A History of the Origins of World Philosophy, Seventeenth Century Western Philosophy No. 4: René. Descartes 5

Seventeenth Century Western Philosophy NO. 4: René. Descartes 5

(5) Rational ethics with dual characteristics

　　Descartes valued ethics as well as the study of man. But his research is also dualistic. He believed that man's body and soul were not in a monistic system, and that he was inferior to Bacon. In his view, the human body, like all matter, is a broad entity, and this entity, like other entities, follows the laws of physics. The human soul, on the other hand, is neither physical nor expansive, so it does not follow the laws of physics. Unfortunately, after all, the soul cannot exist completely apart from the body, so the human body becomes the "dwelling place of the soul." Such an explanation is inevitably far-fetched, and although Descartes put a lot of effort into the relationship between the human body and the soul, he did not gain much. His conclusions are either backscient or superficial.

　　In general, Descartes' study of man himself is far more profound and innovative than his study of man's mind.

　　Descartes' ethical conception is epitomized in his ethical principle of the supremacy of reason. When it comes to knowledge, to character, to knowledge, to thought, to morality, he without exception places his conception of reason in the primacy. Descartes was a rationalist master who adhered to the principle of "I think, therefore I am", and he first had to go through skeptical thinking and then confirm everything he studied.

　　Because of this rational principle as the basis, two important contents of his ethical concept are derived: one is that reason dominates feelings, and the other is that knowledge is morality. He believes that there are 6 basic feelings of people, namely: panic, love and hate, happiness and pain. In his opinion, these feelings were originally neither good nor bad. As long as they can accept the domination of reason, any kind of feeling can become a good feeling, and conversely, any kind of feeling will become a bad content. Let's use a popular analogy: feelings are like a piano, reason is like a piano player, no matter how good the piano, when you meet a bad piano player, you can't play a good tune.

　　In the same way, only knowledge can be ethical. Morality is the rational flesh. Without knowledge and reason, morality becomes the walking dead —immediately immoral.

　　These two points epitomize the value of Descartes' ethical thought. In the old medieval tradition, feelings can only be dedicated to God, morality can only be theological, in the final analysis, it is to cancel personality, cancel self, cancel thinking, blindly obey.

　　Descartes' assertion that reason reigns over feelings and that morality is intellectual is itself a rebellion against old ethical ideas. But the way he took was not to stand at the door of the church like Hobbes and declare war on God, but to go around behind the church and open another door to reason, so that human emotions and morality could come out of this gate and submit to reason. He did not dare to rebel openly, and was only good at acting cheaply.

　　Descartes' moral concept has both the vulgar color of following the rules and obeying the authority of the church and not daring to go beyond the thunder pool, but also the scholarly style of advocating reason and believing that only by seeking knowledge can be perfect, and there is also the style of a man who doubts everything and does not hesitate to break all traditions. On such a complex basis, he had several principles for establishing new ethics. These norms clearly reflect his rational style, but they also occasionally exude a certain philistine smell—Descartes' ethical ideas are like the epitome of his rationalist philosophy. As the third of his code says: "It is better to always try to overcome myself than to overcome fate, to change my desires than to change the order of the world, and to generally to get myself used to the belief that nothing but our own thoughts is under our absolute control." The fourth article also says: "Devote my whole life to the cultivation of my reason, and in accordance with the principles of the methods I have established for myself, I shall do my best to make the greatest progress in the knowledge of truth." "

4. Disputes and Effects

　　Because Descartes' philosophy does have a particularly rich connotation and reflects the characteristics of his time very well, and because the dualistic nature of Descartes' philosophy makes his philosophical thought often full of irreconcilable contradictions, there have been various debates about his philosophy during and after his death. He himself did have a tenacious self-confidence and a broad mind, and his works, such as the famous Meditations on the First Philosophy, were widely consulted before publication, and really received all kinds of criticism. And when he put this work into his possession, he also included those criticisms and added his own rebuttals to these criticisms. According to the total Chinese character layout of this book, its original text is only 85 pages, while the criticism of him has 170 pages, and with his defense, a small book that was originally only eighty or ninety pages has become a long work of more than 430 pages.

