Article-4 Rene Decartes and David Hume.


1. Rene Descartes was a French philosopher. He was a rationalist who relied on reasons as the guide for belief and action. He focused on logic on any act or ideology. Descartes proposed that to solve any question we should divide large problems into small one, this he called as ‘Methods of doubts’. Descartes asked to ground our ideas to our personal experiences and reason, rather than authority or tradition. Descartes believed in self-examination guided by definition, sound argument and clarity of thought could achieve. Descartes believed ion learning from personal experiences in different situations, meeting different people of varied ranks and class. Descartes relied on ‘thinking’, all his ideas and works moves around his famous phrase ‘I think therefore I am’, he focused on one having their own ways of thinking and perspective and suspect the tradition of passing the ideas. Rene Descartes thus, propagated an independent rational vision of existence. In his works like ‘Rules of the direction of the mind’, ‘Discourse on the methods’ and ‘Principles of philosophy’ we can find a detailed overview of his ideas and his famous statement ‘I think therefore I am’.

2. David Hume was an 18th century Scottish philosopher who brought attention to a fact that we get more influenced by our feelings than reasons. David Hume was much focused on feeling than rationality because he thinks that one is more driven by feelings than any logic or analysis. But he didn’t find all feelings acceptable and equal. Hume didn’t find it justifiable to believe in god he didn’t find any compelling logical argument to believe in existence of god. Hume maintains that religious beliefs isn’t the outcome of a reason. He was a defender of religious toleration and he also asks people to be calm towards those who have rational thinking for religion but he also states that to have a rational argument for religion is the height of folly and arrogance. Hume states that we are only bundles of perceptions trying to succeed each other with inconceivable flux and movements. For him common sense is most reliable and to be rational is worthless. He focused on need to reform our education system, develop feelings like benevolence, pity, gentleness etc. His works like ‘ A treatise of human nature’, ‘An enquiry concerning human understanding’ and ‘An enquiry concerning the principles of morals’ helps us to understand his philosophy.

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