René Descartes René Descartes (1596

René Descartes René Descartes (1596–1650) has been called the father of modernity because of his commitment to autonomous scientific reason as the final arbiter of truth. Like Bacon, Descartes believed that by science humans could capture the laws of nature, and by technology they could apply those laws, to make humans the “masters and possessors of nature”[230] and the authors of progress itself. To realize this vision, he too offered a method to render knowledge rigorously objective and to purify the mind from all subjective prejudices—of the senses, imagination, emotions, tradition, authority, and opinion.[231] Amid the religious wars of Europe, in which he participated, Descartes sought a method that would secure certain knowledge—knowledge of the sort provided by mathematics,[232] in which he was trained. His first publication was a slim, intellectual autobiography titled Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting Reason. Descartes explains that he arrived at his method in Germany after spending a day in seclusion in a room heated by a stove. He sought a new beginning and wanted, in his words, to “build on land that belongs entirely to me.” His Archimedean point is that of systematic doubt; in order to find a secure starting point for knowledge, he decided to doubt everything he could until he found that which he could not doubt. Through this process he arrived at his famous cogito, ergo sum: I think, therefore I am. “But I soon noticed that while I thus wished to think everything false, it was necessarily true that I who thought so was something. Since this truth, I think, therefore I am, was so firm and assured that all the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were unable to
shake it, I judged that I could safely accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.”[233] His point is that once all existence independent of thought is separated off, there remains a sphere of pure consciousness that cannot be doubted. Descartes’s solution is expressed in an architectural metaphor: methodological doubt is the solid foundation on which to build a structure of knowledge; therefore begin by doubting everything you think you know. On such a foundation you may build a solid edifice of knowledge by following a rational method, subjecting every truth claim to judgment by reason alone, and embracing as true only that which can be analyzed and measured in quantitative terms. Descartes immediately moves to prove the existence of God from this starting point, but ironically he uses the resources of Scholasticism.[234] For Descartes the fact that he doubted meant he was not perfect, but from where had he obtained this idea of perfection? “The only hypothesis left was that this idea was put in my mind by a nature that was really more perfect than I was . . . in a word, God.”[235] There was of necessity another, more perfect Being upon whom he depended and from whom he received all he possessed. Fundamental to Descartes’s philosophy is the distinction between body and mind (corporeal and incorporeal), and since a mixture of both is a sign of dependency, God must, as perfect, be incorporeal. Descartes compares his certainty of God’s existence to the way in which he knows that the sum of the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees: it is evident in the idea of a triangle, and “consequently, it is at least as certain that God, who is this Perfect Being, exists, as any theorem of geometry could possibly be.”[236] There is a circularity to Descartes’s starting point and his belief in God. He notes that even his principle that all the things that we clearly and distinctly perceive are true—an extension of his cogito, ergo sum—is only certain because God exists. Similarly, because our clear and distinct ideas flow from God, they must be true. Nevertheless, Descartes is quite clear that we should only ever take something to be true on the basis of reason. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, alerts us to the fact that there is more than one tradition of rationality. It is thus worth paying close attention to what Descartes means by reason. In his Discourse Descartes sets out the four principles according to which he conducted his search: 1. One must accept ideas that are presented to the mind so clearly and distinctly as to preclude doubt. The cogito is in this respect the first basic rational truth whose evidence is that of immediate intuitive certainty.[237] As with Galileo, Descartes seeks out the basic, selfintelligible elements from which everything else is to be explained. Ideas are true that are as clear and distinct as self-consciousness. For Descartes an idea is “clear” when it is intuitively present to the mind; an idea is “distinct” when it is clear in itself and precise in its determination. Innate ideas are those that are clear and distinct and whose evidence is not deduced from any others. 2. In any difficulty under examination, one must divide the problem into as many parts as possible and as necessary for its solution. 3. One must start with objects that are the easiest and simplest to know and then gradually ascend to knowing the more complex. 4. One must be so comprehensive as to ensure nothing is omitted. Indeed, Descartes argues that since the truth on any point is univocal, whoever apprehends the truth knows all that can be known on that point.
