If you order your essay from our custom writing service you will receive a perfectly written assignment on philosophy. What we need from you is to provide us with your detailed paper instructions for our experienced writers to follow all of your specific writing requirements. Specify your order details, state the exact number of pages required and our custom writing professionals will deliver the best quality philosophy paper right on time.
Out staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in philosophy, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your philosophy paper at affordable prices!
The philosophies of Aristotle and Descartes have many distinguished differences. Aristotle, born in 84BC, brought out the empiricist side of philosophy. Descartes, born in 156BC, did not contribute to the empiricist side of philosophy, but instead focused on and believed more in a rationalistic style of philosophy. Though some thoughts remained similar between the two men, the differences between the two philosophies are clear.
To understand the thoughts of Aristotle and Descartes one must first understand the differences between empiricism and rationalism. An empiricist is one who believes that sense perception is the most important part of knowledge. Sense perception is where it all starts. In order to truly grasp something, one must use his/her sense perceptions to really understand it. For example, one doesn't really know what a pumpkin looks like until he sees the pumpkin; only then can he for a mental picture in his head of what a pumpkin is. In comparison to the empiricist, a rationalistic philosopher really isn't viewed as much of a philosopher, but is looked at as more of a scientist. A rationalistic philosopher will calculate everything mathematically before he ever says something exists. The rationalist will always use math in order to uncover his answer. The only way a rationalist can prove something is by using a mathematical formula to answer the question being asked. Until then, one must come to the conclusion that nothing in his surroundings is real.
As an empiricist, Aristotle formulated philosophies based on his observations. For example, Aristotle would observe animals and then proceed to write about them after observing. Whatever Aristotle studied he would use his sense perceptions to learn about it. This was done in order to learn and understand reality. It's basically a "you need to see it to believe it" philosophy.
The first step into Aristotle's world of empiricism is using induction. Induction is the most important aspect of sense perception, which was viewed as the most important aspect of knowledge according to Aristotle. When using induction one forms a clear, general idea through repeated observations. The general idea then applies to more then one entity. This is a tactic that scientist would use(you said above that the rationalistic thinker was more like a scientist. Don't contradict). Take, for example, a Zebra. Looking at a zebra one can say all zebras are the same. If one sees any zebra he/she will know it is a zebra through seeing it repeatedly and gaining an understanding that all zebras look like that.
Order College Papers on philosophy
After understanding the first step of empiricism, then one can move on to the next step called deduction. In order to get to deduction, one must grasp the idea of induction first(if you are not going to explain induction, then get rid of this sentence). Deduction after one has the general idea, saying the truth about a specific entity. (??????? THIS SENTENE MAKES NO SENSE). Saying that all zebras have stripes is an example of deduction. The observer has taken a specific entity, the stripes, and stated the truth that all zebras have those stripes. Induction and deduction are the to main important parts of understanding empiricism.
Once one understands what something is, it is necessary to explain the causes of it existing as such. The four causes; material, formal, efficient, and final, become the standard for knowing the world. The first of the four causes is material, or what the matter made from. The second is formal, which is like the blueprint, or the plan for the form. Thirdly is efficient (is it efficiency?). Efficient is the thing that happens first that made the thing we are trying to explain exist(????? REWORD WITHOUG USING "THING"). And last is final, which is the "telos" or the end result, or purpose of something. Not everything gets to reach its "telos" in Aristotle's theory.
Quite different from the philosophy of Aristotle, Rene Descartes says that there are two parts of reality. One part is matter, or material things, and the other is spirit (mind), which encompases non-material things. Being a mathematician, Descartes incorporated two tools in to his philosophy, intuition and deduction. These two tools help show how something is true. Intuition is when one knows something is true because it is self-evident. For example, seven is equal to seven, or the number seven plus one is greater than seven. These are things one doesn't really need to do anything with because they are self-evident(Awk; rephrase). The second part of Descartes philosophy is deduction, which played a role in Aristotle's philosophy as well. Deduction has two meanings; the first one is after understanding the general idea of something saying the truth about a specific entity. The second is knowing the truth about a piece of something because you know the truth about the whole of it. One can only assume that a general knowledge about the whole idea of something, would enable one to break it apart and know individual pieces that make up the whole.
