The Lives and Works of Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes, and David Hume: Comparison

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Different philosophers have elaborated different views on understanding the world as a whole and society in particular. Philosophers’ theories are this or that way justified and have both supporters and opponents. We are not empowered to say that some theory is more valid and the other is not sufficiently grounded, as each of them is a result of the philosopher’s painful process of thinking and seeking the truth. The current paper is concerned with the investigation of the three genii of philosophical thinking: Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes, and David Hume. The comparison is expected to be made in terms of the four perspectives:

The biographical facts from the lives of the three philosophers;
Their major philosophical views;
The influence that the philosophers had on their contemporaries and future generations, their followers;
The philosophers’ messages and the contemporary world.

Starting with a comparison of biographical facts from the lives of the three philosophers we should admit that Kant (the years of life are 1724-1804) and Hume (1711-1776) can be considered contemporaries, whereas Descartes lived and worked significantly earlier: the years of his life embrace 1596-1650. Kant was born in the East Prussian city of Königsberg to a family of a craftsman; he was the fourth of eleven children. Descartes was born in La Haye to a family of a lawyer and magistrate. He was one of surviving two siblings and two half-siblings. His mother died a year after his birth and he with other children was raised by their grandmother. Hume was born to a moderately wealthy family from Berwickshire Scotland, near Edinburgh.

As far as the education of the would-be philosophers is concerned, all of them received higher education. Kant studied at the University of his native city, where afterward he worked as a tutor and professor in philosophy, logic, and metaphysics. In 1770 Kant achieved wide renown through writing his Inaugural Dissertation that focused on the difference between right- and left-handed spatial orientations.

Descartes was educated at the Jesuit college of La Fleche where he was sent to at the age of ten. Descartes studied there for twelve years and then entered the University of Poitiers, in a year he received his Baccalaureate and License in Canon & Civil Law there. Then Descartes entered the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau. Meanwhile, he started his work on the Compendium Musicae, his great essay on algebra. But only in 1637, he made a name for himself by a group of essays on analytical geometry, optics, and meteors.

Hume’s background was shaped by Calvinistic and Whiggish views of his family. During his childhood, he attended the local church. The primary education he received from his mother who educated him until the age of eleven when he left for the University of Edinburgh. Hume’s devotion to Calvinism left a significant mark on his later life.

Several words should be told about the way the great philosophers’ lives ended. Kant died peacefully in his bed at the age of eighty.

Descartes died of pneumonia in Stockholm. He had been invited there to teach Queen Christina of Sweden. His disease might have been a consequence of immune system problems. The thing is that he was commonly asked to teach the Queen early in the morning that was not beneficial for his health if we consider that he worked late at night. One more possible cause of his disease results from nursing his friend the French ambassador who suffered from pneumonia. At the present day, Descartes’ tomb rests in the church of Saint-German-des-Pres in Paris and his brain resides in the Musee de l’Homm.

Hume spent the remaining years of his life in Edinburgh. There he communicated with his friends from the city’s intellectual circles, revised and refined his published works. At the age of sixty-five, he died from an internal disorder he had suffered from for several months.

The collection of Hume’s chief works includes Treatise Upon Human Nature (1739-1740), Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751).

Hume accepts and develops the empirical ideas of John Locke. He concludes that the principle of causality is not valid and that there is not any existing substance in the world. Only sensations can be considered as the only reliable knowledge. The complex interaction of impressions and subjective and phenomenal ideas can explain the laws of the material and spiritual world. Hume negates causality that exists as the fundamental principle of metaphysics and the sciences. Also, he rejects the existence of substance, and questions the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul.

Descartes’ major works are Discourse de la Method (1637), Meditationes de Prima Philosophia (1641), Principia Philosophiae (1644), Les Passions de l’ame Physiological Psychology (1649), Systematic and Mechanistic Study of Nature and Organisms (1664), Le Monde, ou Traite de la Lumiere (1664), L’Homme (1644).

Descartes is considered to be a founder of modern philosophy as he started the new theory of knowledge which serves as a basis for modern Western philosophy. His method of philosophical inquiry is characterized by two features:

It is a method of inquiry (vs. a method of proof): a way of finding out things and making sure one makes no mistakes; the point of view of the ignorant learner;
It is a method of doubt: a refusal to accept anything as true unless it is absolutely certain (Rene Descartes’ Views).

This method led to the transformation in the central nature of philosophy which was concerned with answering the two questions:

What exists? (About the nature of the universe, of being): Metaphysics;
What can I know to exist? (About the nature of knowledge, the mind, reasoning): Epistemology (Rene Descartes’ Views).

Descartes claimed that intuition and deduction are the two operations through which certain knowledge can be achieved. He defined intuition as “the conception which an unclouded and attentive mind gives us so readily and distinctly that we are wholly freed from doubt about that which we understand” and saw intuition as the basis of all certain knowledge (Rene Descartes’ Views). According to him, each deductive step is based on intuition (Rene Descartes’ Views). Cartesian Dualism was based on the two principles:

There exist two kinds of substances: minds and bodies.
Minds and bodies interact.

