In order to determine whether there is anything we can know with certainty, Descartes says that we first have to doubt everything we know.

Descartes’s answer is no: “it is manifest by the natural light that all fraud and deception depend on some defect.” Proof that God is not a deceiver: 1) From the supreme being only being may flow (nonbeing – nothingness – neither needs nor can have a cause).

Descartes (1596-1650): Meditations I-II The 3 main goals of the Meditations: Demonstrate the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. (stated) Provide a foundation for the sciences, especially the physical sciences.

He is a thing that thinks. In order to better understand what this means, Descartes tries to give a definition of “thought” in principle I. 9. By “thought” he tells us, he means to refer to anything marked by awareness or consciousness. For instance, we might think we come to know what a flower is by seeing it.

Why did Descartes choose to live in Holland for much of his life? Holland allowed more freedom of thought and expression than other European countries. He introduced a new way of thinking about what we know and how we know it. He insisted on using reason.

Descartes has been heralded as the first modern philosopher. He is famous for having made an important connection between geometry and algebra, which allowed for the solving of geometrical problems by way of algebraic equations.

Rene Descartes is considered the ‘Father of Modern Philosophy. With his ties to dualism, Descartes believed the mind is the seat of our consciousness. Because it houses our drives, intellect, and passions, it gives us our identity and our sense of self.

Known as Cartesian dualism (or mind–body dualism), his theory on the separation between the mind and the body went on to influence subsequent Western philosophies. In Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes attempted to demonstrate the existence of God and the distinction between the human soul and the body.

First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility. Sometimes called “reasoning from first principles,” the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up.

Musk used first principles thinking to break the situation down to the fundamentals, bypass the high prices of the aerospace industry, and create a more effective solution. First principles thinking is the act of boiling a process down to the fundamental parts that you know are true and building up from there.

The first principles of engineering are foundational propositions and assumptions that cannot be inferred from any other theory. “First principles are like the rules of the game, the problem with nature is that nature is an infallible referee.

There are arguably three versions of the principle of non-contradiction to be found in Aristotle: an ontological, a doxastic and a semantic version. The first version concerns things that exist in the world, the second is about what we can believe, and the third relates to assertion and truth.

Moral behavior is the mean between two extremes – at one end is excess, at the other deficiency. Find a moderate position between those two extremes, and you will be acting morally.

Philosophy was a subject of great interest to Aristotle, and he theorized that philosophy was the foundation of the ability to understand the basic axioms that comprise knowledge. In order to study and question completely, Aristotle viewed logic as the basic means of reasoning.

In his natural philosophy, Aristotle combines logic with observation to make general, causal claims. For example, in his biology, Aristotle uses the concept of species to make empirical claims about the functions and behavior of individual animals.