Exercises on Cartesian Reason

Enem (2013)

TEXT I

“It has been some time since I realized that, from my earliest years, I had received many false opinions as true, and that what I later founded on principles so poorly assured could only be very doubtful. and uncertain. It was necessary to try seriously, once in my life, to get rid of all the opinions I had hitherto given credit, and to start all over again in order to establish a firm and unshakable knowledge.” (DESCARTES, R. Meditations Concerning the First Philosophy . São Paulo:Abril Cultural, 1973) (adapted).

TEXT II

“It is the radical nature of what is sought that requires the radicalization of the search process itself. If all space is occupied by doubt, any certainty that appears thereafter will have been somehow generated by doubt itself, and will surely be none of those that were previously swept away by that very doubt.” (SILVA, F. L. Descartes:the metaphysics of modernity . São Paulo:Moderna, 2001). (adapted).

The exposition and analysis of the Cartesian project indicate that, in order to make possible the radical reconstruction of knowledge, one must:

a) resume the method of tradition to build science with legitimacy.

b) broadly and deeply question old ideas and conceptions.

c) investigate the contents of the consciousness of less enlightened men.

d) seek a way to eliminate old and outdated knowledge from memory.

e) find clear ideas and thoughts that don't need to be questioned.

Enem (2013).

“Products and their consumption constitute the stated goal of the technological enterprise. This goal was first proposed at the beginning of Modernity, as an expectation that man could dominate nature. However, this expectation, converted into a program announced by thinkers like Descartes and Bacon and driven by the Enlightenment, did not arise from 'a pleasure of power', 'from mere human imperialism', but from the aspiration to free man and enrich his life, physically and culturally.” (CUPANI, A. Technology as a philosophical problem:three approaches. Scientiae Studia , Sao Paulo, v. 2, no. 4, 2004) (adapted).

Authors of modern philosophy, notably Descartes and Bacon, and the Enlightenment project conceive science as a way of knowing that aims to free man from the storms of nature. In this context, scientific research consists of:

a) to expose the essence of the truth and definitively resolve the theoretical disputes that still exist.
b) to offer the last word about the things that exist and to occupy the place that once was of philosophy.
c) be the expression of reason and serve as a model for other areas of knowledge that aim for progress.
d) explain the general laws that make it possible to interpret nature and eliminate ethical and religious discourses.
>e) explain the dynamics present between natural phenomena and impose limits on academic debates.

With his philosophical operation called “methodical doubt”, René Descartes ended up instituting a philosophical paradigm that was identified as rationalism. In opposition to Cartesian rationalism, some British philosophers developed the empiricist philosophy, which consisted of:

a) take as the main premise for knowledge the faculty of reason, from which the world becomes intelligible.

b) deny the importance of empirical data for the knowledge process.

c) take as the main premise for knowledge the data of sensible reality, that is, empirical, material data.

d) not having a rational philosophical method, thus converting to irrationalism, a current that would later dominate part of 19th century philosophy.

e) politically defend the English empire against the onslaught of intellectuals from other countries.

Read the following excerpt:“[…] It is almost impossible for our judgments to be as pure and as solid as they would have been if we had had full use of our reason from the time of our birth, and if we had always been guided by it.” (DESCARTES, René. Discourse on the Method . São Paulo:Martins Fontes. 1996, p. 17).

Cartesian Reason inaugurated, in modernity, a way of thinking based on a rationalist language, inspired by mathematical models. This rational model was intended to serve as a guide for the knowledge of reality. About the Cartesian method, it is correct to say that:

a) has its best finished formulation in the work “Crítica da Razão Pura”.

b) consisted of putting the world, reality, “in parentheses”, thus operating in a “phenomenological reduction”.

c) was fiercely opposed by philosophers contemporary to Descartes, thus having no influence on any subsequent generation.

d) consisted of doubting everything and, based on the doubt, redirecting thought to the possibility of reality, a process that is summarized in the phrase:“I think, therefore I am”.

e) has its heyday in the 15th century, when scholastic philosophy begins to decline.

Letter B

With Descartes, a new way of doing philosophy was inaugurated. The radical critique of tradition, based on the process of “methodical doubt”, boosted the search for a purity of the rational faculty. Cartesian reason became the “workhorse” of modern philosophy, inspiring a whole tradition of philosophers who came after it.

Letter C

The Enlightenment – ​​which is an intellectual movement of immense proportions and very heterogeneous –, to a certain extent, is constituted from a synthesis of Cartesian philosophy and British philosophy. The works of Immanuel Kant make this synthesis explicit. The expression “Age of Reason”, which was associated with the Enlightenment, reflects the atmosphere of optimism that one had regarding progress in the field of science, which, in turn, contaminated the field of politics, as was perceived in the French Revolution.

Letter C

British empiricism, contrary to the Cartesian proposal, defended that knowledge of reality takes place mainly through sensitive experience, that is, through the five senses. Empiria precisely means matter, that which can be empirically verified, measured, weighed, quantified, etc.

Letter D

Cartesian rationalism developed the method of systematic doubt, or methodical doubt, which consisted in reducing reality to the plane of pure reason, of the faculty of thought. The synthesis “I think, therefore I am”, proposed by Descartes, expresses his understanding that reality, that is, existence, can only be grounded by the possibility of thought. For Descartes, if we did not arrive, via methodical doubt, at the truth of “I think”, we would not be able to affirm that we exist.