Descartes (inprogress)

1. Wikipedia interprets this quote by saying that in order for Descartes to appropriately gain more knowledge, he must diverge from the "old foundations of his youth" which he had built upon "trust". Then on fresh foundations he must look elsewhere to gain success in finding out more knowledge. I believe the correct interpretation of this quote is isntead of trying to find success elsewhere, what Descartes was doing was reexamining every aspect of knowledge and perspective he has attained in his life from the ground up. Everything he has been taught and had been taken for truth must be descarted -i mean discarded, haha, in other words the old foundations must be put to the wayside and then reexaminted in order for new foundations to come.


2. The four precepts are as follows, first was to never accept anything as true, doubt everything you have ever learned or conceived before. The second was the divide the knowledge being put up under scrutiny into as many aspects as possible in order to prepare for the througough examination that is the follow. Third, then from these divided parts start on the most simplest of forms, the most basest of knowledge and then go up in small increminting orders. The fourth part in the througough examination is to review every aspect to make sure the new knowledge attained is through and complete, kind of like proof reading your work.

3. Shorto seems to be saying that religion was the way people gained knowledge in substitution for the scientific method. In the days when the scientific method was not discovered religion was used in order to explain the natural world in lack there of.

4. According to Shorto the great controversy that continues to the present day is the case of science versus religion, terrorism faith against logic and reason.


Questions regarding the Book Lady's Blog.

5. What was threatened by Descartes' method, and how was it threatened?

The Church was threatened because Descartes work presented the case of Faith Versus Reason. In those days reason threatened everything that was taken based on faith alone.

6. The Book Lady talks about a conflict between modernity and traditionalism. As best you can come up explain what you think she means by "modernity." If your idea of modernity is different from hers, explain your idea as well.

I believe what the Book Lady means by modernity or "modern" is the "modern" usage of reason, reason was new, the use of reason was something that has never really or throughly been done before. I agree that what was modern then was the use of reason, and reason is still in use today. I do not know as of yet what could be more modern then that.


7. What does Shorto think is the proposal contained in "The Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting the Reason?"

He believed the proposal was the find knowledge based on reason.

8. The social effect of writing the Discourse in a non traditional scholarly language would be a loud statement in its ownself. People would be surprised and confused at first at knowing that one of the greatest schoalrly works was written in french. Then they would question the motive behind it, which would lead towards all kinds of assumptions.
Questions regarding the video.

9.To question religion and christianity. At that time everything was based on faith. Descartes was extreme in that he questioned the foundatinos of society itself.

10.I think it is limited. Descartes new way of reexamining the world isn't only limited towards the perspective of a christian view, but his new way of reexamining the world is much more then going against biblical teachings, his new way of examination starts from the five senses.