Ana Estrella
Professor Mark J. Gobeo
PHI 2010
23 April 2018
The Reality between Descartes and Kant.
Kant made a synthesis between rationalism and empiricism, giving to make known that knowledge comes from experience, but not in its entirety. According to Kant, the physical reality, man's senses, perceptions, reason and science, all this he calls the "phenomenal" world. The other reality part, a "higher" reality, called the "Noumenal" world, and a special manifestation called the "categorical imperative", which dictates to man the rules of morality, and which is made known through a emotion, of a special feeling of duty.
The "Phenomenal" world, said Kant, is not real: reality, as perceived by the mind of man, is a distortion. The distortion mechanism is the conceptual faculty of man: the basic concepts of man (such as time, space, existence) do not derive from the experience of reality, but come from an automatic system of filters in his consciousness (called "categories"). "And" forms of perception ") that impose their own design on man's perception of the outside world, making man incapable of perceiving that external world differently than he actually perceives it. This shows, says Kant, that the concepts of man are only a mirage, and also a collective mirage, from which no one has the power to escape. Therefore, reason and science are "limited," said Kant; they are valid as long as they deal with this world, with a collective, permanent and predetermined mirage (and this is how the criterion to validate the reason was changed from the objective to the collective), but they are impotent to deal with the fundamental and metaphysical issues of the existence, which belong to the "Noumenal" world. This is unknowable; it is the world of "true" reality, of "higher" truth, and of "things in themselves" or "things as they are", what it means: things as they are not perceived by man.
On the other hand, Descartes imposes reason as the only true knowledge. Through doubt Descartes reaches the conclusion that we are thinking substances and that it is impossible to doubt that. Descartes wonders if the things of reality exist or if they are the product of thought.
For this reason, try to distinguish them and realize that we have some thoughts that are unclear, undefined and others that are different because they have more clarity. The unclear, diffuse thoughts may be the product of our perception that make us doubt; but there is the possibility of analyzing them, breaking them down into their elements and arriving at a clear and distinct thought, such as geometric shapes.
However, even so, Descartes still doubts the existence of that sphere, outside thought, because no thought is a guarantee of a reality outside of it.
then, discards suggests that between clear and distinct thoughts there is one that in itself is a guarantee that it exists outside of thought. That thought is the idea of God.
We can state that the existing world of Descartes is a world of geometric shapes, without colors, or any irregularity, a reality that calls extension.
Therefore, Descartes only recognizes as substantial reality the thinking self, God and extension.
The Cartesian world is the world of modern science, which eliminates quality and takes into account only what can be measured. For Descartes, nature is composed of pure mechanisms including man, whose passions and emotions are confused and unclear ideas that are not real.
Opinion about Reality.
Reality is a perceptual state according to each person, since it depends on the perspective of each individual. because we can say that a pencil is brown, but another person can say that color is a clear coffee, or dark coffee, depending on their perception. When reading the thoughts of both philosophers, I can say that I agree or support both hypothesis.
defining or having a concept of reality is a bit difficult since it varies depending on the way we use it. Even after years, we still do not have a single collective opinion of what this is.
for me the reality is everything that is around me, what I can feel, smell or visualize, what I can capture and maintain as an image in my brain, is everything that is in my environment. To be more clear, my definition of reality is dependent on the perspective of each person. the reality is altered by the perception or the way in which the individual looks, to which I mean that his reality can be to be seen or altered by what the individual thinks, visualizes and feels. For example, a situation in which two people are arguing, both believe to be the reason for their different point of view, both have different realities altered by their thinking.
In conclusion, the Reality is a state of alteration of the same depending on each individual.