Dèscartes a rationalist?--- Of course. They do not call him the father of rationalism for nothing, you know!
...One of the worst mistakes made by the students of philosophy, with the help of their textbooks, is when they stop right there, thus taking Dèscartes’ rationalism out of its historical context. He is a rationalist, they say, ergo an anti- intuitionist. End of story.
Such a simplistic characterization is, however, unfair to Dèscartes. Instinct and reason often contradict each other, but without each other they are deficient, incomplete. They find their completion in a dichotomy, a complementary distribution that relates them to one another. So, the big philosophical question is not which of the two must be held in higher esteem, but how to place them in a proper balance.
The balanced dichotomy of instinct and reason was badly upset in the Middle Ages of Scholasticism, when the Catholic Church forcefully undermined instinct, substituting faith in its place. The dichotomy was now between queen faith and servant reason, reason made demonstrably subservient in this relationship.
Therefore, when Dèscartes came, with his new brand of rationalism, he was not upsetting the relationship between instinct and reason in favor of the latter. He was actually restoring the balance, allowing reason to be emancipated from its slavery to faith, and it is here that the greatest value of his enlightened rationalism lies.
...One of the worst mistakes made by the students of philosophy, with the help of their textbooks, is when they stop right there, thus taking Dèscartes’ rationalism out of its historical context. He is a rationalist, they say, ergo an anti- intuitionist. End of story.
Such a simplistic characterization is, however, unfair to Dèscartes. Instinct and reason often contradict each other, but without each other they are deficient, incomplete. They find their completion in a dichotomy, a complementary distribution that relates them to one another. So, the big philosophical question is not which of the two must be held in higher esteem, but how to place them in a proper balance.
The balanced dichotomy of instinct and reason was badly upset in the Middle Ages of Scholasticism, when the Catholic Church forcefully undermined instinct, substituting faith in its place. The dichotomy was now between queen faith and servant reason, reason made demonstrably subservient in this relationship.
Therefore, when Dèscartes came, with his new brand of rationalism, he was not upsetting the relationship between instinct and reason in favor of the latter. He was actually restoring the balance, allowing reason to be emancipated from its slavery to faith, and it is here that the greatest value of his enlightened rationalism lies.
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