The problem is that given the human position in knowing, with all knowing coming first through the senses, it leads one to the temptation to equate truth and being with the physical world because that's what's closest and most certain to us. But this is the greatest tragedy says Plato. We are not meant to stay chained in the cave with the shadows but to make the ascent into the light of the intelligible, which is blinding to the physical eyes. Another way of saying this is: "What is most real to me? versus What is most real in itself?" What is the difference between these questions? This is the difference between modern philosophy and Greek philosophy. 

"David Hume begins his philosophy with the premise that there are only two speculative sciences, that being the physical and mathematical. However through his assumption it leads him to a radical empiricist rabbit hole which totally rejects the spiritual world. This happened because he left out a crucial and arguably most important speculative science of them all which was metaphysical. The reason why Hume even allowed himself to reject something as crucial as metaphysical is because his idea of it comes from the assumption that it was actually Descartes who came up with metaphysics and it can be rejected. However this assumption proves to be false due to the fact that metaphysics is inherent to reality as a whole. Not only that, but Descartes wasn't even the man to have 'discovered' metaphysics and it was rather the Ancient Greeks who first began to write about it. This assertion that there are only two speculative sciences proves to be dangerous. Since metaphysics holds down concepts and bonds reality together that allows it to be coherent, rejecting it would be as if to reject reality itself. In a world without metaphysics, cats will be mistaken as dogs and even the words on this paper wouldn't be understandable because there wouldn't be any stable definition of the words used. Hume weaves his way through his danger with creating axioms that provides support for his philosophy. He states how any patterns recognized by humanity are due to cause and effect and that unless something proves itself to be one hundred percent empirical, it cannot be stated as truth. That is hoe Hume comes to the conclusion that there is no spiritual world because it is impossible to provide physical evidence for something hat isn't even physical. However even through the rejection of the metaphysical world, ironically Hume is still subject to it. He creates universal statements on how universality is only child's play and is writing with the intuition that we will understand his work provided with an agreed upon concept of language." - Student AA

"Although Descartes and Hume come from drastically different schools of modern philosophy, they both agree that the first steps one must take as a philosopher is to decide on what is most certain rather than what is most real. In Rationalism, Descartes begins by doubting everything in existence. He strongly disagrees with Hume's empiricism, because as he demonstrates even one's senses can be deceiving. By doubting everything, Descartes comes to one solution: that he is a thinking thing. By this, he makes his famous statement: Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore i am) . Through reason he claims that human certainty can be found, and proving human existence, by reason, is all that one can be certain of. Hume, in contrast, begins his philosophy by claiming that 'the human' mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate). He disproves ideas like causation because he states that knowledge can only be attained by experience. For example, if one sees the sun rise every day, he cannot attribute it to cause and effect, he is only recognizing a pattern. Hume states that only through sensory experiences (such as touch, sight, tase, and smell) can one find certainty, for the mind is only recognizing patterns not finding 'meaning'. In conclusion Hume and Descartes focus on human certainty rather than what is most real because how can one know what is most real if he does not know himself? As they have not shown, the senses and reality itself can be deceiving, so to answer life's most pressing foundations - and the only foundation that exist sis found in human certainty - the self." - Student EW

"Hume and Descartes can both be said to focus on human certainty rather than what is most real because they both choose principles that require no proof or explanation, according to themselves. This is evident through the fact that both Hume's and Descartes' writings focus heavily on our mode of knowing. For Descartes, an important figure for Rationalism, he tries to start his proof for God and the soul with what is most certain and indubitable. Thus, he attacks the senses, saying that they often deceive us, concluding that the mind, and not the senses, must be what we can know most assuredly. Taking another approach, Hume wrote and believed that the senses are how we know things exist, but that there is no underlying structure or order, no logos, to give these things their identity. He held the belief that we do not abstract a form of "what-ness" of a substance, but that we rather observe similar substances in our world, and assign categories. The difference between Hume's philosophy and traditional philosophy is that Hume's does not appeal to any higher reality than the Ens Quantum, the reality of quantities and mathematics, while traditionally philosophy acknowledges the existence of immaterial things. Both Hume's and Descartes' philosophies hindered themselves by first looking for certainty; a solid foundation on which they could affirm everything else they experienced. Because of this, these two can rightly be called skeptics, because they doubt even whether they know that they know. By trying to base all reality off of indubitable first principles, they put themselves in a place in which it is impossible to acknowledge certain realities. In Hume's case, he wanted what is most real, or rather what is most certain, to be that which is empirically testable. However by first believing what is real is what is testable, Hume automatically rejects any higher reality. Similarly, if Descartes said that the senses can never be trusted, how can be confidently say or do anything with certainty, even if his mind's thoughts can be trusted. Their skepticism of reality and their search for absolute certainty is ultimately a futile search, because if one does not take certain realities on faith, then one can never take one's own principles on faith." - Student WS

"Philosophy, dating all the way back to the Pre-Socratics, has been established with certain axioms in mind. These axioms then set the boundaries and lens in which the physical and metaphysical were viewed. The differences found in the works of various philosophers ultimately spawns from their differing first principles. For instances, Renes Descartes shaped and built his philosophy on the axiom that the most indubitable thing is the fact that he is a 'thinking thing'. However, Descartes philosophy differs significantly from the philosophy of the Pre-Socratics. The primary difference between the two modes of philosophy is that they Pre-Socratics based their philosophy on the axiom that the universe is intelligible, and that through such observations, they grounded their beliefs in The One and the many. On the other hand, Descartes philosophy is very different from the Pre-Socratics in the way that he chose to doubt the intelligibility of the universe and perception of it until he came to a conclusion that he is most certain of the fact that he is a thinking being. Regardless of the axioms used as the foundation of one's philosophical worldview, one cannot deny the faith placed in every single one of them. Like all philosophers, even Hume places undeniable faith in the axioms that helped form his philosophical perspectives. Furthermore, when Hume claims that everything that exists must be empirically testable, he is putting his faith in his methods of testing and he is putting his faith in the concept that nothing exists outside of what is empirically testable. Additionally, Aristotle even said that if one doubts everything, and chooses to not have faith in anything, then that person is simply a vegetable. Aristotle makes this claim to emphasize the point that regardless of who you are or what you believe in, even by doing something as simple as walking through a doorway, you are putting your faith in the reality that you are experiencing. Overall as seen in the various philosophical works of many, each and every one of them place a form of trust or faith in their axioms, because if they didn't, their works would never have come into fruition." - Student ES