It follows from these principles that in relation to finite things, as much can be known as can be clearly and distinctly perceived. Here the mathematical dimension of Descartes’s philosophy comes to the fore as he distinguishes between quantitative determinations and sensuous-qualitative ones, which are unclear and confused. Genuinely scientific insight rests on intellectual knowledge and not on imagination, related to the sensuous. Such intellectual knowledge yields a dualism of substances that is central to Descartes’s philosophy: all that can be known scientifically is either of a spatial species or of conscious Being. Spatiality and consciousness (extension and thought) are the ultimate simple, original attributes of reality. The one is not the other. Bodies are real insofar as they are spatial-extension and motion. Bodies are parts of space, and empty space is thus impossible. All things are bodies or minds; these are finite, but God is infinite Being. Although Descartes was a Christian and has been seen in many ways as “profoundly Augustinian,”[238] his philosophy is revolutionary and in many ways unchristian. Indeed, William Temple described the day Descartes spent in an “oven” as the most disastrous day in the history of Europe.[239] Michael Buckley analyzes the shift brought about by Cartesianism in the rationality of our conception of God: “In their search for proof of the divine existence, the theologians had shifted from the god defined and disclosed in Christ and religious experience to the god disclosed in impersonal nature.”[240] Despite Descartes’s move to prove God’s existence after establishing the cogito, from a Christian perspective the damage was done. Now, knowledge of God depended on first establishing valid human knowledge. In time to come, Descartes’s Scholastic proof of God’s existence was abandoned, but his positioning of the autonomous self at the starting point and center of valid knowledge remained, as it does today. As Michael Buckley argues, it is this type of epistemology that is “at the origins of modern atheism”; it is one that Christians adopt at their peril. Charles Taylor refers to Descartes’s anthropology as one of the “disengaged self,” and Dooyeweerd asserts that “in conformity with the dualistic motive of nature and freedom, Descartes split human existence into two rigorously separated parts: the material body and the thinking soul. The ultimate ground of scientific certitude and, for that matter, of moral freedom, lay in consciousness, in the ‘I think.’”[241] Taylor rightly notes that with the idea of disengagement Descartes articulated one of the central ideas of modernity. The universe has to be understood mechanistically with the order of ideas embodied in knowledge being built rather than found or discovered. This construction of a representation of reality is intrinsically related to Descartes’s view of the human person: Coming to a full realization of one’s being as immaterial involves perceiving distinctly the ontological cleft between the two, and this involves grasping the material world as mere extension. The material world here includes the body, and coming to see the real distinction requires that we disengage from our usual embodied perspective, within which the ordinary person tends to see the objects around him as really qualified by colour or sweetness or heat, tends to think of pain or tickle as in his tooth or foot. We have to objectify the world, including our own bodies, and that means to come to see them mechanistically and functionally, in the same way that an uninvolved external observer would.[242] Here we see a major tenet of modernity emerging: lived experience is not to be trusted, but disengaged reason and science will tell us the truth about the world. As Taylor rightly notes, this “does violence to our ordinary, embodied way of experiencing.”[243] The result is a damaging reductionism, in which major elements of the rich creation are filtered out as unimportant or confused. As Taylor notes, “Of course, Augustine’s theism remains. . . . But on the human, natural level, a great shift has taken place. If rational control is a matter of mind dominating a disenchanted world of nature, then the sense of the superiority of the good life, and the inspiration to attain it, must come
