Some philosophers, like John Locke, took issue with specific aspects of Descartes’ proposal. Locke rejected Descartes’ view that our basic beliefs consist in innate ideas from which we deduce other beliefs. He argued that the foundation of human knowledge lies in sense experiences that are observations from the world. His system is known as empiricism, which is the view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. However, most thinkers, despite some disagreements of other particulars readily adopted Descartes’ desire to establish some type of sure foundation for human knowing.[ref]Stanley J. Grenz and John R. Franke. Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context. 32.[/ref]
Brueggemann suggests that the outcomes of the work of Descartes are threefold:
- There was a new model of knowledge grounded in objectivity, and capable of providing a new epistemological security to replace that which was lost in the dissolution of the Medieval worldview.
- There was a new model of knowledge grounded in objectivity, and capable of providing a new epistemological security to replace that which was lost in the dissolution of the Medieval worldview.
- A “Cartesian masculinization of thought and the flight from the feminine.” [ref]Walter Brueggemann. Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination. 32.[/ref]
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