I haven't read Descarte's work.
Someone once said when people were attempting to type him and more people were typing him a INTJ that he is probably a Ti user because his philosophy had a tendency to assume that if the sentence made sense (or the word) that it was probably what it accurate. Something like if it sounds logical enough it must be probably true. He said it in a very consise condescending manner. I couldn't stop myself from laughing.
Also people are so impressed with his whole "i think therefore I am'
COME ON.
I forgot the latin name for that but it's like saying I am alive on earth, therefore the universe has life in it.
We are alive on earth, therefore the universe can support life.
WOW. Brilliant insight man. Let's make thought experiments about a brain in a jar to show how brilliant it is.
As I was reading it my mind was going WTF every 5 minutes. They were 'nice' thought experiments but struck me as utterly pointless in what they were trying to demonstrate and ultimately easily falsifiable.
Of COURSE you have to have some kind of observer to state a fact. So he stated that his 'mind' was the observer and the rest of the world is falsifiable. By the same account I could state my mind is the observer and all he says is flying spagetti monster domain.
It's of course unfair to judge the guy based on current world knowledge, my point is that, while i understand what he was trying to do I expect that he at some level realized that by pushing his logic one step forward his whole argument would become meaningless as you could doubt and breakdown his argument about 'cogito ergo sum' using his own logic. So he made up a story about how the mind was 'special' hence it was under 'speshial rool' and therefore his whole shitty argument made sense instead of just realizing that there was no perfect answer to his questions and that his search for the perfect epistemological method was ultimately imperfect, as any epistemiology is bound to be.
I dislike him because instead of realizing it he suddenly made up stuff that made NO SENSE WHAT SO EVER. People only agreed to it because it fit their own biases and delusions about dualism, all abrahamic religions pretty much presupposing dualism.
So he got himself lots of fanboys because he was this enlightened man of logic who explained 'logically' why all the morons believing fairy tails were right.
While the very thing that got him all the fanboys was the one thing that to people who actually read him and had some ability to think for themselves the sign of his ultimate failure to 'love thought' over the protection of his fragile ego. He is a man who preached understanding the roots of knowledge to all but rooted his whole philosophy on the lies he told himself.
That animals were machines, that the soul existed etc. All based not on his theory, but on preexisting beliefs his whole body of works has no inkling off. Putting an unrelated belief at the end of a logical argument is just, wrong. (Thus spoke Ti)
I frankly would have to read through it again and take note of every 'wtf, LOGIC-MYOPIA' moments to give you details.
I do agree with you that he did seem to think that if the idea was pretty it meant it was right. Again I dont recall the details so couldn't say. I'm mostly left with an overarching memory of blue-screens-of-Ne-Ti-death in my mind and people making funny faces hearing me mumble insults to myself while listening to it in audio format going about my business