from the agent’s sense of his own dignity as a rational being.”[244]

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

René Descartes René Descartes (1596 – 1650) telah disebut ayah dari modernitas karena komitmennya untuk alasan ilmiah otonom sebagai wasit final kebenaran. Seperti daging, Descartes percaya bahwa oleh ilmu pengetahuan manusia bisa menangkap hukum alam, dan dengan teknologi mereka bisa menerapkan undang-undang tersebut, untuk membuat manusia "Master dan pemilik alam" [230] dan penulis kemajuan itu sendiri. Untuk mewujudkan visi ini, dia juga menawarkan metode untuk membuat pengetahuan ketat objektif dan untuk memurnikan pikiran dari semua subjektif prasangka — Indra, imajinasi, emosi, tradisi, otoritas, dan pendapat. [231] di tengah-tengah perang agama Eropa, di mana ia ikut, Descartes mencari metode yang akan mengamankan tertentu pengetahuan-pengetahuan semacam itu disediakan oleh matematika, [232] di mana dia terlatih. Bukunya yang pertama adalah otobiografi ramping, intelektual yang berjudul wacana tentang metode dari benar melakukan alasan. Descartes menjelaskan bahwa ia tiba di metode di Jerman setelah menghabiskan hari di pengasingan di kamar dipanaskan oleh sebuah kompor. Ia meminta sebuah awal baru dan ingin, dalam kata-katanya, "membangun di lahan yang sepenuhnya milik saya." Maksudnya Archimedes adalah bahwa keraguan sistematis; untuk menemukan titik awal yang aman untuk pengetahuan, ia memutuskan untuk meragukan segala sesuatu yang ia dapat sampai ia menemukan apa yang dia tidak bisa diragukan. Melalui proses ini ia tiba di nya terkenal cogito, ergo sum: saya berpikir, karena itu aku. "Tetapi aku segera menyadari bahwa sementara aku dengan demikian berharap untuk berpikir semuanya palsu, itu selalu benar bahwa saya yang berpikir itu adalah sesuatu. Karena kebenaran ini, saya pikir, karena itu saya, adalah begitu tegas dan meyakinkan bahwa semua pengandaian paling mewah skeptis tidak mampu shake it, I judged that I could safely accept it as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.”[233] His point is that once all existence independent of thought is separated off, there remains a sphere of pure consciousness that cannot be doubted. Descartes’s solution is expressed in an architectural metaphor: methodological doubt is the solid foundation on which to build a structure of knowledge; therefore begin by doubting everything you think you know. On such a foundation you may build a solid edifice of knowledge by following a rational method, subjecting every truth claim to judgment by reason alone, and embracing as true only that which can be analyzed and measured in quantitative terms. Descartes immediately moves to prove the existence of God from this starting point, but ironically he uses the resources of Scholasticism.[234] For Descartes the fact that he doubted meant he was not perfect, but from where had he obtained this idea of perfection? “The only hypothesis left was that this idea was put in my mind by a nature that was really more perfect than I was . . . in a word, God.”[235] There was of necessity another, more perfect Being upon whom he depended and from whom he received all he possessed. Fundamental to Descartes’s philosophy is the distinction between body and mind (corporeal and incorporeal), and since a mixture of both is a sign of dependency, God must, as perfect, be incorporeal. Descartes compares his certainty of God’s existence to the way in which he knows that the sum of the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees: it is evident in the idea of a triangle, and “consequently, it is at least as certain that God, who is this Perfect Being, exists, as any theorem of geometry could possibly be.”