Can someone dumb this down for me?

Question

Descartes was probably
the first to attain the degree of reflection demanded
by that fundamental truth; consequently, he made
that truth the starting-point of his philosophy, although
provisionally only in the form of sceptical
doubt. By his taking cogito ergo sum as the only thing
certain, and provisionally regarding the existence of
the world as problematical, the essential and only
correct starting-point, and at the same time the true
point of support, of all philosophy was really found.
This point, indeed, is essentially and of necessity the
subjective, our own consciousness. For this alone is
and remains that which is immediate; everything
else, be it what it may, is first mediated and conditioned
by consciousness, and therefore dependent
on it. It is thus rightly considered that the philosophy
of the moderns starts from Descartes as its
father. Not long afterwards, Berkeley went farther
along this path, and arrived at idealism proper; in
other words, at the knowledge that what is extended
in space, and hence the objective, material world in
general, exists as such simply and solely in our
representation, and that it is false and indeed absurd
to attribute to it, as such, an existence outside all
representation and independent of the knowing
subject, and so to assume a matter positively and
absolutely existing in itself. But this very correct
and deep insight really constitutes the whole of
Berkeley’s philosophy; in it he had exhausted

I kept going over it and over it, it just wasn't registering. Thanks for helping me with my philosophy homework.

Answer 1

IT means that all reality is an extension of what we believe.

For example, for a primitive tribe who has never seen a European ship arriving in America, notice that the water was rippling in a strange pattern, but they never saw the ships even though they were visible to the naked eye.

The ships were so alien to them and outside the box of their conditioned reality that no matter how much they observed, the ships simply were invisible to them.

The Shamen of that tribe would go out every morning at sunrise to study the ripples until his mind could open up to actually see the masts and then make out the ships.

He then told his tribe and at that moment this highly regarded and trusted Shamen was believed... In affect, the rest of the tribe saw the ships.

Descartes was saying that truth must be measured from only one starting point, which is your conditioned mind, which can only be hypothetical... but after that, Berkley is saying that the world is an extension of our own mind or that we are creating our own reality. Thus, if you look around your environment and you don't think that everything is a product of man's creation or extension of our own collective minds... then, you are missing the point.

However, I think you do get it.

Answer 2

It's talking about rationalism, which is one part of the epistemological debate(what are the origins of human knowledge?). Descartes was one of the leading philosophers in this belief. "...essentially and of necessity the subjective, our own consciousness..." Subjective as opposed to the empiricism belief of the objective. Descartes believed that all knowledge was innate (obtain at birth and God given) and not gained through experiences or through the senses like empiricist would believe. Examples of empiricist believers are John Locke and David Hume. Even as far back as Aristotle who referred to the human mind as a black slate. I'm sorry but I can't remember the Latin for this but it should be east to find. Tabula Raza something... Anyway, Berkeley was very radical in his beliefs. I don't know as much about idealism, but I hope I helped with Descartes. He was where the "I think therefore I am" came from by the way.

Answer 3

Basically I think it's saying that things exist as we think of them. cognito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. All reality or truth or whatever begins with me, what I think, how I see the world. So truth is subjective, the only thing I know REALLY to be true is my thinking, and the rest might just be false... does that help?

as a critique, Descartes starts with I think therefore I am, and says to doubt everything, except of course he doesn't say doubt what he just said... Really the whole idea implodes in on itself because then you can't doubt his command "to doubt" and think for yourself... thus the problem of this thought process, i.e. modernism, is now with us as much philosophy now talks about post-modernism (or post-post modernism)... great book is "Who's afraid of post-modernism" by James Smith which will help you understand where we are now, not necc. though the original question you have, hope I didn't confuse you to much.

Answer 4

Essentially, Descartes believed he could not be certain of anything other than his own thoughts and therefore his existence (I think, therefore I am). Because he separated this one true starting point out from everything else that is uncertain (ie, other people, the outside world) he laid the foundation for all philosophy that was to follow. Philosophy began finding its certainty in the subjective, human mind.

Berkeley took this idea a step further and suggested that nothing exists outside of our minds. What we take as the "objective world" surrounding us is really nothing but our perceptions and it is ridiculous to think of any of it existing outside of our thoughts. Apparently, whomever wrote this thought he was correct.

