René Descartes

philosopher · 15 mentions across 5 readings

In this course

Descartes' methodological doubt and foundational split between subject and object—the Cartesian cogito—haunts modern philosophy and structures how we think about knowledge, rationality, and the autonomous thinking agent that AI systems claim to model. In the course readings, his framework appears as both the ground to which computation aspires (the rationalized subject producing mathematizable knowledge) and the target of critique, with Žižek and others interrogating whether Cartesian subjectivity can even survive in posthuman or cybernetic contexts where the boundaries between thinking subject and thinking machine collapse. His elevation of systematic doubt and mathematical method thus becomes crucial for understanding how AI rhetoric inherits and transforms humanist epistemology.

Background

René Descartes was a French polymath, active across philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of science; theology; mathematics, in which he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry; science, including physics, optics, mechanics, cosmology, and meteorology; physiology; and medicine. He has been credited as the father of modern philosophy, particularly due to his transformation of methodology by introducing a systematic, method-based approach to pursuing knowledge.

Mentioned in 5 readings

Karen Barad

Agential Realism from Meeting the universe halfway_ quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning -Duke University Press (2007)

5

Niels Bohr won the Nobel Prize for his quantum model of the atom, which marks the beginning of his seminal contributions to the development of the quantum theory. Crucially, however, in a stunning reversal of his intellectual forefather’s s…Bohr’s break with Newton, Descartes, and Democritus is based not in “mere idle philosophical reflection” but on new empirical findings in the domain of atomic physics that came to light during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Boh…material practices) that effects an agential cut between “subject” and “object” (in contrast to the more familiar Cartesian cut which takes this distinction for granted). That is, the agential cut enacts a resolution within the phenomenon o…

+2 more

Jean Baudrillard

The evil demon of images, 1987

4

Consequently I do not think that one has to choose one way or another. What the text involves, simultaneously, is both provocation and analysis. There is a simultaneous requirement to give meaning to the text (analysis) and to also give an …J.B.: In the Cartesian project there is at least the inauguration of a rational principle. It is from this rational principle that the whole question of doubt arises. This doubt comes from the subject -- as subject of knowledge, as subject …is really just a product of the power of thought itself, which is itself totally anti-rational and anti-materialist. This is completely opposed to Descartes (whose rationalism leads eventually but directly to materialism). For me to invoke …

+1 more

Luciano Floridi

The Method of Levels of Abstraction

3

(2) Consider next an example of an ill-typed variable. Suppose we are interested in the roles played by people in some community; we could not introduce an observable standing for those beauticians who depilate just those people who do not …Definition A GoA is called disjoint if and only if the $Li$ are pairwise disjoint (i.e., taken two at a time, they have no observable in common) and the relations are all empty. It is called nested if and only if the only nonempty relations…Adequacy/validation and coherence/verification neither entail nor support naive realism. GoAs ultimately construct models of systems. They do not describe, portray, or uncover the intrinsic nature of the systems they analyse. We understand …

Isabel Millar

from The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence

2

that we arrive at the point of raising the question how to make the One into something that holds up, that is, that is counted without being. Mathematization alone reaches a real [...] a real that has nothing to do with what traditional kno…Vinge, V. (1993) The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era. Lewis Research Center, Vision 21: Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in the Era of Cyberspace: pp. 11–22. Žižek, S. (2020) Sex and the Fail…

Notes on Thinking Machine Imaginaries_ Llull

Leibniz, and Lovelace to 'Shoggoth with a Smiley Face'

1

Thinking Machine Imaginaries: Llull, Leibniz, and Lovelace to 'Shoggoth with a Smiley Face' SCOTT BENZEL JAN 20, 2025 Caption: Shoggoth with a Smiley Face annotated variant, 2023 (knowyourmeme.com) Figure text: Unsupervised Learning, Super…

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