[236] There is a circularity to Descartes’s starting point and his belief in God. He notes that even his principle that all the things that we clearly and distinctly perceive are true—an extension of his cogito, ergo sum—is only certain because God exists. Similarly, because our clear and distinct ideas flow from God, they must be true. Nevertheless, Descartes is quite clear that we should only ever take something to be true on the basis of reason. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, alerts us to the fact that there is more than one tradition of rationality. It is thus worth paying close attention to what Descartes means by reason. In his Discourse Descartes sets out the four principles according to which he conducted his search: 1. One must accept ideas that are presented to the mind so clearly and distinctly as to preclude doubt. The cogito is in this respect the first basic rational truth whose evidence is that of immediate intuitive certainty.[237] As with Galileo, Descartes seeks out the basic, selfintelligible elements from which everything else is to be explained. Ideas are true that are as clear and distinct as self-consciousness. For Descartes an idea is “clear” when it is intuitively present to the mind; an idea is “distinct” when it is clear in itself and precise in its determination. Innate ideas are those that are clear and distinct and whose evidence is not deduced from any others. 2. In any difficulty under examination, one must divide the problem into as many parts as possible and as necessary for its solution. 3. One must start with objects that are the easiest and simplest to know and then gradually ascend to knowing the more complex. 4. One must be so comprehensive as to ensure nothing is omitted. Indeed, Descartes argues that since the truth on any point is univocal, whoever apprehends the truth knows all that can be known on that point.It follows from these principles that in relation to finite things, as much can be known as can be clearly and distinctly perceived. Here the mathematical dimension of Descartes’s philosophy comes to the fore as he distinguishes between quantitative determinations and sensuous-qualitative ones, which are unclear and confused. Genuinely scientific insight rests on intellectual knowledge and not on imagination, related to the sensuous. Such intellectual knowledge yields a dualism of substances that is central to Descartes’s philosophy: all that can be known scientifically is either of a spatial species or of conscious Being. Spatiality and consciousness (extension and thought) are the ultimate simple, original attributes of reality. The one is not the other. Bodies are real insofar as they are spatial-extension and motion. Bodies are parts of space, and empty space is thus impossible. All things are bodies or minds; these are finite, but God is infinite Being. Although Descartes was a Christian and has been seen in many ways as “profoundly Augustinian,”[238] his philosophy is revolutionary and in many ways unchristian. Indeed, William Temple described the day Descartes spent in an “oven” as the most disastrous day in the history of Europe.[239] Michael Buckley analyzes the shift brought about by Cartesianism in the rationality of our conception of God: “In their search for proof of the divine existence, the theologians had shifted from the god defined and disclosed in Christ and religious experience to the god disclosed in impersonal nature.”[240] Despite Descartes’s move to prove God’s existence after establishing the cogito, from a Christian perspective the damage was done. Now, knowledge of God depended on first establishing valid human knowledge. In time to come, Descartes’s Scholastic proof of God’s existence was abandoned, but his positioning of the autonomous self at the starting point and center of valid knowledge remained, as it does today. As Michael Buckley argues, it is this type of epistemology that is “at the origins of modern atheism”; it is one that Christians adopt at their peril. Charles Taylor refers to Descartes’s anthropology as one of the “disengaged self,” and Dooyeweerd asserts that “in conformity with the dualistic motive of nature and freedom, Descartes split human existence into two rigorously separated parts: the material body and the thinking soul. The ultimate ground of scientific certitude and, for that matter, of moral freedom, lay in consciousness, in the ‘I think.’”