As far as I know, the full quotation from Descartes is: dubito, cogito, ergo sum: I doubt, I think, therefore I am. Although I am not a rationalist myself I believe this should be mentioned as a counterweight for the cool and self-assured reputation (which needs not to be wholly incorrect) of rationalists. Sjoerd de Vries
Philosophers still use rationalism to talk about the tradition begun by Descartes. This is the sense that, for example, Robert Brandom intends when he describes his philosophy as rationaist. ---- Charles Stewart 08:01, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Indeed, in most of the world this is the more common meaning of the word.
MWAK--217.123.73.210 13:09, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Summary, etc.
It's of course true that the artificial distinction between Rationalists and Empiricists means that describing either group in a summary is going to be extremely difficult, but we have to be careful not to turn the summary into a complex and lengthy disquisition. More importantly, perhaps, Leibniz and Spinoza certainly held that, in principle, all knowledge (and certainly not only "metaphysical knowledge") could be gained through reason alone; they also held that in practice we depend upon other methods, and especially science. Descartes is more complex, and consequently less easy to pin down, and the text of the article needs to bring out that fact. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 08:23 (UTC)
- I've started a minor rewrite (mostly rearranging, with a bit of expansion and clarification); does this look better? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 08:39 (UTC)
- OK, I see your point. When I refered to "metaphysical" knowledge, I was just trying to express the fact that all the rationalists thought that metaphysics had to be based on reasoning from self-evident axioms, but that they differed on what other kinds of knowledge could be so derived, and were generally (somewhat) less interested in deriving other kinds of knowledge in this manner. Anyway, you're right that my version was repeating in the introduction information that was in other paragraphs. Cadr 6 July 2005 11:31 (UTC)
- It would be nice to expand this article, but we have to avoid overlapping too much with the articles on the individual philosophers. Any ideas? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 6 July 2005 16:08 (UTC)
- This is just an idea Mel, and it might sound out of place on this particular page. Nevertheless, Plato was a definite precursor to rationalism, with his many arguments for reason over the senses (knowledge of the world not based on the senses but the forms etc.), and it might be worth mentioning him in a pre-Descartes section along with any other philosophers that ascribed to reason. --Knucmo2 15:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I threw in brief reference to Plato in the Rationalism article recently (though without any serious attention to fact-checking the whole article)-- Plato is yet more pertinent here. The ongoing back-and-forth between rationalism and empiricism may deserve brief further description too. Fact is, even Plato, for instance, regarded the earlier Sophists as quite un-empirical. So the back-and-forth has always occurred in the context of progress towards better understanding of the natural world, with another generation of rationalists coming along and saying, essentially, let's not get hogtied by "positivism" here, and then the speculations get a bit ambitious. Descartes is, of course, the poster child for both rationalism and solipsism (perhaps also for dualism) and in some sense a direct descendant of Plato, the reason being that he was essentially working on his own version of the a priori "Forms". Along came the empiricists and essentially said "we need a reality check here" and ended up going overboard in the opposite direction. So the debate is interesting and it seems to me worthy of mention in this article, perhaps including passing mention of Plato and Aristotle as a similar pair of polarities in the historical debate...Kenosis 17:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- This is just an idea Mel, and it might sound out of place on this particular page. Nevertheless, Plato was a definite precursor to rationalism, with his many arguments for reason over the senses (knowledge of the world not based on the senses but the forms etc.), and it might be worth mentioning him in a pre-Descartes section along with any other philosophers that ascribed to reason. --Knucmo2 15:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, Aristotle is just as much an influence, I'd have said, together with mediaeval and renaissance philosophy. Mention of the main influences would be fine, but more would overbalance it.
