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Objections to descartes
Objections to descartes
Descartes doubt method
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Descartes
In this essay, I will explain Descartes’ central method of doubt to investigate the truth of things, in which he wanted to be critical and generated four rules that he would use as guidance. With his method, he suspends judgment and prejudices to obtain better results. Descartes argues that despite syllogisms has truth in logic, it still has something defective, which is predominantly the multiplicity of rules. These rules might bring immorality and confusion, thus prevent him for arriving at the knowledge of things because it might bring more doubt than truth.
At the beginning of the creation of his method, Descartes looks for a method of reason that would be free of the defects of logic, however, he still sought his method to have some features of the sciences - geometry, logic and, algebra- with the exclusion of their defects of course. Descartes’ curiosity to find a method, where he could be certain of the truth of things, led him not to think of a logic like Peter of Spain’s because he knew that his logic has some flaws in its reasoning, especially the multiplicity of rules in logic. Descartes was really worried about the diversity and large number of rules in logic due to the fact that this leads to confusion and immorality. He claims that having fewer laws or rules are more observable, meaning that one can analyze those rules more precisely and careful than if we would have a large number of them.
Descartes makes clear that the defect of multiplicity of rules and laws in logic needs to be avoided. He claims that anything that is created by single effort is more perfect than those things made by collective efforts. An analogy to this example, he uses, are the rules of God that are so perfect because he has cre...
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...the way that we use to show that this argument is not possible to be invalid rather than trying to show it is valid is what Peter of Spain refers to reduction. This is really a type of conversion like the previous examples, where we modify the terms in premises. The process of reduction happens in the moods of the figures. The Letters, B C D F, and consonants S P M C, are really the key concepts for reduction. One example of reduction may be with the work FAPESMO:
Here, from figure 1:
A= Every terrorist is a male
E = No policemen is a terrorist
O= Therefore, a-certain male is not a policemen
We reduce to figure 2 by simple conversion:
A= Every male is a terrorist.
E= No policemen is a terrorist.
O= Therefore, a-certain male is not a policemen.
A reduction is a form to change a syllogism into another form of figure from the figure of the syllogism.
By providing a base argument and the implications of
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.
This paper is intended to explain and evaluate Descartes' proof for the existence of god in Meditation Three. It shall show the weaknesses in the proof, but also give credit to the strengths in his proof. It will give a background of what Descartes has already accepted as what he truly knows. The paper will also state Descartes two major points for the existence of God and why the points can easily be proven false. The paper will also show that if a God does exist that God can in fact be an evil deceiver. The paper will also show that the idea of a perfect being cannot be conceived by an imperfect being.
Philosophers are inclined to evaluate arguments carefully. This page is aimed to help students analyze the complex elements of Descartes' proof into simpler parts and to provide some explanation of how those work, so that the student may grasp the nat ure of the proof and thus be in a much better position to give a reasoned evaluation of it. Such an exercise is both interesting and useful in itself, and also helps the student understand philosophical machinery which Descartes puts...
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.
He has two forms of ideas; formal reality which he perceived as the kind of reality that really exists and objective reality which is reality as seen in ideas. According to Descartes, our union among our ideas hold true only when they correlate to how the world actually is. Therefore, the true reality depends on h...
In Descartes’ second meditation, he offers up an argument for Defective Nature Doubt that brings forth the idea that we can’t be certain of anything we perceive being actual and real (153). Descartes thinks that there is a possibility that we are constantly being deceived due to the fact that we don’t know, with perfect certainty, know where our ideas originate from (154). He tries to describe a method in order to dispel this Defective Nature Doubt by giving an argument for the existence of God. I think that the argument he gives for the existence of God is valid, yet I find it to be unsound due to the fact that a few of his premises are can easily be debated. In order to express this opinion, I will first provide explanations of the premises and conclusions of the argument, and then I will critique the premises that I find to be inadequate in order to support my opinion that Descartes’ argument is valid but unsound.
One of Rene Descartes’ major culminations in Meditations on First Philosophy is “I must finally conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward by me or conceived in my mind” (Descartes:17). This statement can be explicated by examining Descartes’ Cartesian method of doubt and his subsequent discovery of basic truths. Even though I do believe that Descartes concludes with a statement that is accurate: cogito ergo sum, there are areas of his proof that are susceptible to defamation. These objections discover serious error with Descartes’ method used in determining the aforementioned conclusion.
