The prospect of the first seminar provided me with a sense of nervousness and a feeling of not knowing what to expect. After waiting until 4 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, the anticipation was over and we entered the room for the two seminar papers to be read out.
As the seminar progressed I felt a feeling of calm as a I realised that perhaps I had understood more of the text than I had primarily thought, and that as ideas began to unfold I began to understand more about the progression of philosophy from the ideas of Plato and the cave and innate ideas shared by that of Rene Descartes, as well as dualism and exploration of proving god. However these points which were discussed within the group were still extremely useful and helped me to distinguish between the extremely contrasting ideas of different philosophers and how these ideas were allow philosophy to take to different branches.
The contrasting ideas of Machiavelli and Descartes appear to be very important, with Machiavelli using experience to suggest why he knows what he knows, with a sense of practicality in his work allowing him to come to conclusions, allowing him to learn ideas and gain knowledge. This idea seems more logical and I believe would have provided better results that the ideas of Descartes as Machiavelli’s ideas use modern ways of finding out information practically rather than basing them on instincts. Descartes however does just that with his innate ideas given to him by god at birth allowing him to know what he knows rather than finding it for himself through experience and therefore knowledge like that of Machiavelli.
This discussion of innate ideas then led to the discussion of Descartes controversial proving of god. As I have previously mentioned in my blog I disagree with his idea and that he just have easily disproven god. However I was presented with the idea expanding on this and increasing my opinion on this theory, that Descartes himself did not believe in god but had to prove his existence as his theory; breaking everything down, questioning the possibility that it is not real and instead a dream or a daemon’s trick rather than reality. Therefore as he was left with nowhere to continue this theory, as everything has a possibility that it may not be real and therefore by proving god as the thing which gave him these innate ideas, he could then expand his ideas by confirming his own existence, ‘I think therefore I am’. However despite this discussion I still feel that Machiavelli’s ideas provide more sense in the modern world concerning knowledge and finding out information.
That concluded the first seminar, with all the group leaving intact, full of a greater range of ideas and with more knowledge of the different philosophers theories, leading onto next week’s lecture and seminar concerning John Locke.
Good work. What was the semianr like - did every one chip in based on what they'd read (good), or was it a matter of listening to people reading out papers in silence (bad)?
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