Descartes asserts knowledge is done through experimentation using a scientifc method to removing opinions, and come up with a solution to conflicts. In the Discourse on Method, Descartes describes his unique style of reasoning, and makes clear that his main goal for writing is to solve epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. Similar to Socrates, Descartes sensory perceptions cause a false belief in the world around us, he believes one needs to be thinking on the intelligible level, however Descartes provides a different method to achieving this goal.
Descartes states his views on opinion saying that every human has the “power of judging well and of distinguishing the true from the false,” implying that everyone can be right (Descartes 1).
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However, the application of such reason is what makes people different, what Descartes calls “diversity of opinion” (Descartes 2). Descartes says with so many opinions, one must conclude that there is no truth (Descartes 4). Descartes then proposes his method where everyone will have agreement. Descartes strives to eliminate doubts and to know with only absolute certainty. If truth is something everyone agrees on then it is possible that everyone is agreeing on the wrong things. Descartes begins to explain that since we view everything from our senses and since our senses are subjected to error, how one can truly prove the existence of an object. Similar to how a stick in a cup of water can appear to be curved, but it is actually straight. With eliminating doubt through the use of his unique scientific method and leaving only fact, he attempts to prove how an object can exist outside of one’s mind. Descartes’ method would avoid all opinion and only give concrete answers removing all conflict. In order to come to this truth, this scientific method he created involves self-evident knowledge, theorems and axioms. One example of this is a square, there are only four side to a square and that can not be questioned. Descartes method of finding truth leaves no room for error. He creates several laws for himself to follow throughout his experiment. The First law is to not accept anything as true unless he can prove it with certainty. He does this to avoid jumping to conclusions. The Second is to divide the entire project into smaller parts, to look at each part clearly, and thoroughly. Third is to start with smaller easier objects and gradually work his way up toward bigger more complex objects. Fourth, and last law is to keep reviewing his progress to ensure he hasn’t missed anything (Descartes part 2). Descartes had a special interest in mathematical equations and uses this to solve for the theory of knowledge. He favors the geometric method of deductive axiomatic. The axiom positions is everything that is self-evidently true, and the theorems derived from the axiom position. This is used to build the foundation of the super structure. The foundation is crucial the structure, it has to be an undeniable truth without this the entire super structure would be vulnerable. The undeniable, axiomatic truth, is checked by his skeptical doubt. Descartes has three skeptical doubts he uses. First, Suspend belief in external world. Second suspend belief in reason, and third suspend belief in the deceiving god. The undeniable, self-evident truth is the foundation of the super structure, along with Cogito Ergo Sum, “I think, therefore I am” (Descartes 22).
Descartes major concern is what we can know to be actually real. This concern starts from a dream he has, in his dream he thinks he is actually awake, so when Descartes does wake up he begins to question reality. On page 75 and 76 he says “ But I had the persuasion that there was absolutely nothing in the world, that there was no sky and no earth, neither minds nor bodies; I was not, therefore, at the same time, persuaded that I did not exists? To solve this he tosses out all emotions and reasons to try to figure out what actually exists. He starts himself on this hyperbolic doubt, increasing levels of doubt, meaning he continues to doubt himself until what he is left with is Cogito Ergo Sum. . Cogito Ergo Sum is being aware of disembodied thinking. He uses this as proof of his existence, because having thought, whether wrong or right, is proof that one does exist.
