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 But this carpenter was isolated from anything but justice and virtue from birth, making it impossible that he would act unjustly. Does this mean that Socrates' justice is simply doing what you are told? Socrates himself acknowledges that this argument will not hold in Book 1 of The Republic.
Descartes was a rationalist. Like many philosophers, novelists, and poets of his time, he questioned his own existence, and his reason for being, man's purpose in the scheme of the universe. Descartes set forth a number of philosophical trends. The questions he asks is where do I fit? Decartes was concerned with how we come to ourselves, our identity. He wished to discover truths where there could be no doubt. He believed in a dualism of mind and body, that they were two separate parts. This allowed him to uncover the only truth he could not deny "I think, therefore I am." In Philosophy Now, Paula Rothenberg Struhl and Karsten J. Struhl claim: However, Descartes argues that there is one thing that is absolutely certain. I cannot doubt the existence of the self that has these doubts. Thus, for Descartes, "I think, therefore I am" is the fundamental axiom from which all philosophy must begin. The "I" that thinks is defined simply as a thinking thing, and from this, it follows that the essential nature of the self is the mind, as distinct from the body. (Struhl, Paula Rothenberg, and Struhl Karsten J., editors, Philosophy Now. Random House: 1980, P. 87)
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