Errors of Philosophy - Descartes and Cartesian Anxiety

[dcrowmik]

We live in a time where some of the troubling philosophical premises of previous centuries have reached full flower. In particular the skepticism of our time, which plagues us, goes back several hundred years. Doubt and cynicism are a huge factor in our times and they underlie a lot of the atheism and agnosticism of this modern age.

Allow me for a moment to speculate as to how we have gotten here. As with all things, there are many causes, but I suspect that a lot of it goes back to Rene Descartes and his (flawed, I think) attempt to overcome the doubt he experienced. And, due to the significant influence he had, he set forth a kind of “Cartesian Anxiety” which keeps us from attaining to a proper balance between certainty and doubt, faith and reason, body and mind. I think it has also severed our ties with the world as it is and has caused us to retreat into our minds.

Cartesian anxiety is a term that refers to…(read the rest here).

 

[greylorn]

We live in a time where some of the troubling philosophical premises of previous centuries have reached full flower. In particular the skepticism of our time, which plagues us, goes back several hundred years. Doubt and cynicism are a huge factor in our times and they underlie a lot of the atheism and agnosticism of this modern age.

Allow me for a moment to speculate as to how we have gotten here. As with all things, there are many causes, but I suspect that a lot of it goes back to Rene Descartes and his (flawed, I think) attempt to overcome the doubt he experienced. And, due to the significant influence he had, he set forth a kind of “Cartesian Anxiety” which keeps us from attaining to a proper balance between certainty and doubt, faith and reason, body and mind. I think it has also severed our ties with the world as it is and has caused us to retreat into our minds.

Cartesian anxiety is a term that refers to…(read the rest here).

IMO you are both correct and mistaken. Descartes tried to support Galileo, who wanted the Church to correct its beliefs in light of scientific knowledge. Descartes wanted the Church to put its beliefs on logical, philosophical grounds. The Church resisted, and as a result, both philosophers and scientists moved onward, leaving the Church to stand all by itself on an island of dogma.

When younger I thought that this was a bad thing, but in my dotage I realize that if God Himself was pulling the strings of human thought, that’s exactly how He would have pulled them. Had the Church recognized the intimate relationship between science, logic, and dogma, it would have used its power to bring science and logical philosophy under its wing, setting the entire process back by at least 10,000 years.

But I think that now is the time for the Church to step back into a fray which it has been watching from the sidelines. There must be a completely integrated theory/belief system/understanding— whatever you want to call it— which fully integrates mankind’s understanding of the creation process and our place within it, with all methods we have employed for the discovery of truth. That means science, common logic (forget the formal philosophers, who are pretty much worthless), and legitimate human experience, which includes all psi phenomena, reincarnation, glitched minds, etc.

Incidentally, I tried the link. It took way to long to come up, so, mistrusting it, I disconnected. Won’t try again.

 

[4Horsemen]

We live in a time where some of the troubling philosophical premises of previous centuries have reached full flower. In particular the skepticism of our time, which plagues us, goes back several hundred years. Doubt and cynicism are a huge factor in our times and they underlie a lot of the atheism and agnosticism of this modern age.

Allow me for a moment to speculate as to how we have gotten here. As with all things, there are many causes, but I suspect that a lot of it goes back to Rene Descartes and his (flawed, I think) attempt to overcome the doubt he experienced. And, due to the significant influence he had, he set forth a kind of “Cartesian Anxiety” which keeps us from attaining to a proper balance between certainty and doubt, faith and reason, body and mind. I think it has also severed our ties with the world as it is and has caused us to retreat into our minds.

Cartesian anxiety is a term that refers to…(read the rest here).

Great article! The comments are significant as well. I agree with the author that in our age of disbelief we have retreated inward. He shows how Descartes’ philosophy is the backdrop for a skeptical age that insists on absolute certainty of ontological knowledge although Descartes, himself, rejects some of his own theory when it comes to knowledge from the senses. He had to admit that all knowledge doesn’t begin in the intellect.

I found it interesting that the author applied his analysis to two unsettling issues of today–that of abortion and homosexuality. Descartes’ thinking breaks a connection to reality.
For example, abortion is seen by many as merely a “choice” rather than the dismemberment of unborn human beings. As he said, a mind detatched from reality needs to do some hard rationalizing.

The author referred to St. Augustine’s definition of a person without God as a curvatus in se (turned in on himself). I like the joke about Descarte from a poster.
“Rene Descartes is sitting in a wine shop with a newly emptied cup and the waitress asks if he’d like another so he says, ‘I think not.’ and disappears.”

All in all, an interesting and revealing article.