Plato, Descartes, Hume: Comparing Philosophical Giants

Plato: Combating Skepticism

Combating the skepticism and relativism of sophists. Theory of Ideas: Duality between the sensible and intelligible world. The soul (Psyche) as a tool to know the ideas of mathematics served. Division of the mind into three parts and the state into three classes. Parallelism between them. Preference for aristocracy as a form of government.

Similarities with Others

• The ideas coincide with the universal concepts of Socrates.
• Aristotle agrees with Plato in the mind of reason and the need to control instincts. Also coincides with aristocracy as the best form of government.
• Descartes agrees with Plato on the existence of reason as a source of knowledge.
• Plato is accused of communism by his approach to the Republic and therefore agrees with Marx.

Descartes: Principal Rationalist

Principal representative of rationalism. Need to find a single method common to all sciences and inspired by mathematics. Discovery of consciousness, the self (Cogito) as a principle undeniable. Demonstrating the existence of God as a complement to the existence of the Cogito. Dualism between mind (res cogitans) and extension (res extensa).

Agreements

Agrees with Plato on the existence of innate ideas and the role of reason in knowledge. Matches other rationalists (Leibniz and Spinoza), with the idealists (Kant and Hegel) and Popper, authors who attach great importance to reason. Augustine of Hippo can be considered a precursor of Descartes when he says, "Si fallor sum" (If I err, I am).

Hume: Champion of Empiricism

An attempt is made in the field of human sciences what Newton had done in the field of natural sciences. Principal representative of empiricism: Defender of the senses as a basis of knowledge and morality. Distinction between impressions and ideas. The empirical basis of science is in habit. The moral sense and justice are not based on reason.

Hume's Connections

Matches Locke and other empiricists. Among the former, we consider empiricist philosophers Aristotle and Epicurus. Agrees with Kant and Mill in the conventional nature of law and justice, also with their liberal ideas. Agrees with Kant that mathematics is independent of experience and therefore universal and necessary.