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.
Rene Descartes decision to shatter the molds of traditional thinking is still talked about today. He is regarded as an influential abstract thinker; and some of his main ideas are still talked about by philosophers all over the world. While he wrote the "Meditations", he secluded himself from the outside world for a length of time, basically tore up his conventional thinking; and tried to come to some conclusion as to what was actually true and existing. In order to show that the sciences rest on firm foundations and that these foundations lay in the mind and not the senses, Descartes must begin by bringing into doubt all the beliefs that come to him by the senses. This is done in the first of six different steps that he named "Meditations" because of the state of mind he was in while he was contemplating all these different ideas. His six meditations are "One:Concerning those things that can be called into doubt", "Two:Concerning the Nature of the Human mind: that it is better known than the Body", "Three: Concerning God, that he exists", "Four: Concerning the True and the False", "Five: Concerning the Essence of Material things, and again concerning God, that he exists" and finally "Six: Concerning the Existence of Material things, and the real distinction between Mind and Body". Although all of these meditations are relevant and necessary to understand the complete work as a whole, the focus of this paper will be the first meditation.
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.
Rene Descartes’ natural light is his saving grace, and not Achilles’ heel. Descartes incorporates the concept of natural light within his epistemology in order to establish the possibility of knowing things completely without doubt. In fact whatever is revealed to the meditator via the natural light is considered to be indefeasible. The warrant for the truth of these ideas does not rely on experience or the senses. Rather the truth of the idea depends on viewing the concept through clear and distinct perception. Descartes’ “I am, I exist”, (Med. 2, AT 7:25) or the ‘cogito’ is meant to serve as the basis for knowing things through clear and distinct perception. Descartes’ cogito is the first item of knowledge, although one may doubt such things as the existence of the body, one cannot doubt their ability to think. This is demonstrated in that by attempting to doubt one’s ability to think, one is engaging in the action of thought, thus proving that thinking is immune to doubt. With this first item of knowledge Descartes can proceed with his discussion of the possibility of unshakeable knowledge. However, Descartes runs into some difficulty when natural light collides with the possibility of an evil genie bent on deceiving the meditator thus putting once thought concrete truths into doubt. Through an analysis of the concept of natural light I
In conclusion, the initiation in philosophy of methodological scepticism will constitute, after Descartes, becoming the obsessive theme of reflection of modern philosophy. Descartes’ mediations are the ones which expose the results of metaphysics based on principles. For the building of this philosophy those principles must be absolute certain. Descartes realises this and doubts all his previous knowledge, not to reach a sceptical conclusion but to find absolute certain elements beyond doubt, allowing him to find the foundation on which he can build the rest of his thinking.
Descartes’ discussion begins in saying that “errors depend on the simultaneous concurrence of two causes: the faculty of knowing that is in me and the faculty of choosing” (Descartes p.38). I will first tackle the faculty of knowing, or intellect. Descartes says that it merely perceives and understands ideas, which can later have judgment passed on them (see Descartes p.38). The intellect is limited and finite because it can occur in different degrees. While some people have a simple understanding of a language others have a mastery of its grammar and syntax. But no one can have a mastery of all the mysteries of the universe.
...ll true knowledge is solely knowledge of the self, its existence, and relation to reality. René Descartes' approach to the theory of knowledge plays a prominent role in shaping the agenda of early modern philosophy. It continues to affect (some would say "infect") the way problems in epistemology are conceived today. Students of philosophy (in his own day, and in the history since) have found the distinctive features of his epistemology to be at once attractive and troubling; features such as the emphasis on method, the role of epistemic foundations, the conception of the doubtful as contrasting with the warranted, the skeptical arguments of the First Meditation, and the cogito ergo sum--to mention just a few that we shall consider. Depending on context, Descartes thinks that different standards of warrant are appropriate. The context for which he is most famous, and on which the present treatment will focus, is that of investigating First Philosophy. The first-ness of First Philosophy is (as Descartes conceives it) one of epistemic priority, referring to the matters one must "first" confront if one is to succeed in acquiring systematic and expansive knowledge.