　　Among these critics are some highly prestigious philosophers and some theologians. The most famous of these include the English empiricist philosopher Hobbes and Descartes' compatriot Gasandi, as well as pascal, a great mathematician who was at the same time as Descartes. These criticisms of theirs are either known for being ruthless or for their pungent style, and here are two excerpts.

　　In the first case, Hobbes's rebuttal to Descartes' second contemplation, on the subject "On the Second Contemplation of the Nature of the Human Spirit." Hobbes wrote: "'I am a thing that is thinking.'" It is very well said, because from my thinking or from my own conception, it can be inferred that I am thinking, because I am thinking and I am thinking, and both mean the same thing. From the fact that I am thinking, it is concluded that I exist; for what is thinking is not nothing. But our author adds here 'that is, a spirit, a soul, a mind, a reason', and from here [to me] arises a doubt. For I think that it is incorrect to say that I am thinking, that I am therefore a mind, or that I am rational and therefore that I am a mind. For I can also use the same reasoning to say that I am walking, and therefore I am a walk. The wind is fast, the iron can be bent, it is the Hobbes style. He concluded that, according to Descartes' logic, "I am walking, and therefore I am a walk", which is not only ironic, but also rather difficult to defend.

　　The second example is the rebuttal of The famous French philosopher of modern times and a compatriot of Descartes, Gassanti. By the way, Gassandi did not write a book in his lifetime to systematically expound his philosophical ideas, although he himself was a famous philosopher and scientist. His philosophical ideas were quite similar to Hobbes's, and the two men had a close personal relationship. He was a supporter and advocate of Galileo physics in the field of science. His philosophical ideas are expressed primarily through a rebuttal to Cartesian philosophy. These rebuttals of his have also been published separately — there are such editions in our country. His ideas also had considerable influence around the world. The passage quoted here is also a rebuttal to Descartes' philosophical proposition that "I think, therefore I am." Gassandi writes: "You go on to say that only the mind is inseparable from you. This does not deny you, mainly because you are only a spirit, and between the entity of the soul and your entity, you do not recognize any other distinction than the rational distinction which is said in the scholastics. But I still hesitate to know whether you mean when you say that thinking is inseparable from you, that you mean that as long as you exist, you keep thinking. In this respect, of course, there is much in common with the thinking of certain ancient thinkers who, in order to prove that the human soul is immortal, say that the soul is in a state of constant motion, i.e., according to my understanding, it has been thinking. But it is not easy to persuade those who cannot understand how I can think in a coma, how I can think in your mother's belly. Besides, I don't know if you think that you have penetrated into your flesh, or into a part of your flesh, long before you came out of your mother's belly. But I don't want to ask you any further, not even, when you were still in your mother's belly, or the first few days you came out, or the first month, or the first few years, do you remember what you were thinking? Such a question is indeed a little difficult; if it is a matter of fact, it is indeed quite reasonable.

　　After Descartes' death, the debate over his doctrine has not ceased, among critics, from Locke to Kant, from Kant to Marx, all the way to many modern philosophers. Descartes was criticized, pointing out contradictions in his doctrine. However, without these contradictions, would Descartes still be Descartes? Or Mr. Russell said it well:

　　Descartes had a twofold nature of indecision: on the one hand what he had learned from the science of the time, and on the other hand, the scholastic philosophy taught to him by the Rafrey School. This two-sidedness traps him in contradiction, but it also makes him rich in thought beyond the reach of any perfectly logical philosopher. Self-justification may have made him merely the founder of a new scholastic philosophy, but the contradictions have made him the source of two important and contradictory schools of philosophy. A Descartes has made people argue about him for hundreds of years— hundreds of years without end; and a man who can arouse controversy and interest for hundreds of years, we must recognize him as a great man.

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