Descartes took from them the message that he should set out to reform all knowledge. He decided to begin with philosophy, since the principles of the other sciences must be derived from it (6:21–2).

The only thing that remains true that there is a mind or consciousness doing the doubting and believing its perceptions, hence the famous formulation, ‘I think therefore I am’, or in Latin, the cogito—’Cogito ergo sum’. …

Descartes’ claim that these perceptions are clear and distinct indicates that the mind cannot help but believe them true, and so they must be true for otherwise God would be a deceiver, which is impossible. So the premises of this argument are firmly rooted in his foundation for absolutely certain knowledge.

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.

The idea of being oneself signified for Jaspers the potentiality to realize one’s freedom of being in the world. Thus, the task of philosophy was to appeal to the freedom of the individual as the subject who thinks and exists and to focus on man’s existence as the centre of all reality.

Nietzsche was a German philosopher, essayist, and cultural critic. His writings on truth, morality, language, aesthetics, cultural theory, history, nihilism, power, consciousness, and the meaning of existence have exerted an enormous influence on Western philosophy and intellectual history.

In his works of existentialism he holds the position that it is the task of an existential transcending philosophizing to “elucidate” that non-empirical dimension of human existence. Furthermore, Jaspers argues that a human being. realises one’s life and potentialities in four modes, or. four dimensions, of being.

For him, philosophy is a way of thought, which uses expert knowledge while going beyond it. He believed that by means of devoting oneself to philosophy, individuals do not cognize objects but explicate and actualize their being as thinkers and thus become themselves.

Philosophizing benefits are person, Through philosophy, a person Lear how to ask question, distinguish between good questions and worthless ones and how to divide and give priority to those questions because it makes someone to study questions, think independently and broadens the person’s perspective.

Life is the aspect of existence that processes, acts, reacts, evaluates, and evolves through growth (reproduction and metabolism). The crucial difference between life and non-life (or non-living things) is that life uses energy for physical and conscious development.

Jaspers argues that those who believe that they understand everything are no longer engaged in philosophical inquiry. According to Jaspers, philosophy does not need to justify itself on the grounds of its being useful for some other mode of activity.

Existentialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory” . Theodor Adorno, in his Jargon of Authenticity, criticized Heidegger’s philosophy, with special attention to his use of language, as a mystifying ideology of advanced industrial society and its power structure.

Taking Responsibility for Decisions Existential therapists help people to become more aware of their choices, their freedom to make decisions, and the consequences of their actions. This type of therapy helps people develop a better sense of how they are the “authors” of their lives.

Existentialism did not develop much in the way of a normative ethics; however, a certain approach to the theory of value and to moral psychology, deriving from the idea of existence as self-making in situation, is a distinctive mark of the existentialist tradition.