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Discourse on the Method
Rene Descartes • 2017
Discourse on the Method is a philosophical and autobiographical treatise published by René Descartes in 1637. The Discourse on The Method is best known as the source of the famous quotation "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I think, therefore I am"), which occurs in Part IV of the work. Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the development of natural sciences. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism, which had previously been studied by Sextus Empiricus, Al-Ghazali and Michel de Montaigne. Descartes modified it to account for a truth he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions. René Descartes (1596-1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Dubbed the father of modern western philosophy, much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. He spent about 20 years of his life in the Dutch Republic. RENÉ DESCARTES was born at La Haye in Touraine, March 31, 1596. He came of a landed family with possessions in Brittany as well as in the south. His education was begun at the Jesuit College of La Flèche, continued at Paris, and completed by travel in various countries; and his studies were varied by several years of military service. After he began to devote himself to philosophy, he lived chiefly in Holland; but the last five months of his life were spent in Stockholm, at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden, where he died on February 11, 1650. While still young, Descartes had become profoundly dissatisfied with the scholastic philosophy, which still survived in the teaching of the Jesuits from whom he received his early training; and adopting a skeptical attitude he set out on his travels determined “to gain knowledge only from himself and the great book of the world, from nature and the observation of man.” It was in Germany, as he tells us, that there came to him the idea which proved the starting point of his whole system of thought, the idea, “I think, therefore I exist,” which called a halt to the philosophical doubt with which he had resolved to regard everything that could conceivably be doubted. On this basis he built up a philosophy which is usually regarded as the foundation of modern thought. Not that the system of Descartes is accepted to-day; but the sweeping away of presupposition of all kinds, and the “method” which he proposed for the discovery of truth, have made possible the whole modern philosophic development. It was in the “Discourse” here printed, originally published in 1637, that this method was first presented to the world.
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Human, All Too Human
Friedrich Nietzsche • 2012
Twilight of the Idols
Friedrich Nietzsche • 2012
In Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche criticizes German culture of the day as unsophisticated and nihilistic, and shoots some disapproving arrows at key French, British, and Italian cultural figures who represent similar tendencies. In contrast to all these alleged representatives of cultural "decadence", Nietzsche applauds Caesar, Napoleon, Goethe, Thucydides and the Sophists as healthier and stronger types. The book states the transvaluation of all values as Nietzsche's final and most important project, and gives a view of antiquity wherein the Romans for once take precedence over the ancient Greeks.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche • 1974
Nietzsche Was One Of The Most Revolutionary And Subversive Thinkers In Western Philosophy, And Thus Spoke Zarathustra Remains His Most Famous And Influential Work. It Describes How The Ancient Persian Prophet Zarathustra Descends From His Solitude In The Mountains To Tell The World That God Is Dead And That The Superman, The Human Embodiment Of Divinity, Is His Successor. With Blazing Intensity And Poetic Brilliance, Nietzsche Argues That The Meaning Of Existence Is Not To Be Found In Religiouspieties Or Meek Submission, But In An All-powerful Life Force: Passionate, Chaotic & Free.
The Prince | Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli • 2021
The ends justifies the means.<br/><br/>The Prince is a 16th-century political treatise written by Italian diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli as an instruction guide for new princes and royals. The general theme of The Prince is of accepting that the aims of princes – such as glory and survival – can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends.
The Critique of Practical Reason
Immanuel Kant • 2014
The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, first published in 1788. It follows on from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and deals with his moral philosophy. The second Critique exercised a decisive influence over the subsequent development of the field of ethics and moral philosophy, beginning with Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Doctrine of Science and becoming, during the 20th century, the principal reference point for deontological moral philosophy. Kant sketches out here what is to follow. Most of these two chapters focus on comparing the situation of theoretical and of practical reason and therefore discusses how the Critique of Practical Reason compares to the Critique of Pure Reason. The first Critique was a critique of the pretensions of pure theoretical reason to attain metaphysical truths beyond the ken of applied theoretical reason. The conclusion was that pure theoretical reason must be restrained, because it produces confused arguments when applied outside of its appropriate sphere. However, the Critique of Practical Reason is not a critique of pure practical reason, but rather a defense of it as being capable of grounding behavior superior to that grounded by desire-based practical reasoning. It is actually a critique, then, of the pretensions of applied practical reason. Pure practical reason must not be restrained, in fact, but cultivated. Kant informs us that while the first Critique suggested that God, freedom, and immortality are unknowable, the second Critique will mitigate this claim. Freedom is indeed knowable because it is revealed by God. God and immortality are also knowable, but practical reason now requires belief in these postulates of reason. Kant once again invites his dissatisfied critics to actually provide a proof of God's existence and shows that this is impossible because the various arguments (ontological, cosmological and teleological) for God's existence all depend essentially on the idea that existence is a predicate inherent to the concepts to which it is applied. Kant insists that the Critique can stand alone from the earlier Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, although it addresses some criticisms leveled at that work. This work will proceed at a higher level of abstraction. While valid criticisms of the Groundwork are to be addressed, Kant dismisses many criticisms that he finds unhelpful. He suggests that many of the defects that reviewers have found in his arguments are in fact only in their brains, which are too lazy to grasp his ethical system as a whole. As to those who accuse him of writing incomprehensible jargon, he challenges them to find more suitable language for his ideas or to prove that they are really meaningless. He reassures the reader that the second Critique will be more accessible than the first. Finally, the sketch of the second Critique is presented in the Introduction. It is modeled on the first Critique: the Analytic will investigate the operations of the faculty in question; the Dialectic will investigate how this faculty can be led astray; and the Doctrine of Method will discuss the questions of moral education.
The Critique of Pure Reason
Immanuel Kant • 2015
Immanuel’s Kant’s groundbreaking work, considered to be among the most influential philosophical texts in the Western canon Familiar to philosophy students through the centuries, The Critique of Pure Reason is in many ways Kant’s magnum opus. First published in 1781, it seeks to define what can be known by reason alone without evidence from experience. Kant begins by defining a posteriori knowledge, which is gained through the senses, versus a priori knowledge, or self-evident truths understood without the benefit of experience. He then examines these two types of knowledge in the context of analytic and synthetic judgments, using the relationship between them to conclude that through reason alone, humans are capable of reaching deep universal truths. Kant then demonstrates how—even as much of the world around us can never be truly known—the laws of the universe are in fact made possible by the human capacity for reason itself. Sparking intense and lasting discussion, The Critique of Pure Reason remains essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the ideas that, since their initial publication, have gone on to shape much of Western philosophy. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Phenomenology of Spirit
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel • 2019
