Rene Descartes On Belief Without Evidence

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Belief is something that everyone has, whether it is regarding religion, opinions, or judgements. People believe in something. The main question is why do people believe? There has been constant debates on beliefs and if they should have sufficient evidence before they start believing in them. Many people, like Philosopher Blaise Pascal, who believe that beliefs do not need evidence. Pascal reasons that people should blinding believe, even if they do not have the evidence to prove it. However, there are people like William K. Clifford who propose the opposite. Clifford states that there are certain beliefs that require adequate evidence. Evidence is extremely important and definitely required for beliefs to be accepted. Adequate evidence …show more content…

Descartes is a philosopher who usually follows skepticism. He believes his knowledge in terms of doubt. According to descartes, the knowledge of objects comes from the mind, not from senses. Descartes believes that “our senses give us impressions that can be misleading but our minds associate sets of impressions (even misleading ones) with objects” (Philosophy Demystified 81). In other words, how we know things is because of past impressions that stick to us. However, he also says that because of this past impression, they can sometimes lead us to the wrong thing or be portrayed in the wrong way. This idea is similar to the shipowner who was unsure of the safe passage in Clifford’s analogy. The shipowner believes that the ship is good to sail from “past impressions” which was a misleading impression. He concluded that since the ship has made many safe journeys that it will survive another safe journey. This conclusion was wrong since it that had caused many deaths of the people who traveled on the ship. Continuing onto Descartes statement about doubt, the shipowner first doubted the safety of the ship but used past impressions to calm his doubts. Descartes claims that doubt is needed in order to obtain the truth and knowledge. In order for beliefs to be accepted, one should doubt it and question the reasoning behind it before believing it. The shipowner did the opposite, he had doubts and used past impressions to justify his

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