Descartes as an Individualist essays

Descartes as an Individualist essays As a philosopher, Rene Descartes strayed from the structured ways of thinking in the 17th century. His ideas are all based on rationalism, which was a rising way of thinking during this time. In Descartes Discourse on Method and Meditations of First Philosophy he expresses his traveling through different ways of thought with meditation. From this reading it is determinable that he is a philosopher of individualism. Individualism is the idea that the nature of things depends solely on what they are made up of. It is the belief that the individual is the primary unit of reality and the ultimate standard of value. According to individualism, society is a collection of individuals, rather than a larger whole to which they belong. The Cartesian conception of mind is based on the beliefs of Descartes. As Descartes was a very big realist and a philosopher of individualism, this form of beliefs is based very much on the individual. After many years of school, Descartes discarded the structured teachings of his professors: For it seemed to me that I could find much more truth in the reasonings that each person makes concerning matters that are important to him, and whose outcome ought to cost him dearly later on if he has judged badly, than in those reasonings engaged in by a man of letters in his study (6). He devoted his thoughts and ideas entirely to the introspection of the mind. Descartes believed that the power of the individual is from the mind and soul. the soul through which I am what I am is entirely distinct from the body and is even easier to know than the body, and even if there were no body at all, it would not cease to be all that it is (19). His belief was that minds do not depend on the external world to be what they are. As an individualist Descartes believed that individuals are driven to act through their own thoughts and will. He explains that the will consists so...