Descartes knows that with the mathematical theory everything in the mind is self-evident. However, the more outside of the mind something is the greater the challenge it is to know something is self-evident then when it is visibly seen, and out of the mind. This is what he is explaining when he says “I readily discover that there is nothing more easily or clearly apprehended than my own mind” (Descartes 83). This stems his idea to create the mathematical superstructure. To think about something quantifiably is think of something
mathematically. There are two dimension, Res Cogitan, the foundation. Res Cogitan is the mind and Res Exstensa, the superstructure, is the body. These two dimensions are divided they are impossible to observe both except for God. Descartes makes the appeal to God to see on both sides of the wall. The Res Cogitan is the most self-evident and is not a physical thing. The Res Exstensa, however is a quantity, and is a physical object, everything outside of the mind. Episode of thinking of the Res Exstensa objects, bodies’ materials divided into experience. From there he creates the quantitate wax example. Through this example he attempts to prove that mind and body are two separate distinct things. He claims the nature of the wax is perceived by the mind alone. The two dimensions making up the Cogito Ergo Sum are Res Cogitan and the Res Exstensa. The principle of self-evidence, Res Cogitan is a thinking thing, like the mind. Cogito Ergo Sum is activity within the Res Cogitan. It is not an object one can see or touched. Res Exstensa however, is a physical object, like the body. The wax, when it is a solid has size, shape and a scent, these are its secondary qualities. The primary qualities are real, they are flexible, mutable, and it is a quantity. These primary qualities of the wax remain the same, as a solid and when they are melted down. The secondary qualities however, do change after being melted down. The wax can be thought of as an interior conscious, knowing the wax is an inspection of the mind. He uses the wax example to learn and understand the contents of outside his mind, it helps to explain the things visible that are not self-evident. To know the wax is to look at it as a quantity, because quantity is a part of his mathematical equation creating definitive proof. When the wax melts, it shows the reality of how things truly are, eliminating uncertainty. Descartes doubts the real and what is not real sends him on this journey to prove the existence of objects outside of his mind. Descartes creates the theory that he can only know with absolute certainty that everything inside his mind is real and that everything outside of his mind is not self-evident. Through this he doubts not only every object in existence but also his own existence until he creates the theory of Cogito Ergo Sum, “I think therefore I am”. Through the uses of the superstructure and self-evident truth he attempts to create a mathematical explanation for everything within existence.
At the start of the meditation, Descartes begins by rejecting all his beliefs, so that he would not be deceived by any misconceptions from reaching the truth. Descartes acknowledges himself as, “a thing that thinks: that is, a thing that doubts, affirms, denies, understands a few things, is ignorant of many things” He is certain that that he thinks and exists because his knowledge and ideas are both ‘clear and distinct’. Descartes proposes a general rule, “that whatever one perceives very clearly and very distinctly is true” Descartes discovers, “that he can doubt what he clearly and distinctly perceives is true led to the realization that his first immediate priority should be to remove the doubt” because, “no organized body of knowledge is possible unless the doubt is removed” The best probable way to remove the doubt is prove that God exists, that he is not a deceiver and “will always guarantee that any clear and distinct ideas that enter our minds will be true.” Descartes must remove the threat of an invisible demon that inserts ideas and doubts into our minds to fool us , in order to rely on his ‘clear and distinct’ rule.
Through Descartes’s Meditations, he sought to reconstruct his life and the beliefs he had. He wanted to end up with beliefs that were completely justified and conclusively proven. In order to obtain his goal, Descartes had to doubt all of his foundational beliefs so that he could start over. This left Descartes doubting the reality of the world around him and even his own existence. In order to build up to new conclusively proven and justified true beliefs, Descartes needed a fixed and undeniable starting point. This starting point was his cogito, “I think, therefore I am.” In this paper I will argue that Descartes’s argument that he is definite of his own existence, is unsound.
Baird and Kaufmann, the editors of our text, explain in their outline of Descartes' epistemology that the method by which the thinker carried out his philosophical work involved first discovering and being sure of a certainty, and then, from that certainty, reasoning what else it meant one could be sure of. He would admit nothing without being absolutely satisfied on his own (i.e., without being told so by others) that it was incontrovertible truth. This system was unique, according to the editors, in part because Descartes was not afraid to face doubt. Despite the fact that it was precisely doubt of which he was endeavoring to rid himself, he nonetheless allowed it the full reign it deserved and demanded over his intellectual labors. "Although uncertainty and doubt were the enemies," say Baird and Kaufmann (p.16), "Descartes hit upon the idea of using doubt as a tool or as a weapon. . . . He would use doubt as an acid to pour over every 'truth' to see if there was anything that could not be dissolved . . . ." This test, they explain, resulted for Descartes in the conclusion that, if he doubted everything in the world there was to doubt, it was still then certain that he was doubting; further, that in order to doubt, he had to exist. His own existence, therefore, was the first truth he could admit to with certainty, and it became the basis for the remainder of his epistemology.
Descartes assured his existence through the conviction of "Cogito, ergo sum" which translates into “I think therefore I am” (Popkin & Stroll 198). In order to question ones existence one must exist, non-existence cannot question itself. I know that my mind exists because I am here to question its existence. To concretize this idea, imagine a house and you are building a house on ground which you see. The house is built out of wood, metal, and earth on the ground. Does the house exist because of the materials used to build it or because your mind tells you that it exists? Well based on Descartes, there are no such things as wood or metal in reality because the only thing that is real is the mind itself and the built house is a figment of your mind to what you perceive as real better known as an illusion. Therefore all that we sense is an illusion and everything outside the mind is uncertain of existence. Furthermore this leads to the ...
