Descartes

As I previously learned about Descartes, his goal was to methodically doubt everything to then be able to rebuild ideas and philosophies with the correct mode of thinking.

His methodic doubt is outlined as follows.

He was to never accept anything as true if he did not have evident knowledge of its truth; that is, carefully to avoid precipitate conclusions and preconceptions, and to include nothing more in his judgments than what presented itself to his mind so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it.

The second, to divide each of the difficulties he examined into as many parts as possible and as may be required in order to resolve them better.

Thirdly, to direct his thoughts in an orderly manner, by beginning with the simplest and most easily known objects in order to ascend little by little, step by step, to knowledge of the most complex, and by supposing some order even among objects that have no natural order of precedence.

Finally, to make enumerations so complete, and reviews so comprehensive, that he could be sure he was not leaving anything out.

Descartes uses skepticism as a vehicle to motivate his reader to discover by way of philosophical investigation what constitutes this ground.

The book is made up of six meditations, in which Descartes first discards all belief in things which are not absolutely certain, and then tries to establish what can be known for sure.

Descartes begins the first meditation by noting the large number of false beliefs which he had adopted in his childhood. He realizes it is necessary to start over entirely if he wants to establish anything in the sciences which is firm and will endure. Descartes' goal вЂ" as stated at the beginning of the meditation вЂ" is to suspend judgment about any of his beliefs which are even slightly doubtful. The skeptical scenarios show that all of the beliefs which he considers in the first meditation, including at the very least all of his beliefs about the physical world, are doubtful. In order to do this, he will wipe out judgment about any of his beliefs which are in any way uncertain. He will henceforth give up all of his beliefs about the physical world.To inspect each belief separately would take too long; he must find some way to undermine all of his beliefs at once. Basically if any part of the whole is in doubt then he has reason to doubt in entirety. He compares himslef to people plagued by insanity and how their thoughts are real to them. How can he be sure that his perceptions are in fact real? This is very difficult. At the end of the first meditation Descartes compares himself to a prisoner who enjoys an imaginary freedom while asleep, and dreads waking. In the same way Descartes slips back into his old beliefs, and dreads waking to toil "amid the inextricable darkness of the problems [he has] now raised."

The first way that Descartes tries to undermine his beliefs is by considering the fact that he remembers that his senses have deceived him before. If he has been misled by sensory information in the past (e.g. he judged that the stick in the water was bent, when in fact it was straight), then he may be deceived now, "and it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been decieved.”

It seems that his thourghout his entire work of the Meditations, Descartes intends to lead us along with him gradually. He begins with skepticism and attempts to offer a solution.

Descartes mentions two distinct dream-related skeptical doubts. The one doubt undermines the judgment that one is presently awake. The other doubt undermines the judgment that one is ever awake (i.e., in the way normally supposed).

The Always Dreaming Doubt raises the possibility of universal delusion: it is possible (for all I Know) that all my sensory experiences are delusions (say, from a God's-eye perspective). In either case, dreaming related doubts are supposed to help clarify that external sense, per se, is incapable of grounding Knowledge of external things.

Descartes admits that he cannot be sure that God is not playing some sort of trick on him. However, because he believes that God is good, he knows that God would not deliberately deceive him. Therefore, to rebuild his knowledge on the basis of doubt, he decides to pretend that a “malignant demon” is bent on tricking him. This powerful demon has created the illusions of the physical world to deceive him. With this in mind, Descartes sets out to prove, using only reason, that some things are beyond doubt.

In my opinion Descaertes subtly contradicts himself. His methodic doubt of every thought and everything around him are arbitrary to his firm belief in God. He ends by saying that God would not deceive us, but how can we be so sure. We are holding that belief based on faith and not on certainty.

If he also firmly believes in a God he could have also brought up that fact that maybe it is not God deceiving us, but the devil.

The Second Meditation is subtitled "The nature of the human mind, and how it is better known than the body" and takes place the day after the First Meditation. The Meditator is firm in his resolve to continue his search for certainty and to discard as false anything that is open to the slightest doubt. He recalls Archimedes' famous saying that he could shift the entire earth given one immovable point: similarly, he hopes to achieve great things if he can be certain of just one thing. Recalling the previous meditation, he supposes that what