1001Philosophers

Plato vs Rene Descartes

Descartes is often described as the first modern philosopher, and one of the things this means is that his philosophy emerges in conscious distance from the Platonic-Aristotelian tradition that dominated medieval and Renaissance thought. The relation between Cartesian and Platonic foundations of knowledge is one of the central problems of early modern philosophy.

At a glance

PlatoRene Descartes
Dates428 BC – 348 BC1596 – 1650
NationalityGreekFrench
EraAncientModern
Movements Platonism, Ancient Greek Philosophy Rationalism, Early Modern Philosophy
Profile Plato → Rene Descartes →

Where they agree

Both held that genuine knowledge is the achievement of reason rather than of the senses, both held that the existence of God can be demonstrated by careful philosophical argument, and both treated the soul as essentially distinct from the body. Both wrote with mathematical rigor as a model and shaped the Western philosophical conception of what counts as a foundational philosophical text.

Where they disagree

Plato's epistemology is anamnesis: the soul's recollection of the eternal Forms it knew before its embodiment, with sensible particulars functioning as occasions for the recovery of pre-natal knowledge. Descartes rejected pre-existence and recollection: the foundation of knowledge is the cogito — the indubitable existence of the thinking self disclosed in the act of thinking — and from this the rest of certain knowledge is to be derived by careful chain of reasoning. Where Plato's knower returns to a knowledge already possessed, Descartes constructs knowledge from a present-moment epistemic foundation. The shift is decisive for the modern conception of the autonomous knowing subject.

Representative quotes

Plato

  • “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

    The beginning in every task is the chief thing.

  • “Philosophy begins in wonder.”

    155d, The Dialogues of Plato , Volume 3, 1871, p. 377

  • “I shall assume that your silence gives consent .”

    435b

Rene Descartes

  • “I think, therefore I am.”

    Je pense, donc je suis.

  • “If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”

    In order to seek truth, it is necessary once in the course of our life, to doubt, as far as possible, of all things.

  • “No doubt you know that Galileo had been convicted not long ago by the Inquisition, and that his opinion on the movement of the Earth had been condemned as heresy. Now I will tell you that all things I explain in my treatise , among which is also that same opinion about the movement of the Earth, all depend on one another, and are based upon certain evident truths. Nevertheless, I will not for the world stand up against the authority of the Church. ...I have the desire to live in peace and to continue on the road on which I have started.”

    Letter to Marin Mersenne (end of Feb., 1634) as quoted by Amir Aczel , Pendulum: Leon Foucault and the Triumph of Science (2003)

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