Answer 5

Can you be referring to Descartes suggesting the truth is our own conscious reality, and is subjective to the person's conscious elements.
Berkeley attempted to make this objective, although it is subjective to the theory and of ideas presented in context.
People find Berkeley easier to work with, as the ideas and theories can be adjusted to conditional beliefs (conditions and beliefs)
Whichever way you study this, go outwards from Descartes so you don't get lost in the subjective theory of consciousness. It is easier than it sounds.
Try Einstein and classify his theory.
Practice classifying a few theories and develop a way to identify the principles used in how you classify these. You will find Berkeley used more often than Descartes, although a few are primarily his.

Answer 6

Essentially Descartes was trying to say that if you assume that as long as you are aware of yourself as an entity, and that you embrace the truth that "I think therefore I am" then all other things must, by necessity arrise out of that truth

Answer 7

existence is what a person percieved as real. If it stand's alone (like just an idea) nobody is there to sees things into real. Subjective comes from a person's own perception, so in short, an object is real only if someone see's the object as real/

Answer 8

TRANSLATION (i think of) : supply an answer which will make human beings desire to offer it a thumbs down. MCR iS the superb BaNd eVEr!!11!! steel has on no account been truly mainstream, has it?

Answer 9

Try this: "I think therefore I am." If this is the only thing you are certain of, then EVERYTHING ELSE COULD BE ILLUSION and depends on how it is perceived by the viewer. What is true for me could not exist for you.

'nuff said!

Answer 10

Well....your copy and paste didn't quite make it past that last sentence there, starting with, "But this very correct and deep insight..." and getting cut off in mid-sentence. But....

The point your source material seems to be making is two-fold.

1) That in order to get at anything true, you *have to* assume something is a constant, and true, as a foundation to get anywhere. With Descartes, that was his "cogito ergo sum" or his "I think, therefore I am". With Einstein, it was the assumption that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant speed, and a known number. It's the same sort of thing.

In order to reason, and to know things "a posteriori" or after the fact of that reasoning, you have to assume, "a priori", or before the fact, that at least one thing is true, if not many things. Mathematics just doesn't work or make sense at all unless you assume that simple, real whole numbers *and their addition* are true. If you cannot count to three, and in so doing say that "two plus one is three", as opposed to making it four, then *nothing* of higher mathematics will be true or make sense.

2)That a lot of what we *think* we know to be true about reality as we know it, has in fact already been figured out *for us* after the fact of another's reasoning or experience. Things fall down....anyone can see this. It took Newton's use of the word "gravity" to describe this, and his further study of the local, human-scale physics of it, however, to actually clue us in to the truths behind the observed fact of seeing things fall down. Things like gravity having a constant acceleration on Earth (or later on, any given planet or gravity well), and it's getting weaker with distance according to a precise mathematical law.

A lot of what we know is like gravity, it is second, third or even fourth-hand knowledge that has been figured out for us previously. It has been inferred or calculated, and isn't something we know of directly courtesy of our own living experience.

And even so....people born blind have never *seen* anything fall. Their experience with things that fall is that a) they might fall down, and b) when things fall down in general, it is because nothing holds them up. That's it. So anything that is *not* touching something else *could* actually fall, from the viewpoint of that particular experience, and in the absence of further information, it could fall *any old way*. And....it would get more complicated still for someone born on a spaceship in orbit who has never had *any* experience, direct or otherwise, with falling things as *real phenomena* (as opposed to something imagined or daydreamed).

In plain English: a lot, if not close to *everything*, we see in the world or in reality around us, is *not* first-hand knowledge but is in fact something that somebody else handed down to us second, third or fourth-hand. Anything much more complicated than "I think, therefore I am" really can be argued to be hearsay, or at the very least a hypothesis proven by evidence more than a self-evident *actual truth* of existence.

I know. ^_^ It gives you a headache to think about it. Most of the time it *is* easier and more sensible to think in terms of: "things fall down", or "time passes, moving forward", or "rain is wet".

But the real heart of it is...a lot of what we see and live in and assume to be true is in fact an accumulation of inference and experience and learning and theory. The real, foundational things out there that are *true* before anyone reasons about it (or observes it into experience) are few and far between.

I hope this makes sense and makes things a little bit easier. I know this is a rough one to figure out and a *lot* of people go all their lives without getting it, that actual *truth*, self-evident truth that is *true* before, and regardless of, anyone else's reason or experience, is a rare thing actually.

This isn't something that is necessary to know. You can live a full life without getting it. But...knowing this *might* be sufficient, it might be enough, to get you to thinking about *what true things*, first-hand or otherwise, you wish to live for.

It might be sufficient, or enough, to get you to live a life of *meaning*, if nothing else.

Thanks for your time, good Question! ^_^