[241] Taylor rightly notes that with the idea of disengagement Descartes articulated one of the central ideas of modernity. The universe has to be understood mechanistically with the order of ideas embodied in knowledge being built rather than found or discovered. This construction of a representation of reality is intrinsically related to Descartes’s view of the human person: Coming to a full realization of one’s being as immaterial involves perceiving distinctly the ontological cleft between the two, and this involves grasping the material world as mere extension. The material world here includes the body, and coming to see the real distinction requires that we disengage from our usual embodied perspective, within which the ordinary person tends to see the objects around him as really qualified by colour or sweetness or heat, tends to think of pain or tickle as in his tooth or foot. We have to objectify the world, including our own bodies, and that means to come to see them mechanistically and functionally, in the same way that an uninvolved external observer would.[242] Here we see a major tenet of modernity emerging: lived experience is not to be trusted, but disengaged reason and science will tell us the truth about the world. As Taylor rightly notes, this “does violence to our ordinary, embodied way of experiencing.”[243] The result is a damaging reductionism, in which major elements of the rich creation are filtered out as unimportant or confused. As Taylor notes, “Of course, Augustine’s theism remains. . . . But on the human, natural level, a great shift has taken place. If rational control is a matter of mind dominating a disenchanted world of nature, then the sense of the superiority of the good life, and the inspiration to attain it, must come from the agent’s sense of his own dignity as a rational being.”[244]

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 2:

René Descartes Rene Descartes (1596-1650) telah disebut sebagai bapak modernitas karena komitmennya untuk alasan ilmiah otonom sebagai wasit final kebenaran. Seperti Bacon, Descartes percaya bahwa dengan ilmu pengetahuan manusia bisa menangkap hukum alam, dan teknologi mereka bisa menerapkan hukum-hukum, untuk membuat manusia yang "master dan pemiliknya alam" [230] dan penulis kemajuan itu sendiri. Untuk mewujudkan visi ini, ia juga menawarkan sebuah metode untuk membuat pengetahuan ketat obyektif dan untuk memurnikan pikiran dari semua prasangka-of subjektif indra, imajinasi, emosi, tradisi, otoritas, dan opini. [231] Di tengah perang agama Eropa, di mana ia berpartisipasi, Descartes dicari metode yang akan mengamankan pengetahuan-pengetahuan tertentu dari jenis yang disediakan oleh matematika, [232] di mana ia dilatih. Publikasi pertamanya adalah ramping, otobiografi intelektual berjudul Wacana tentang Metode Benar Melakukan Alasan. Descartes menjelaskan bahwa ia tiba di metodenya di Jerman setelah menghabiskan hari di pengasingan di ruang dipanaskan oleh kompor. Ia mencari sebuah awal baru dan ingin, dalam kata-katanya, untuk "membangun di atas tanah milik sepenuhnya kepada saya." Titik Archimedean Nya adalah bahwa keraguan sistematis; untuk menemukan titik awal yang aman untuk pengetahuan, ia memutuskan untuk meragukan segala yang dia bisa sampai ia menemukan bahwa yang ia tidak bisa diragukan lagi. Melalui proses ini ia tiba di cogito terkenal, ergo sum: Saya berpikir, maka saya. "Tapi saya segera menyadari bahwa sementara saya sehingga ingin berpikir semuanya palsu, itu tentu benar bahwa saya yang berpikir begitu sesuatu. Sejak kebenaran ini, saya pikir, karena itu saya, begitu tegas dan yakin bahwa semua pengandaian yang paling boros skeptis tidak dapat
