Early Modern Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Early Modern Philosophy - Essay Example Ultimately, he concludes that even with these occurrences, he can be certain he exists, because in the process of doubting his existence he is thinking and thinking necessitates existence – I think, therefore I am. It’s necessary that Descartes’ ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ argument be understood from the first person perspective because the argument throughout Descartes’ philosophy is precisely that senses cannot determine the validity of existence (Frost 1962). Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum, therefore, only proves that the individual who is thinking exists. As discussed, the essence of the argument is that one’s thoughts directly determine the validity of one’s existence, so that an outside individual cannot determine another exists simply by listening to another. It is entirely from the first person perspective that the cogito is founded. Descartes differed from earlier philosophers on a number of levels. During the Middle Ages philosophy became highly related to theology and god and the supernatural were the predominant concerns of thinkers. In this regard, Descartes’ introduced a higher awareness of skepticism, although he offered viable and logically derived solutions for these questions. Considering Descartes’ difference from the pre-Socratic philosophers, one is drawn to the nature by which knowledge is believed to be founded and attained. The pre-Socratic philosophers, while promoting the natural sciences and other such intellectually rigorous propositions, founded their philosophic and scientific assumptions on the primacy of the senses. Descartes’ was skeptical of the senses and sought a more rigorous understanding of knowledge through his rationalist philosophy (Waterfield 2009). Descartes if known as the father of modern philosophy as his main philosophical ideas, most notably the cogito ergo sum, were foundational elements in the development of modern philosophical thought and