Descartes goal is to prove everything before putting it into his philosophy, however, which is quite the opposite of Aristotle. Aristotle made assumptions prior to proving, whereas Descartes' aim is to prove mathematically that reality is like perceptions. Every sentence has to be proven before being put into the philosophy. Descartes is trying to prove that everything in the external world outside ones perceptions is real, this being one of his biggest doubts(????). Descartes starts doubting the existence of everything including himself. The method used is called methodological skepticism. Methodological skepticism doubts everything till one is unable to find something that cannot be doubted. Descartes doubts the information that his senses are transmitting to him. Why does he doubt everything? To see if there is something that cannot be doubted. (The end of this paragraph gets VERY disorganized because you jump around between ideas. Needs some work)
Descartes starts by saying "Cogito, ergo sum," which translates into "I think therefore I am." This is another way of saying every time one doubts they exist, they prove that they do exist, which is termed as solipsism. Solipsism proves that only one's mind exists and proves that God exists. How does it prove that God exists? God is good and God wouldn't lie. Following this, Descartes moves on to establish that God exists by creating three proofs using induction. The first rationalistic proof is that one has a clear and distinct idea of God. God is the one thing(WC being, idea) with all the positive qualities to an infinite degree God is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, immutable, and perfectly good. The second part in Descartes first rationalistic proof is that it's impossible for a finite mind to create the idea of an infinite thing. A mind with a limit is too incapable of creating an infinite something. The third part of the proof is that the idea of God does not come through sense perception. In no way does sense perception relate to God. (You Need a better transition between these ideas) There are three kinds of ideas. First is the idea of adventitious knowing through sense. Secondly is the idea of factitious, which are made up ideas. Lastly are innate ideas, which are ideas that we are born with. The fourth part of the first proof says that the idea of God is innate. This means that we are all born with the idea of God. God created the idea of God. This is the first proof Descartes came up with in order to prove that God exists. The second rationalistic proof is if one has the idea of God in their mind God is the thing with all the positive qualities to an infinite degree(????). In other words, when one thinks about God one thinks of all the infinite goodness dealing with God and nothing bad in relation to him. Everyone who has the idea of God is considered valuable because they have the idea. The ultimate cause of a mind that can think of a perfect thing must be a perfect thing. Both proofs one and two of Descartes philosophy say that God exists because God is the only one who could have caused something to happen with the world. God is the cause of the mind and also the creator of the relationship of cause and effect, meaning every time something happens there is a reaction because of that. Descartes believes in these because God is infinitely good. When dealing with causality and Descartes proofs there are three self-evident propositions about causes. There must be as much reality in the cause as there is in the effect. In other words, if the cause is real then the effect is real. The second self-evident proposition is that something cannot proceed from nothing. Third is more perfect cannot proceed from what is less perfect. So perfection cannot be lowered. The third proof is the ontological proof. The ontological proof is the idea of the most perfect thing having the qualities of omnipotence, omniscience, eternalness, immutability, and perfect goodness to the infinite degree. These are the three proofs that show how God is infinitely good. If everything is a deception, then everything is a hoax. The world exists because God would deceive us. This is the conclusion Descartes came up with.
These are the two different ways that two philosophers, Aristotle and Descartes look at reality. The ideas created by the two philosophers have a few similarities, yet generally oppose each other. Aristotle assumed that there was an external world prior to ever finding out and Descartes disregarded the idea until he could prove it rationally. Therefore, there are different ways that the two philosophers can prove the external world; Aristotle based a great deal of his theory of induction on sense perception and Descartes based his theory on methodological skepticism to obtain answers.
Please note that this sample paper on philosophy is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on philosophy, we are here to assist you. Your persuasive essay on philosophy will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.
Order your authentic assignment and you will be amazed at how easy it is to complete a quality custom paper within the shortest time possible!
