What Is The Meaning Of Self For Rene Descartes?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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Read René Descartes, from Meditations on First Philosophy. For Descartes, then, this is the essence of your self—

you are a “thinking thing

,” a dynamic identity that engages in all of those mental operations we associate with being a human self. For example: You understand situations in which you find yourself.

What is self According to Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant?

According to him, we all have an inner and an outer self which

together form our consciousness

. The inner self is comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes our sense and the physical world.

What did Kant say about Descartes?

Kant, it is maintained, endorses Descartes’s cogito, sum argument. But against Descartes, Kant argues that from the indubitable certainty of ‘I think, I exist,’ we can draw no answer at all to the question: ‘

what kind of entity am I, I who, in thinking, indubitably know that I exist?

What is self according to Immanuel Kant?

According to him, we all have an inner and an outer self which

together form our consciousness

. The inner self is comprised of our psychological state and our rational intellect. The outer self includes our sense and the physical world. … According to Kant, representation occurs through our senses.

What is self According to Descartes Quora?

For Descartes, the self is

an innate idea that cannot be rationally doubted because there is thinking going on, and it has to come from somewhere

. Thinking (and the fact that we can think) is the foundation on which one should build all his or her knowledge.

What is Kant main philosophy?

His moral philosophy is a

philosophy of freedom

. … Kant believes that if a person could not act otherwise, then his or her act can have no moral worth. Further, he believes that every human being is endowed with a conscience that makes him or her aware that the moral law has authority over them.

What for Kant is the I in the I think?

Kant argues that any complex representation of an object must be such that all elements pertaining to the representation are combined in a single unified consciousness. … The “I think” therefore indicates

a necessary condition of the possibility

– or what Kant calls a “transcendental condition” – of cognition.

What is a major difference between Hume and Descartes?

He believes that

knowledge is grounded on self-evident truths we know from pure reason alone

and he accepts that some knowledge or concepts (e.g. God, self, and so on) are innate as opposed to acquired. Hume is at least agnostic about God whereas Descartes believes we know God exists from reason alone.

What is your own philosophy of self?

The philosophy of self is

the study of the many conditions of identity that make one subject of experience distinct from other experiences

. The self is sometimes understood as a unified being essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency.

What is self according to Locke?

John Locke holds that

personal identity

is a matter of psychological continuity. He considered personal identity (or the self) to be founded on consciousness (viz. memory), and not on the substance of either the soul or the body.

What is life according to Descartes?

Descartes characterizes this life in terms of a type of mental contentment,

or tranquility

, that is experienced by the person with a well-ordered mind. Here the influence of Stoic and Epicurean writers is evident (Cottingham 1998; Gueroult 1985; Pereboom 1994; Rutherford 2014).

What was Kant known for?

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of

the foremost thinkers of the Enlightenment

. His comprehensive and systematic work in epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, and aesthetics greatly influenced all subsequent philosophy, especially the various schools of Kantianism and idealism.

What is your understanding about the self?

A person’s self-concept is their understanding of who they are and what makes them unique. This can include the physical self, the social self, the competent self and the inner, or psychological, self. Meanwhile, a person’s self-understanding is

about knowing what motivates his or her actions

.

What did Immanuel Kant teach?

Kant focused on

ethics

, the philosophical study of moral actions. He proposed a moral law called the “categorical imperative,” stating that morality is derived from rationality and all moral judgments are rationally supported.

Did Immanuel Kant get married?

He had a sense of humour, and there were women in his life, although

he never married

. On occasion, Kant drank so much red wine he was unable to find his way home, the books claim. … “This is of course the picture of the old Kant, the Kant who had written all his major works.

How are Kant and Descartes similar?

Both are

philosophical theories of knowledge

. -Opposite to empiricism. … *He combined ideas of Rationalism and Empiricism. *Kant’s arguments are designed to show the limitations of our knowledge.

What does Kant think is wrong with Descartes famous statement I think therefore I am?

