Rene Descartes Fallacy

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Descartes ' Meditation is definitely quite the read. It was me wonder whether Descarte was a crazy man who actually influenced the world of philosophy. The reason I give Descarte the title of crazy, is because it is said that only the crazy ones who happen to change the world for the better. Descarte begins the Meditations on First Philosophy, by how he has questioned what has been deemed to be true by questioning the basic foundations these beliefs were built upon, because surely they were not true if certainty did not exist like that in certain disciplines; arithmetic, geometry, and similar disciplines. Descarte continues by telling us about his procrastination period hence leaving the question whether his basic beliefs which are the foundation to many other are indeed part of a fallacy. While reading Descartes publication, I interpreted a little differently then …show more content…

Bouwsma questions Descartes ' support and thought process of an evil demon tricking us and comes to the conclusion that Descartes explanation is confusing, thus Bouwsma creates a situation to prove his point. The first scenario is that one of an illusion and deception but one that can eventually be seen as an illusion. He uses the example of flowers in a vase that are later proven to be of paper, resulting in him discovering that everything is made of paper, from afar this was an illusion. The fictional character used may have experienced the illusion, but he eventually realized that it is an illusion. An eventual illusion is something we experience constantly, but Bouwsma used this to show that we have a conceptual understanding of what things are and can often differentiate what is an illusion; I do not entirely believe this to be the case in our current world, due to conformity and attempted validation, but that is just my

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  • The Intent of Bouwsma's Descartes' Evil Genius

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    Bouwsma's essay critiques Descartes' use of the evil demon in his Meditations on First Philosophy through the creation of two situations in which the "evil genius" attempts to use his powers for their express purpose, that of deception. Bouwsma conveniently admits the existence of "four or five clear and distinct ideas" and goes on to show that the evil genius is capable of deceiving mankind about everything else, specifically sensory perceptions. Bouwsma's main point in taking this approach is to express his view that Descartes' hypothesis that one might be deceived by an evil demon is incoherent. Bouwsma's second "adventure" is supposed to indicate that once there becomes no way for one to distinguish between reality and illusion, the illusion becomes reality. This suggests that Descartes' supposition that our senses are always mistaken is in itself a form of trickery, because what one can hold, see, touch, smell, and so forth is reality, no matter whether the progenitor of the "illusion" is the evil demon or God.

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