digoyahkan, saya menilai bahwa saya aman bisa menerimanya sebagai prinsip pertama filsafat yang saya cari. "[233] Maksudnya adalah bahwa setelah semua independen keberadaan pemikiran yang dipisahkan, tetap ada lingkup kesadaran murni yang tak perlu diragukan. Solusi Descartes dinyatakan dalam metafora arsitektur: diragukan metodologis adalah landasan yang kuat untuk membangun struktur pengetahuan; Oleh karena itu mulai dengan meragukan segala sesuatu yang Anda pikir Anda tahu. Pada dasar seperti Anda mungkin membangun bangunan yang kuat dari pengetahuan dengan mengikuti metode rasional, menundukkan setiap klaim kebenaran penilaian dengan alasan saja, dan merangkul sebagai hanya itu yang dapat dianalisis dan diukur secara kuantitatif yang benar. Descartes segera bergerak untuk membuktikan keberadaan Allah dari titik awal ini, tapi ironisnya ia menggunakan sumber daya dari Skolastik. [234] Untuk Descartes fakta bahwa ia meragukan berarti dia tidak sempurna, tapi dari mana telah ia memperoleh ide ini kesempurnaan? "Satu-satunya hipotesis tersisa adalah bahwa ide ini dimasukkan ke dalam pikiran saya oleh alam yang benar-benar lebih sempurna daripada aku. . . dalam kata, Tuhan. "[235] Ada kebutuhan lain, Menjadi lebih sempurna kepada siapa ia bergantung dan dari siapa ia menerima semua yang ia miliki. Mendasar filosofi Descartes adalah perbedaan antara tubuh dan pikiran (jasmani dan inkorporeal), dan karena campuran keduanya merupakan tanda ketergantungan, Allah harus, sempurna, menjadi inkorporeal. Descartes membandingkan kepastian tentang keberadaan Allah dengan cara di mana dia tahu bahwa jumlah sudut segitiga menambahkan hingga 180 derajat: itu adalah jelas dalam gagasan segitiga, dan "akibatnya, setidaknya sama tertentu yang Allah, yang adalah ini Menjadi Sempurna, ada, karena setiap teorema geometri mungkin bisa. "[236] Ada bundar ke titik awal Descartes dan keyakinannya pada Tuhan. Dia mencatat bahwa bahkan prinsip bahwa semua hal yang kita jelas dan jelas merasakan benar-perpanjangan dari cogito nya, ergo sum-hanya tertentu karena Tuhan ada. Demikian pula, karena ide-ide yang jelas dan berbeda kami mengalir dari Allah, mereka harus benar. Namun demikian, Descartes cukup jelas bahwa kita harus hanya pernah mengambil sesuatu untuk menjadi kenyataan atas dasar alasan. Alasdair MacIntyre, di Justice nya siapa? Yang Rasionalitas ?, mengingatkan kita pada kenyataan bahwa ada lebih dari satu tradisi rasionalitas. Dengan demikian layak memperhatikan dekat dengan apa yang berarti Descartes dengan alasan. Dalam karyanya Discourse Descartes menetapkan empat prinsip yang menurut dia dilakukan pencariannya: 1. Satu harus menerima ide-ide yang disampaikan kepada pikiran begitu jelas dan jelas untuk mencegah keraguan. Cogito tersebut dalam hal ini kebenaran rasional dasar pertama yang bukti bahwa kepastian intuitif langsung. [237] Seperti Galileo, Descartes berusaha keluar dasar, unsur selfintelligible dari mana segala sesuatu yang lain harus dijelaskan. Ide yang benar bahwa adalah sebagai jelas dan berbeda sebagai kesadaran diri. Untuk Descartes ide adalah "jelas" ketika intuitif hadir untuk pikiran; ide adalah "berbeda" ketika jelas dalam dirinya sendiri dan tepat dalam penentuannya. Ide bawaan adalah mereka yang jelas dan berbeda dan yang bukti tidak disimpulkan dari orang lain. 2. Dalam kesulitan di bawah pemeriksaan, salah satu harus membagi masalah menjadi beberapa bagian mungkin dan diperlukan untuk solusinya. 3. Satu harus dimulai dengan benda-benda yang paling mudah dan paling sederhana untuk mengetahui dan kemudian secara bertahap naik ke mengetahui lebih kompleks. 4. Salah satu harus begitu komprehensif untuk memastikan tidak ada yang dihilangkan. Memang, Descartes berpendapat bahwa karena kebenaran pada setiap titik adalah univocal, siapa pun mempersepsikan kebenaran tahu semua yang dapat diketahui pada saat itu.
