General characteristics of rationalism and reason according to: Descartes and Spinoza
Introduction
Rationalism developed in continental Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He started with René Descartes and his expression «I think, then I exist that it is a doctrine philosophy that affirms and sustains the supremacy of reason on experience in it is characterized by the real thing that absolute reason has.
On the other hand, Baruch Spinoza identify rationalism as God and nature is the same thing because he saw God in everything that exists and everything that exists in God. For his belief that God and the world is the same, he considers him a pantheist. Absolute rationalism, which imposes the total intelligibility of God, key to the total intelligibility of things.
In this essay we will identify the general characteristics of rationalism according to the definition given by the great philosophers such as Rene Descartes that is known as the father of modern philosophy and Barush of Spinoza is considered one of the three great rationalist of the philosophy of the seventeenth century, therationalist prioritized sciences such as mathematics, empirical and natural sciences.
Developing
Rene Descartes, French philosopher and mathematician. Considered as the father of modern philosophy. Counted as one of the main exponents of rationalism. He imposed a style to address problems in such important fields of knowledge as physics, medicine and theology, among others, a very imbued style in reason. His way of addressing problems has marked a milestone in the history of thought, to the point of deserving his own name: "Cartesian analytical method", a method that by the way has been in force since then. How to deny the role that he has played in the development of science that promoted the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the creation of the computer in the twentieth century or one of the transcendental achievements of the present century, decipher the human genome. How to ignore the influence of medicine having conceived the human body as a machine. Descartes imposes objectivity on the decadent subjectivity of its time. He proposed a method that he would allow humanity to teach nature, and according to the evidence he fulfilled his promise.
Rationalism
Philosophical movement particularly developed in continent Europe to during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and characterized by the primacy they gave to reason in the foundation of knowledge, the fascination with mathematics and the defense of the existence of innate ideas and intellectual intuition. The term "rationalism" has a very broad meaning: in general, we call all philosophical position that prevails the use of reason against other instances such as faith, authority, life, the irrational, the empirical experience, the empirical experience. Everyone who believes that the foundation, the supreme principle is rationalist is rationalist, is the reason. Along with this, it is possible to be rationalist in relation to a genre of issues and not be in relation to another: for example, the need for the exercise of reason in politics can be claimed and reject it in religion. But the term "rationalism" is commonly used in the history of philosophy to designate a certain way of substantiating knowledge: it is possible to think that knowledge rests on reason, or that rests in sensitive experience;Thus, since they valued the reason more than the senses, the term "rationalism" is used primarily to refer to the philosophical current of the modern age that begins with Descartes, developed in continental Europe with Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz, and thatHe opposes empiricism that is successful at the British Islands at the same time. The features that best characterize modern rationalism are the following:
- All our knowledge comes from reason.
- Knowledge can be built deductively from first principles.
There are three types of ideas more perfect than others:
- Innate ideas: they are necessary and true because they are evident, and are evident because they are clear and different (the cogito, the idea of infinity, of perfection, of God);They are captured by intuition.
- Adventitious ideas: derive from experience, they generally refer to the natural things that we capture through the senses;
- Facticias ideas: derive from other ideas, they are invented (centaur, siren). Ideas come together in the pineal gland.
Spinoza Barush
He was born in Amsterdam on November 24, 1632. His parents were emigrated Jews from Spain (his last name Spinoza derives from his family’s original, Espinosa) to Portugal and, later, to the United Provinces.
He received a training based on the study of classic Jewish sources, especially present in Talmud. Spinoza adopts the Cartesian definition of substance (which requires nothing to exist) to elaborate a vision of the world as a unitary entity identified with God. Spinoza eliminates all transcendence residue and identifies God and infinite nature (Deus Sive Natura). God is the only true substance.
Unlike Descartes, he argues that, in addition to being the immanent cause of all things, God is not external to the world, but represents everything existing. Spinoza identifies God with nature as a whole (pantheism).
Substance attributes
The only divine substance has infinity of attributes, but only two are intelligible to man: the attribute of thought or consciousness and the attribute of extension.
Knowledge levels
Spinoza recognizes three levels of knowledge:
- Imagination: based on the senses, inappropriate and confusing.
- Reason: it reaches a clear perception of things and their necessary connections. Produces true knowledge and allows man to acquire a clear representation of his conditions that converts them into actions. Through knowledge, man is released from the servitude of passions and becomes autonomous, active and aware of himself experimenting joy.
- Intuitive science: third degree of knowledge through which we conceive of things as contained in God. Intuitive science, reason and soul rise to God and know everything as a necessary expression of God. This knowledge of our being in God translates into full autonomy and increases our power and joy.
conclusion
The main characteristics of rationalism are:
- All knowledge possessed by an individual must be based on reason.
- Man has innate ideas.
- Rationalists think that through reason you can reach absolute truths.
The reason does not know limit and can reach anywhere.They are against everything that cannot be reached by reason, it is here where a confrontation with the Church suffers, since they cannot demonstrate the divinity of God. However Descartes considered that God exists and it is an innate idea. Faith can never prevail to reason. For rationalist philosophers mathematics and geometry, are the sciences on which to be based since there is nothing of course, everything is demonstrated.
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