As far as Kant’s philosophical views are concerned we should admit that contrary to most philosophers that wrote their major works being rather young, Kant wrote the most important pieces of his works being at the age of between fifty-seven and sixty-seven: Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Critique of Judgment (1790), Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793). Kant’s philosophical views can be summarized as “a synthesis of the Leibniz-Wolffian rationalism and the Humean skepticism” (Kant, 2007, p. 25687). Kant suggested the following term for his insights into the nature of knowledge: “the Copernican revolution in philosophy” (Kant, 2007, p. 25687). Kant claimed that human attempts to understand things in themselves were doomed to failure. The human field of knowledge according to him is limited to the world of phenomena. The phenomenal experience is based on the work of causality and substance.

In his works, Kant focuses on the three great problems of metaphysics: God, freedom, and immortality. His point is that they are insoluble by speculative thought. “Their existence can be neither affirmed nor denied on theoretical grounds, nor can they be scientifically demonstrated.” (Kant, 2007, p. 25687) Still, Kantian moral philosophy shows the necessity of a belief in their existence.

The views of the three philosophers considered we conclude that they are better understood in their complex interconnection. This happens because Kant developed a theory that included both the world of empiricism and rationalism and ruined the imbalance between them.

One cannot overestimate the impact that the philosophers’ works had both at the time they lived and for the coming generations. Kant’s works were a springboard for the development of German idealism represented by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Neo-Kantianism movement that emerged at the end of the XIX century had many branches throughout Europe. The most influential of them were the Marburg school and the Heidelberg school (founded by Cohen and Cassirer and Windelband and Rickert, respectively). The Marburg school focused on the application of Kantian ideas to an understanding of the physical sciences, the Heilberg school was primarily concerned with the application of his ideas to understanding the historical and cultural sciences. Kantian philosophy influenced Hamilton and Green’s works through which Kantian ideas influenced English. Kant’s contribution to theology is obvious in the works of Schleiermacher and Ritschl. In psychology, Kant’s ideas were supported in Gestalt psychology by Köhler.

Descartes’ influence on philosophy is obvious. His Cogito Argument symbolized the centrality of the self and the neglect of authority from without. In physics, the value of his works consists in the rejection of scholastic physics of matter and form. Instead, scholastic physics was replaced by a mechanistic physics of matter and motion (Garber). In biology, he is noted for the rejection of Aristotelian vitalism.

Descartes had a lot of followers in France. There Clerselier’s circle published all his works and developed his ideas. La Forge extended Descartes’ ideas. Other followers include Regius, Heereboord, Raey, Clauberg. Descartes’ writings were paraphrased and commented on in different ways by his followers in late seventeenth-century Europe.

Hume was a follower of John Locke. He contributed to the study of human thought, perception, and understanding of ideas according to principles set by Locke. Different sciences concerned with the development and origins of knowledge benefited from his works. But we would like to focus on the impact that Hume’s ideas had on Kant. Actually, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was a sort of response to Hume’s empirical ideas. Kantian study of Hume’s empiricism encouraged him to speak of idealism that empiricism leads to. Analyzing Hume’s observations about the limitations of the human mind while it perceives reality, he claims that some or all objects exist in the human mind only.

Hume’s philosophy originated from the eighteenth century but it has a very modern sound. Modern philosophy is characterized by the same attempts to skepticism, subjectivism, and relativism that result from the collapse of all rational understanding that Hume argued for.

Contemporary philosophy is also concerned with many of Descartes’ ideas. Many of the contemporary philosophers argue that his doctrine of the soul that is consistent with the Catholic doctrine is not valid, as it leads to the degradation of the body and encourages one’s way to abuse.

Kant’s ideas not only bonded the empiricists and rationalists that came before him but left a significant field for investigation in various fields. Today, scholars do not stop debating his ideas, as they are rather topical in relation to contemporary issues.

Descartes, Kant, and Hume investigated the problem of skepticism, but they focused on different perspectives: Descartes was concerned with skepticism about reality as a whole, whereas Kant explored skepticism about causation and Hume investigated skepticism on objective validity of causation. All three theories enlarged the treasury of philosophical knowledge and posed a lot of questions to those interested in uncovering the mysteries of philosophy. We are inclined to think that in these questions the main value of the philosophers’ works is rooted.

References

Garber, D. (1998, 2003). Descartes, René. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Web.

Kant, Immanuel. (2007). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.

MacNabb, D. G. (1951). David Hume, His Theory of Knowledge and Morality. London: Hutchinson’s University Library.

René Descartes’ Views. Web.

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The Lives and Works of Immanuel Kant, Rene Descartes, and David Hume: Comparison

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