In his work, Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes narrates the search for certainty in order to recreate all knowledge. He begins with “radical doubt.” He asks a simple question “Is there any one thing of which we can be absolutely certain?” that provides the main question of his analysis. Proceeding forward, he states that the ground of his foundation is the self – evident knowledge of the “thinking thing,” which he himself is.
In the New Merriam Webster Dictionary, sophism is defined as a plausible but fallacious argument. In Rene Descartes Meditation V, he distinguishes the existence of God, believing he must prove that god exists before he can examine any corporeal objects outside of himself. By proving that the existence of God is not a sophism, he also argues that God is therefore the Supreme Being and the omnipotent one. His conclusion that God does exist enables him to prove the existence of material things, and the difference between the soul and the body.
Unlike one of empiricism’s major tenets, Tabula Rasa, or blank slate, Descartes believed that the mind was not a blank slate, but actually came pre-loaded, if you will, with ideas, which are part of our rational nature and that our rational nature allows us to grasp . Descartes begins his journey deep within his own mind by claiming that all truths can be conceived by thinking about them. He calls his method cogito or pure reasoning. His famous words “I think, therefore I am,” describes the way that he thinks the mind is the true reality with the rest of reality being an extension. His example to prove thi...
Descartes’ first two Meditations are arguably the most widely known philosophical works. Because of this, one can make the error of assuming that Descartes’ method of doubt is self-evident and that its philosophical implications are relatively minor. However, to assume this would be a grave mistake. In this paper, I hope to spread light on exactly what Descartes’ method of doubt is, and how, though it furnishes challenges for the acceptance of the reality of the external world, it nonetheless does not lead to external world skepticism.
...as finally able to reach a conclusion that the imagination can be trusted. It was through his examination of the senses and the self that Descartes was able to reach a definitive answer. His doubts and questioning led him to the only plausible answer, that to some extent we require the imagination for it is part of our nature.
Descartes thinks that we have a very clear and distinct idea of God. He thinks God must exist and Descartes himself must exist. It is a very different way of thinking shown from the six meditations. Descartes uses ideas, experiments, and “proofs” to try and prove God’s existence.
In Meditations on First Philosophy, it is the self-imposed task of Descartes to cast doubt upon all which he knows in order to build a solid foundation of knowledge out of irrefutable truths. Borrowing an idea from Archimedes, that with one firm and immovable point the earth could be moved, Descartes sought one immovable truth. Descartes' immovable truth, a truth on which he would lay down his foundation of knowledge and define all that which he knows, was the simple line "Cogito ergo sum": I think, therefore I am. This allowed for his existence.
Descartes is clearing away all knowledge that can be called into doubt. By doing this he hopes to create something real and lasting in the sciences, a foundation to build on. This indisputable fact will become the starting point or origin of all other true knowledge he can build upon it. He starts the first argument by attacking the very beginning of knowledge, human senses. Descartes states, "Surely whatever I had admitte...
Through his Meditations, especially in Meditation Two, Rene Descartes strives to prove the idea that the progress of science is not able to be proved thoroughly without an orderly, precise method. Meditation Two is subtitled “The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body”, and this is where Descartes clearly claims to have shown three significant things: that he cannot be led astray about his own existence, that he is a rational, thinking thing that is distinct from his body, both of which lead him back to the Cogito ergo sum statement. Firstly, Descartes ponders about the idea that what he sees does not exist, and that he has no direct senses and no body. He notes that the physical world does not exist, and this leads him to recall Archimedes’, a famous Greek engineer, mathematician, and physicist, by saying: “Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakeable”. This portrays that Descartes is firm in his decision to continue his search for all things certain in the world and discard any false evidence that he finds, showing that he believes that in the path to greatness he cannot be led
He realized that he knew nothing for certain except for the fact that he was thinking, which proved that he existed; "Cogito Ergo Sum." "Descartes argues that all ideas that are as clear and distinct as the Cogito must be true, for, if they were not, then Cogito also, as a member of the class of clear and distinct ideas, could be doubted" (Walting). Descartes theorized that each person has an innate idea of a perfect being.
Descartes argue that the very moment he begins to doubt about his own existence, he initiates the process of thinking in which proves he does exist as a thinking thing (Descartes 4). This marks the first step to certain knowledge and is referred as the Cogito (Warriner 18). Descartes is certain about Cogito because it is clear and distinct. Descartes sets the minimum standard for the level of certainty arising is when the mind's perception is both clear and distinct (Descartes 10). In order for a person to have knowledge, it has to be clear and distinct.