Philosophic Classics From Plato to Derrida

366 In the late 1300s, some Italian thinkers began to talk about a rebirth or “renais- sance.” They wrote disparagingly of the “ ...

INTRODUCTION 367 known as “syncretism.” Syncretism holds that all schools of philosophy have some truth and so should be examine ...

368 GIOVANNIPICO DELLAMIRANDOLA ORATION ON THE DIGNITY OF MAN (in part) Now the highest Father, God the master-builder, had, by ...

ORATION ON THEDIGNITY OFMAN 369 Study of Human Proportions,by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Like Pico, Leonardo enjoyed the pat ...

370 GIOVANNIPICO DELLAMIRANDOLA seeds, he will become a plant. If the seeds of sensation, he will grow into brute. If rational, ...

To a large extent, modern philosophy begins with a rejection of tradition. Whereas medieval philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas ...

these two approaches and in so doing developed a uniquely influential system of philosophy. Contemporary thinkers in the West ar ...

373 René Descartes was born into the family of a minor noble in the town of La Haye in Touraine, France. At age 10, René began a ...

374 RENÉDESCARTES knowledge must be based on certainty and that he had a system that provided that basis. Encouraged by others t ...

INTRODUCTION 375 words do not appear in the Meditations). Here was the “clearly and evidently intuited” knowledge, the starting ...

376 RENÉDESCARTES Descartes had now established a basis for accepting the “obvious” truths he had thrown out earlier by his meth ...

MEDITATIONS, LETTER TO THESORBONNE 377 Georges J.D. Moyal, ed., René Descartes: Critical Assessments (London: Routledge, 1991); ...

378 RENÉDESCARTES 3 4 *The Lateran Council of 1513 condemned the Averroist heresy that denied personal immortality. is the gift ...

MEDITATIONS, LETTER TO THESORBONNE 379 5 undertaking is directed, here compel me to speak somewhat more freely about my own achi ...

380 RENÉDESCARTES 8 demonstrations by all who are intellectually gifted, they may even go so far as to defend them, rather than ...

MEDITATIONS, SYNOPSIS 381 9 perfect than myself. As to how, from the mere fact that there is within me an idea of something more ...

382 RENÉDESCARTES 13 sciences other than those which we have had up till now. Although the usefulness of such extensive doubt is ...

MEDITATIONS, SYNOPSIS 383 15 this way, but is a pure substance. For even if all the accidents of the mind change, so that it has ...

384 RENÉDESCARTES 18 19 FIRSTMEDITATION What can be called into doubt Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falseho ...

FIRSTMEDITATION 385 20 which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep. The result is that I begin to feel dazed, and t ...