42432 Essays - Epistemologists, Rationalists, Ren Descartes

42432 Essays - Epistemologists, Rationalists, Ren Descartes 42432 art I: List at least four differences between Descartes and Locke on how we obtain knowledge. For Descartes, (1) knowledge relies completely on utter certainty. Because perception is undependable, (2) knowledge cannot come from our five senses. Descartes believes knowledge can come from experience and deduction. But for this philosopher, (3) he does not believe we gain knowledge from the outside world. Therefore it must come from within. In light to how we view things, Descartes believes that deduction ``can never be performed wrongly by an intellect which is in the least degree rational'', so deductive knowledge is (the only) certain knowledge. Such a system requires a basis of intuitively understood principles from which knowledge can be deduced. (4) He believes that there are some principles which are automatically known, just like the idea of the existence of ourselves and that of God's existence, these are principles which are ``revealed to [us] by natural light'' and ``cannot in any way be open to doubt''. In the end Descartes sees these principles as innate. On the opposite end, John Locke believes something completely different. (1) For starters, he does not believe that knowledge is certain, but that it is just is highly probable. He goes on to say that (2) knowledge comes from our fives sensations or our five senses. Those five senses come from the outside world. Locke disagrees with Descartes when he s...