Skepticism Critical Thinkings Samples For Students

How are Cartesian foundationalism and dualism found in Descartes’ Mediations?

Central to Descartes’ philosophy is the establishment of the philosophical view of foundationalism and dualism. Foundationalism is based on the philosophy that in investigating any ideas or thoughts, one has to go back to the fundamental principles. Descartes believe that in order to test the validity of ideas, one has to start from scratch and work his way up. As stated in Descartes in his ‘Meditations’, “And thus I realized that once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting ...

In Jeffrey Dueck’s essay “Religious Pluralism and The Super Best Friends” he takes the view that Stone and Parker South Park’s creators are relaying the lesson through their character Stan that take the Religious Pluralist view that all religions are “roughly ‘on par’ with on another in terms of their truth.” (Dueck, 226). While Dueck’s points throughout the essay remain solid, I think he fundamentally misunderstood the writer’s of South Park’s goal in their portrayal of religions in Season 5 Episode 4 of South Park, “The Super Best Friend Club.”
Both of the ...

1. In the Meditations, Descartes makes a clean sweep of his beliefs and begins again. Explain Descartes’ critical application of his method of doubt and the way he builds knowledge on a new foundation. Can Descartes’ rationalist account of knowledge of external objects withstand the criticisms of Locke’s empiricism? In the end, which epistemological account is more plausible, Descartes’ rationalism or Locke’s empiricist account? Explain. (70 marks)
The critical application of Descartes' method of doubt puts all ideas or beliefs into doubt in order to establish a new grounds for reasoning. He begins with skepticism, but attempts ...

Analysis of Selections from Nagel, What Does It All Mean?

Thomas Nagel’s 1987 book, What’s It All Mean?, offers an introduction to philosophical thought. He directs this book toward a person who has never studied philosophy before. He bases his introduction not in the writings of the great philosophers or great thinkers, but instead he offers nine categories of questions for his reader to think about. As he puts it, “The main concern of philosophy is to question and understand very common ideas that all of us use every day without thinking about them” (Nagel 5). By laying out these problems and his ideas about them, Nagel encourages ...

Mind and Body Debate

Renowned philosophers Rene Descartes and John Searle are having a cup of tea in Descartes’ living room. As expected, their discussion turns philosophical. Each of the two presents their arguments on the mind and body problem.

Descartes: I believe the mind and body are two distinct and separate substances.

Searle: Every time you postulate an opinion I know we are about to start a long argument. I heard you say the mind is independent of the body. How true is that? I applaud many of your opinions and theories in philosophy. However, I beg to differ on this one.
Descartes: My friend, I will take you systematically through my quest for certainty. I ...