Descartes and Empiricism (Intro to Philosophy Part 4)

The transition from the pre-modern era to the modern era began to take shape through the thinking of René Descartes (1596-1650) and his philosophy of rationalism and empiricism. Because of the uncertainty present in the attitudes of the culture of his day, Descartes set out in search of absolute certainty for his beliefs. To build a system to achieve absolute certainty, Descartes needed to find a foundation to build on: an idea that couldn’t be doubted. Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore, I am. Descartes concluded that you cannot doubt your own existence because if you’re doubting, you must be thinking, and thus you must exist. Based on this foundation, Descartes said we could be skeptical of everything else and only believe those things we can prove with absolute certainty. Eventually in Western culture, Empiricism became the method to accomplish this, by using the data from our physical senses. These ideas subsequently influenced philosophers and scientists such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Isaac Newton.

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