Descartes, Kant, and Hume: Philosophical Inquiries
Descartes’s Philosophy
The Existence of God
To prove God’s existence, Descartes examined his conscience and the concept of perfection and infinity. God, to him, represents perfection and infinity.
Descartes defined God as a perfect, immutable, infinite substance—the supreme unifying point towards which all things tend. This God is the cause and preserver of all beings, the creator and author of nature, and the guarantor of our innate ideas. All created beings strive towards this supreme unity.
God
Religious Support in Public Institutions: Legal Framework and Practical Application
Religious Support
Religious support is available to individuals whose personal circumstances necessitate it. It is rooted in state-provided assistance but extends to spiritual guidance. Broadly, it encompasses any state-provided help catering to citizens’ religious needs. Strictly speaking, it refers to state actions establishing conditions under which religious individuals can receive specialized assistance. The key feature is its nature as a state activity, founded on Article 2.3 of the Organic
Read MoreHume’s Philosophy: Knowledge, Causality, Metaphysics, Morals, Politics
Hume
For Hume, the origin of knowledge comes from experience (empiricism). Hume’s thought is based on Locke. This is based on no innate ideas; there are people who do not know the answer to a question about a mathematical truth. Also, if reason were the basis of morality, there should be the same moral standards everywhere.
I. Epistemology
1. The limits of knowledge are experience. Knowledge comes down to: Extension (the number of things we can know, those things based on philosophy cannot be known
Read MoreKant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Metaphysics, Reason, and Morality
In this text, Kant sets out his proposal to solve a methodological problem that is the basis of metaphysics, aiming for it to become a science. He refers to traditional metaphysics, which handles concepts like God and the soul, which are outside all possible experience. Compared to other sciences like mathematics, Kant sees that the solution to the problem must be the imitation of metaphysics and a methodological turn, as both sciences have advanced since their revolutions in method. In this situation,
Read MoreEthics and Morality: A Comparative Study
Ethics and Morality
The Greek noun ethos means usual, from which derives the adjective Ethik, meaning relating to customs. Etymologically, ethics means the science of morals.
The Latin noun morem means usual, from which derives the adjective moralem, meaning relating to customs. The term morality means the science of morals.
From a strictly etymological point of view, both terms, ethics and morality, signify the same thing: the science of morals.
The current distinction between morality and ethics
Read MoreNietzsche’s Critique of Western Rationality and Modernity
Unmasking Western Complacency
Nietzsche’s philosophy critiques Western complacency, the belief in possessing the sole truth—a truth rooted in science, rationality, and universal laws. Nietzsche suspected that Western culture lived in a delusion, constructing an unreal world through the petrification of metaphors and concepts. This construction serves as a survival mechanism against the constant change, chaos, and ceaseless flow of reality, reminiscent of Heraclitus’s philosophy. The West, in
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