Apperception according to Kant produces self-consciousness by recognizing the individual as a person who can make decisions. This is similar to Rene Descartes’s famous quote “I think, therefore I am” due

to their assumptions that a thinking person is alive and is self-conscious of their existence

.

What is the relationship between the mind and ideas according to Descartes?

In terms of his ontology,

the mind is an existing (finite) substance, and thought or thinking is its attribute

. Insofar as the nature of a mind is to think, where thought is the mind’s defining feature, Descartes calls it the mind’s principal attribute (AT VIIIA 25; CSM I 210–11). An idea is a mode of thinking.

What is the concept of self according to David Hume?

To Hume, the self is “

that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference

… If any impression gives rise to the idea of self, that impression must continue invariably the same through the whole course of our lives, since self is supposed to exist after that manner.

Which philosopher is similar to Descartes?

Authors similar to René Descartes.

David Hume

was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist known today especially for his radical philosophical empiricism and scepticism.

What is self According to Aristotle?

Aristotle’s philosophy of self was constructed in terms of hylomorphism in which

the soul of a human being

is the form or the structure of the human body or the human matter, i.e., the functional organization in virtue of which human beings are able to perform their characteristic activities of life, including growth, …

What are the definitions of self that various philosophers offer?

A self is

just a person, a living, breathing, thinking human being

. … By “mind” we mean that part of me that has sensation and perception, beliefs and desires, and initiates action; some philosophers think it is no more than the brain or central nervous system.

What is the importance of having philosophy of the self?

“A clear, well-defined philosophy

gives you the guidelines and boundaries that keep you on track

,” — precise reason why you should have one that would guide and drive all your actions. These philosophies are nothing but your life long commitment aspiring to move much beyond simple self improvement.

What is self According Augustine?

As Augustine constructs a view of God that would come to dominate Western thinking, he also creates a new concept of individual identity: the idea of the self. … By telling this tale he

transforms himself into a metaphor of the struggle of both body and soul to find happiness

, which exists only in God’s love.

What is self According to Socrates?

And contrary to the opinion of the masses, one’s true self, according to Socrates, is not to be identified with what we own, with our social status, our reputation, or even with our body. Instead, Socrates

famously maintained that our true self is our soul

.

What is the difference between I self and me self?

This process is characterized by Mead as the “I” and the “me. ”

The “me” is the social self

and the “I” is the response to the “me. ” In other words, the “I” is the response of an individual to the attitudes of others, while the “me” is the organized set of attitudes of others which an individual assumes.

What is self According to Thomas Aquinas?

Aquinas begins his theory of self-knowledge from the claim that all our self-knowledge is dependent on our experience of the world around us. … Instead, Aquinas argues,

our awareness of ourselves is triggered and shaped by our experiences of objects in our environment

.

What did Kant argue?

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that

the supreme principle of morality is a standard of rationality that he dubbed the “Categorical Imperative” (CI)

. … This argument was based on his striking doctrine that a rational will must be regarded as autonomous, or free, in the sense of being the author of the law that binds it.

How did Kant understand the will?

Kant means that

a good will is “good without qualification

” as such an absolute good in-itself, universally good in every instance and never merely as good to some yet further end. … Kant’s point is that to be universally and absolutely good, something must be good in every instance of its occurrence.

Who introduce to concept of self?


Psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

had major influence in popularizing the idea of self-concept in the west.

What does Descartes mean by the dualistic self?

Descartes was a substance dualist. He believed that there were two kinds of substance: matter, of which the essential property is that it is spatially extended; and

mind, of which the essential property is that it thinks

.

Rachel Ostrander
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Rachel Ostrander
Rachel is a career coach and HR consultant with over 5 years of experience working with job seekers and employers. She holds a degree in human resources management and has worked with leading companies such as Google and Amazon. Rachel is passionate about helping people find fulfilling careers and providing practical advice for navigating the job market.