Making clearer the differences between the "big three" would be a good thing, as would material on philosophers such as Malebranche, Arnauld, Gassendi, et al. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Why would Descartes be a "poster child" for solipsism? Kenosis' account of the relationship between the so-called rationalists and empiricists is conventional and somewhat simplistic. Leaving aside the fact that, in many ways, Locke et al. were closer to Descartes in many ways than were Leibniz and Spinoza, the relationships between the six big names were much more complex (as were those between Plato and Aristotle). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- It was intended to be simplistic for these purposes. And quite true that there are many overlaps here. The issues I intended to bring forth here are:
(1) Descartes, in the context of his day, falls on the same side of the basic debate as Plato did in his. (2) Descartes, along with Spinoza and Leibniz, was presuming (to borrow on Kantian terms a bit) an "underlying" "noumenal" realm that could be accessed by reason alone, failing to acknowledge the full extent to which he was in fact building on a empirically derived framework (providing, according to Descartes, that one exercised adequate rational doubt). (3) A brief reference to an analogous polarity between Plato and Aristotle seems to deserve brief mention, because, other distinctions aside, Plato is presuming that a priori knowledge is accessible with reason. So was Descartes, at which point the empiricists chose to weigh in...Kenosis 19:14, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Expansion
I have expanded this article, pinpointing the thought of the three great Rationalists, Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Leibniz's section I believe is a little thin on the ground, and the other two may have room for improvement. I have left Kant in there for now, in that I like the section that was wrote on him. --Knucmo2 12:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Note that the principle of pre-established harmony doesn't explain mind-body interaction, as at the level of monads there's no such thing as body (it's a well-founded phenomenon). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:38, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
It's important not to turn this into an article about three philosophers; it should be about rationalism (in so far as that really existed). Discussion of content should also take place here, not in long comments in the article itself.
- What? Since this a discussion of philosophers' work and the differences between them, the overlap is inevitable. Leibniz was dismayed by the lack of freedom (look at the sources I gave you) in Spinoza's system and its lack of reliance on Catholic theology, and Leibniz, as a pious man (whose project was to try and reconcile his religious beliefs with science) reacted to these radical ideas of Spinoza. It wouldn't bother me at all if either us were to abolish the idea of Leibniz's reaction to other thinkers in the article, but they served as useful contrasts between the thinkers, as I remember you declaring that differences between the philosophers need to be amplified. --Knucmo2 19:05, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
With regard to a couple of substantive issues:
- The comment on innate ideas is oversimplified (especially given Leibniz's complex and sometimes obscure discussion).
- You keep saying that people like Descartes state or declare things; they argue.
- Leibniz certainly responded to Descares, but the extent to which he's responding to Spinoza is much less clear. That he did so in the way and for the reasons that you give (which owes a great deal to a view of the issue developed later) is far less clear.
- It's a good idea not to lose your temper quite so early in a discussion. I have indeed read Leibiz, at great length and in depth — not only for both of my graduate degrees, but for papers and books that I've written, and for the teaching that I do, of which Leibniz is a regular part. That we disagree should not immediately be put down by you to my ignorance — that's not a very philosophical attitude. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- Point one is of course true - but it is invariably an idea associated with rationalism. If you had bothered to look, it was placed in the introduction, not the place for a lengthy excursus on a subject. A key idea is introduced, and simplified in an introduction, and then elaborated upon elsewhere. If you did an article on historical materialism, would you want to write about the complexity and the difference between Marx/Lenin's conception of it, all in the introduction? Of course not.
- Point two is trivial. You may state or declare things, but that does not of necessity mean them to be true. Germany may state that someone has invaded their territory, or they may declare it, or they may even argue about it. But I'll let you keep thinking that its a "substantive issue"!
- Point three confirms my point adroitly. Since the time of your dismissal of my sources, and the time you've posted this remark on "issues", no sufficient time will have passed for you to have read any of the sources I've offered to you, let alone any time to consider them, or reconsider your own viewpoint. What's more, you simply say its clear that he definitely did respond to Descartes. Well, please show me this, for this seems just as unclear as the Spinoza reception, which is far more convenient to resolve given the historical information I have given you to read (but which you have not, as of yet).
- Point four is pathetic and patronising. You have clearly not had enough time to comment that the sources I gave are not "clear". It's very possible that we have both read Leibniz but are coming towards it from different angles, which will of course depend on our own individual readings of it. This would be unfortunate. --Knucmo2 18:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)