Determining The Certainty With Aristotle And Descartes' Works

In this essay I will try to explore what the is reality and certainty and at the same time we will doubt everything that comes our way and we will also try to figure out what reality is alongside Descartes and his skepticism. On this journey we will doubt everything starting with our senses which are betraying us every moment and are controlled by “evil genius” that controls our every step and even our perception of the reality. We will try to differenciate between dream and reality. we will touch briefly Descartes’ wax wax analogy which is important analogy concidering certainty. And lastly we will take a look at our very own existence if we are real or not. Alongside Descartes we will bring into the picture also Aristotle. With him we will try to figure out our very essence of our soul and what this essence is. We will see that there is no single method according Aristotle to figuring out what something is. Is it a substance or quality or quantity. We will try to connect the dots between Descartes and Aristotele and last big thing that we will look at is idea of god for both of them and how their ideas differ on different levels.

According to Descartes if one is capable of doubting a given amount of knowledge they have aquired, they must therefore be open to points of view that they are not familiar with and as result cannot concider anything as certain. Similarly to Descartes, Aristoteles discuss the meaning to various aspects of philosophy and human life. Expressing his interest in finding given norm for what things actually are, as well as trying to find meanings for essence along whit determining warious perceptions one can take, he struggles to find a point of complete certainty. Both Aristotele and Descartes talk about sences as important parts of their philosophies.

Aristoteles talks about perceptions and senses and there is where he is making important distinction where he states “Perceptions are always true, whereas most appearances are false.”( Aristotle, De Anima, 428a12) In his nature studies, Aristotle are seeing that animals posses camouflage, that is deceiving the sight and also people lying. There is big difference in animal appearances and thus we have different perceptions about them hovever with people it is a different matter. Aristotele tells that humans : “know either by knowledge or by the soul.”( Aristotle, De Anima, 414a7.) The soul is connatining certain emotions and thanks to those emotions our souls have bodies. Therefore telling us if emotions are absent soul is not there and so there is no body. By later deduction Aristoteles tell that “the soul is in the primary way that by which we live and perceive and think” ( Aristotle, De Anima, 414a13)