Ini mengikuti dari prinsip-prinsip ini yang dalam kaitannya dengan terbatas hal, sebanyak dapat diketahui seperti dapat jelas dan jelas dirasakan. Berikut dimensi matematika filsafat Descartes datang ke permukaan saat ia membedakan antara penentuan kuantitatif dan kualitatif yang sensual-yang tidak jelas dan bingung. Wawasan ilmiah benar-benar bertumpu pada pengetahuan intelektual dan bukan pada imajinasi, terkait dengan sensual. Pengetahuan intelektual seperti menghasilkan dualisme zat yang merupakan pusat filsafat Descartes: semua yang dapat diketahui secara ilmiah adalah salah satu dari spesies spasial atau sadar Menjadi. Spasialitas dan kesadaran (ekstensi dan pikiran) adalah sederhana, atribut asli akhir dari realitas. Satu ini bukan yang lain. Tubuh yang nyata sejauh mereka spasial-ekstensi dan gerak. Tubuh adalah bagian dari ruang, dan ruang kosong dengan demikian tidak mungkin. Semua hal yang tubuh atau pikiran; ini terbatas, tetapi Allah adalah Wujud yang tak terbatas. Meskipun Descartes adalah seorang Kristen dan telah terlihat dalam banyak hal sebagai "sangat Augustinian," [238] filsafatnya yang revolusioner dan dalam banyak cara kristiani. Memang, William Temple dijelaskan hari Descartes menghabiskan dalam "oven" sebagai hari yang paling bencana dalam sejarah Eropa [239] Michael Buckley menganalisa pergeseran dibawa oleh Cartesianisme dalam rasionalitas konsepsi kita tentang Allah. "Dalam pencarian mereka untuk bukti keberadaan ilahi, para teolog telah bergeser dari dewa didefinisikan dan diungkapkan dalam Kristus dan pengalaman keagamaan untuk dewa diungkapkan di alam impersonal. "[240] Meskipun langkah Descartes untuk membuktikan keberadaan Allah setelah mendirikan cogito, dari perspektif Kristen kerusakan sudah terjadi. Sekarang, pengetahuan tentang Allah tergantung pada pertama membangun pengetahuan manusia yang valid. Dalam waktu yang akan datang, bukti Scholastic Descartes keberadaan Allah ditinggalkan, tapi posisi nya dari diri otonom di titik awal dan pusat pengetahuan yang valid tetap, seperti halnya hari ini. Seperti Michael Buckley berpendapat, itu adalah jenis epistemologi yang "asal-usul ateisme modern yang"; itu adalah salah satu yang Kristen mengadopsi pada bahaya mereka. Charles Taylor mengacu antropologi Descartes sebagai salah satu "terlepas diri," dan Dooyeweerd menegaskan bahwa "sesuai dengan motif dualistik alam dan kebebasan, Descartes membagi eksistensi manusia menjadi dua bagian ketat dipisahkan: tubuh material dan jiwa berpikir. Tanah utama kepastian ilmiah dan, dalam hal ini, kebebasan moral, berbaring dalam kesadaran, di 'saya pikir.' "[241] Taylor benar mencatat bahwa dengan ide pelepasan Descartes diartikulasikan salah satu ide sentral modernitas. Alam semesta harus dipahami secara mekanis dengan urutan ide-ide yang terkandung dalam pengetahuan yang dibangun daripada yang ditemukan atau ditemukan. Ini pembangunan representasi realitas secara intrinsik terkait dengan pandangan Descartes pribadi manusia: Datang ke realisasi penuh seseorang menjadi sebagai material melibatkan mempersepsikan jelas celah ontologis antara keduanya, dan ini melibatkan menangkap dunia material sebagai ekstensi belaka. Dunia materi di sini meliputi tubuh, dan datang untuk melihat perbedaan nyata mengharuskan kita melepaskan diri dari perspektif yang terkandung biasa kami, di mana orang biasa cenderung untuk melihat benda-benda di sekelilingnya sebagai benar-benar memenuhi syarat oleh warna atau manis atau panas, cenderung berpikir nyeri atau gatal seperti pada gigi atau kaki. Kita harus merealisasikan dunia, termasuk tubuh kita sendiri, dan itu berarti untuk datang untuk melihat mereka secara mekanis dan fungsional, dengan cara yang sama bahwa pengamat eksternal tidak terlibat akan [242] Di sini kita melihat prinsip utama dari modernitas muncul:. Pengalaman hidup tidak bisa dipercaya, tapi terlepas alasan dan ilmu pengetahuan akan memberitahu kita kebenaran tentang dunia. Seperti Taylor benar mencatat, ini "tidak kekerasan terhadap biasa, perjalanan diwujudkan mengalami." [243] Hasilnya adalah reduksionisme merusak, di mana unsur-unsur utama dari penciptaan kaya disaring sebagai tidak penting atau bingung. Sebagai catatan Taylor, "Tentu saja, teisme Agustinus tetap. . . . Tetapi pada manusia, tingkat alami, pergeseran besar telah terjadi. Jika kontrol rasional adalah masalah pikiran mendominasi dunia kecewa alam, maka rasa superioritas kehidupan yang baik, dan inspirasi untuk mencapai itu, harus datang
dari arti agen martabat sendiri sebagai makhluk rasional. "[ 244]