Descartes Epistemolojisinde Sezgi Kavramı'nın Yeri

Abstract

The knowledge of the mind, which is one of the criteria of true knowledge in the history of epistemology, is interpreted in various ways. It is the philosophers who make the intuitive path of the mind that we are interested in. While Plato argues that the state of noesis, which he describes as the highest state of mind, can only be reached with intuitive reason; Augustinus also places belief above knowledge and states that in order to believe in God, man must first know his own creation. According to Augustinus, only the intuitive mind gives the informational proof of one's self. Bergson, one of the recent philosophers, says that the truth can only be known for the duration that he describes as real time, and that we can only experience the duration with intuition. Descartes, who makes intuitive mind the guarantor of true knowledge constitutes our main subject. Descartes crosses all the information he doubts in order to reach the correct information. He gives up all the knowledge he knows, even the knowledge of his own self. So that only the fact that he doubted remains. Descartes proves the propositions 'I think as I doubt' and 'I think, therefore I am' based on the proposition ‘I cannot doubt that I doubt’. Reaching the proof of his own existence, Descartes proves the existence of God and then the existence of the external world based on this knowledge. Since man is a doubting and mistaken creature, he is not perfect, so his existence is insufficient in a way. This requires the existence of a more perfect being than man and that being, according to Descartes, is God. Descartes makes man and God the subject of metaphysics. While man has two different finite substances, soul and body, only God has an infinite substance. He begins his metaphysics from his own finite mind and reaches the infinite God. The importance of intuitive mind in Descartes intellectual process until he reaches God is our main subject of study.