Rene Descartes was a popular French philosopher of the 17th century. He is famous for his philosophies regarding the human mind, claiming that learning is everywhere, and that knowledge relies on absolute certainty and what has doubt must not exist in the real life. Descartes was frustrated with the education system and its heavy emphasis on books. He believed that life had a greater meaning with much more to learn about than what books could teach. He wanted to expand his knowledge, and wanted to dig deeper to find out about life. Rene Descartes believed that senses were the key in obtaining knowledge, and that human intellect is what comes from within, or what we are born with. Descartes also brought the dream argument to attention, arguing that our senses that we use in reality is also felt by what we experience in dreams. His philosophies center around his famous phrase, “I think, Therefore I am”. Descartes concluded that if he doubted then something must be doing the action of doubting, and this would prove his existence. Descartes also believed in the existence of God, and proved of the existence of God by advocating that ethics is the highest and most perfected form of science and defending free will.
John Locke was a popular English philosopher during the 17th century. He is known as the “Father of Liberalism”. He is best known for establishing the foundations of a liberal government that served the people and ensured life, liberty, and property. His work greatly influenced the Enlightenment era in England, and shaped how the government serves its people for forever. His most notable work would be “Two Treatises of Government”, in which he explains how the government should serve the people, and if it does not protect the people, then the people have the right to go against the government. John Locke also argued that the mind is like a blank slate, or a “Tabula Rasa”, at birth, and all knowledge comes from personal experiences, experienced from our senses, instead of innate ideas. Tabula rasa has been a popular philosophical concept concerning whether a person is fundamentally neither good nor evil. It has also raised questions on how much environment has an impact on a person and also has led to many questions regarding how much a person can differ depending on the environment they grow up in.
The biggest difference between John Locke and Rene Descartes would be their differing ideas regarding how we learn. Rene Descartes argued that books do not give us deep knowledge, but rather, we are born with knowledge and we further expand on the knowledge by exploring and using our senses to learn, rather than merely reading books to obtain information. Rene Descartes also claims that innate knowledge is something people are born and gifted with. John Locke’s ideologies are heavily based on the tabula rasa mindset. Tabula rasa means blank slate, a term which describes that no human is ever born with knowledge, but rather, we build knowledge by using the senses for the experiences in life each person goes through.
With this debate, I prefer John Locke’s ideas. Everyone can excel in something through effort and learning. Everyone is influenced by their DNA given to them by their parents, making everyone unique, and some may have more advantageous features than others and have the ability to process information faster or run faster, but still, everyone can learn through experiences. Everyone can be better by taking action. There is a famous saying that effort beats genius. Effort is something anyone can put in to improve themselves, and even if there is a genius in one area, if they do not put in effort, they will be beat out by someone who struggles to be better. Anyone can be good at anything, thus rejecting Rene Descartes’ claim regarding that people are born with knowledge. For instance, many people who run marathons, duathlons, triathlons, or even ironman are not real athletes who play a sport for a living. Many people are regular people who have trained for the races. I just came back after running a duathlon in Columbus Georgia. I was never an athlete, but because I trained for the duathlon, I was able to finish undertime.
Another difference between Rene Descartes and John Locke would be how Descartes made the proposition that anything that can be doubted must not exist. Descartes’ phrase “Cogito ergo sum", or "I think, therefore I am", clearly defines and shows how he thinks so. However, John Locke did not agree that knowledge depended on complete certainty, but rather he considered the senses to be unreliable in attaining knowledge, as he had a more rational mindset.
Regarding this view, I agree more with Descartes’ philosophy. I believe that our action comes from strong will and whether or not we made up our mind. Action is what changes reality, and action’s origin is how we think. Therefore, just as Rene Descartes said, I am how I think because I take action according to how and what I think of. I also believe that we do attain knowledge from our senses. Knowledge in attained in many, many ways. It is not just reading, nor it is just memorizing. True knowledge comes from our experiences, and how we build those experiences as well as how we approach and deal with those experiences. That is true knowledge because that changes how we approach other problems in life. Therefore, knowledge takes the form of many things, including the senses we use in our experiences in life.
A similarity between Rene Descartes and John Locke are their views on the mind and the body, and their relation with each other. In his Second Meditation, he asserts that he is a “thinking thing'' (Descartes 82), a thing that thinks: “doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions'' (Descartes, 83). Not only does Descartes consider the self to be a thinking thing, but he believes that is his essence (Descartes 114).
Descartes makes an important distinction between the mind and the body. He believes there is a link between the soul (mind) and body through which sensations are transferred. Descartes believes that it is only this link that allows people to identify a body as their own. “I am not merely present in my body as a sailor is present in a ship, but that I am very closely joined, and, as it were, intermingled with it, so that I and the body form a unit'' (Descartes, 116). Locke also makes a distinction between the body and the soul. Locke thinks the soul and body are separate, but related. Locke thinks that the self is both the mind and its body, not the “thinking or rational being alone'' (Locke 138). Descartes focuses on the fact that the self is the soul, while Locke highlights that the self is both the soul and the body, but distinctly unique in each way.
I believe more in Locke’s specific theory regarding the mind and the brain, as I believe that the soul and the body, though connected, are unique in their own way because of the different ways that each functions. The body is much more physical, while the soul is much more spiritual and emotional.