Descartes’ Legacy: Mathematization, Reason, and Modernity
Mathematization and Scientific-Technological Development
The Discourse on the Method proposes a method and a criterion, believing we are heirs to mathematics. Descartes thought that thus all sciences would achieve similar certainty. Certainty is a characteristic that mathematization possesses, having permeated all fields of Western science. From Cartesian axes to the design of particle accelerators, the same parameters are followed:
The Real is That Which Can Be Mathematized
Knowledge of things is
Read MoreUnderstanding Kant’s Epistemology and Metaphysics
Kant .1. Epistemology (Critique of Pure Reason) The conditions that enable the laws are judgments (uttered statements). Critique of Pure Reason: Aesthetic I. Transcendental, pure forms used to explain mathematics and science. The sensitivity is used to sort data in existence (data of the senses (empirical), pure forms of sensibility (space, which allows us to explain the outside and while enabling us to explain the internal order of experience) who are a priori). II. Transcendental Analytic, which
Read MoreAugustine’s Philosophy: Core Ideas Explained
Metaphysics: Creation, Ideas, and Evil
St. Augustine defends creationism: the world and time were created by God ex nihilo (from nothing). This creation is explained through the theory of Ideas: God formed concrete beings in matter based on the eternal Ideas existing in the divine mind. Furthermore, God placed seminal reasons (rationes seminales) within creation – germs of all future beings – allowing them to appear gradually over time. All created being is thus composed of matter and form. This
Read MoreGalileo’s Defense of Heliocentrism
Galileo and the Scientific Revolution
Galileo Galilei is a highlight of the scientific revolution that began in astronomy. Key figures included Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, and eventually Newton. The astronomical revolution marked the transition from the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic universe, based on a geocentric model, to the Copernican, based on a heliocentric model. Galileo laid the foundations for a new physics, supplemented later by Newton, according to the heliocentric view. This new physics
Read MoreOrtega y Gasset: Key Philosophical Concepts
Ortega y Gasset’s Philosophy
Objectivism and Spain’s Problem
For Ortega, the problem of Spain is objectivism, and in this context, he develops his objectivist doctrine. He argues that the Spanish decline is purely and simply a lack of science, a deprivation of theory.
Circumstantialism: Meditations on Quixote
Circumstantialism, developed in Meditations on Quixote, involves discovering fundamental philosophical insights by focusing on circumstances. Two major influences have shaped Western culture: Greek
Read MoreLocke’s Empiricism and Social Contract Theory
Empiricist philosophy denies the existence of innate ideas or principles of understanding. John Locke denies that there are universal truths and moral laws that apply to everyone. He believes that at birth our mind is a blank slate, empty and devoid of content, and that all knowledge is acquired through experience; ideas are rooted in it.
He states that our knowledge is limited by experience; experience is the source of our ideas and the limit of our knowledge. We must examine all ideas in detail
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