n Stuart
Dr. Dadlez
Modern Philosophy
(Date)
Uncertainty In the rationalist camp, philosopher Rene Descartes sought to refute skepticism by doubting all of which he had formerly believed to be true. While this methodology might strike some as counterintuitive it appears to work for Descartes. Descartes’ six meditations provide a compelling account of what lengths a person can go to in questioning everything, including one’s existence. In his quest for knowledge Descartes begins in a secluded place, presumably to contemplate and begin writing. The opening statements key in on what will be the main focus of mediations one and two. Descartes says, “And thus I realized that once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again
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His argument is based around the idea that the senses have deceived us before, and therefore one should not trust them. For example, when one looks at a distant object, it appears to be much smaller than when it is viewed from up close. However as Descartes testifies, these same senses are also the ones that, when used properly, lead us to correct our misperceptions and lead us to those beliefs which “one simply cannot doubt” (Descartes 41). Thus it would seem that although the senses are prone to a degree of error, they are still for the most part reliable. Descartes quickly passes on to a more interesting argument about dreaming. Descartes says, “How often does my evening slumber persuade me of such things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated next to the fireplace – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed” (Descartes 41). Descartes is asserting here that dreams can be deceptive and powerfully convincing. In the meditations to follow, Descartes attempts to construct an argument to prove that he’s not dreaming. This argument centers on the crucial assumption that God is perfect and wouldn’t deceive us by giving us a reasoning faculty that was wholly unreliable. This much is true since reasoning can tell us the difference between the two worlds. For instance, the dream world does not possess the same regularities as the waking world and thus one could dream that they were a superstar …show more content…
From this he draws the conclusion that since he can doubt the body but cannot doubt the mind, the latter must be known with more certainty than the former. Descartes’ underlying assumption in this argument is that the mind and body are two distinct substances. Descartes then proceeds to assert that the mind possesses the property of indubitable existence, while the body does not. I’ll grant Descartes his assertion that the mind and body are separate entities, however I think he has jumped to a conclusion too quickly. For instance, one could doubt that Bruce Wayne is a masked vigilante but one could not doubt this about Batman. It does not follow that they are therefore two different entities. Thus, Descartes overlooks the possibility that his mind might just be his brain, and therefore a part of his body. Similarly, if Descartes wants to claim that his mind and his body are two different substances he faces the problem of how one can causally interact with the other. For example, if one stubs their toe there is an accompanying feeling of pain that the mind is said to experience. But this makes no sense as the mind cannot be properly said to experience pain if it is, as supposed by Descartes, an immaterial substance. Furthermore, what is certain about pain is that it cannot be a mental experience because pain is only known via the central nervous system, which itself is a
In Meditations, Descartes brings doubt to everything he believes because it is human nature to believe that which is false. He states that most of what he believes comes from the senses and that a lot of times those senses can be deceived. His conclusion of doubting everything is based on his example of a basket of apples. It goes as follows; you have a basket of apples but you fear that some apples have gone bad and you don't want them to rot the others, so you throw all the apples out of the basket. Now that the basket is empty you examine each apple carefully and return the good apples to the basket. This is what he does with his beliefs, he follows and keeps only those beliefs of which he is sure of. Our beliefs as a whole must be discarded and then each individual belief must be looked at carefully before we can accept it. We must only accept those beliefs we feel are good.
Rene Descartes’ greatest work, Meditations on First Philosophy, attempts to build the base of knowledge through a skeptical point of view. In the First Meditation, Descartes argues that his knowledge has been built on reason and his senses, yet how does he know that those concepts are not deceiving him? He begins to doubt that his body exists, and compares himself to an insane person. What if he is delusional about his social ranking, or confused about the color of his clothes, or even unaware of the material that his head is made of? This is all because the senses are deceiving, even in our dreams we experience realistic visions and feelings. Finally, Descartes comes to the conclusion that everything must be doubted, and begins to build his
Descartes argument is quite an interesting one. Descartes takes a good endeavor to make sense of something that is quite supernatural, that even scientists today have trouble giving a 100 percent true explanation. At the roots of what Descartes is attempting to put forward, it does seem logical and simple. At the beginning of the very first meditation, Descartes states that he has lost his trust in his senses because they can be easily deceived (Descartes, 18). While dreaming sometimes it feels very real, just as it does while awake in reality....
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.
In the first meditation, Descartes makes a conscious decision to search for “in each of them [his opinions] at least some reason for doubt”(12). Descartes rejects anything and everything that can be doubted and quests for something that is undeniably certain. The foundation of his doubt is that his opinions are largely established by his senses, yet “from time to time I [Descartes] have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once”(12). First, Descartes establishes that error is possible, employing the example of the straight stick that appears bent when partially submerged in water, as mentioned in the Sixth Replies (64-65). Secondly, he proves that at any given time he could be deceived, such is the case with realistic dreams. Further, Descartes is able to doubt absolutely everything since it cannot be ruled out that “some malicious demon … has employed all his energies in order to deceive me” (15). The malicious demon not only causes Descartes to doubt God, but also sends him “unexpectedly into a deep whirlpool which tumbles me around so that I can neither stand on the bottom or swim on the top”(16). Descartes has reached the point where he must begin to rebuild by searching for certainty.
Society often overlook crimes that are not as trending, meaning, if a certain crime was not featured often on TV even with high severity, then it would not be viewed as a major issue. One prime example is child sex prostitution. There are not a lot research concerning this particular type of crime, in addition to a small amount of ample evidence supporting the level of severity, and coming up with prevention policy (Reid, 2012). Despite minimal amount of research investment, there is a growing pattern for this type of service, both around the world and United States (Fong & Cardoso, 2010). Although, most sex trafficking cases are often more associated with adults, it is actually the youth and/or child populations that are increasing in the
Throughout “Mediations I and II”, Descartes disputes definitions of reality and identity, establishing a precursor to Emerson’s philosophy. Initially, Descartes questions all notions of being. In “Mediation I”, Descartes begins his argument explaining the senses which perceive reality can be deceptive and “it is wiser not to trust entirely to any thing by which we have once been deceived” (Descartes 59). But, he then continues to reason; “opinions [are] in some measure doubtful…and at the same time highly probable, so that there is much more reason to believe in than to deny them” (Descartes 62). Descartes maintains trust within his established personal beliefs though he may doubt certain physical senses. Additionally, Descartes seeks to establish his identity in “Meditation II”. Even as he questions his very existence, he begins trustin...
He quickly releases that this is the foundation of most of his beliefs. He first acknowledges that sometime our senses can deceive us, but say that our senses is mostly sturdy. It is after this that Descartes realizes that there has been times where he has been sleeping and in his dream he was certain that he was awake and sensing real objects. Though his current senses may have be dream senses, he suggests that even dream senses are drawn from our experience of us awake. He then discovers that there are times in which he cannot distinguish whether he is in his waking state and his dream state.
A Swiss cognitive psychologist by the name of Jean Piaget once said, “The principal goal of education is to create men [and women] who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done.” Now that we have read the facts and are well informed, it is up to every single one of us to do something with them. Every day we choose to ignore it and turn the other way, countless victims are suffering in their misery, wondering when someone is going to come and find them, thinking that they are not worth being found. Child sex trafficking is reaching an all time high, and is becoming one of the richest businesses in the world. People need to spread the information, and be more aware of this monumental issue. People need to act. We are no longer unaware.
Sex trafficking is a global issue that involves a form of coerced sexual exploitation, which is not limited to prostitution. Victims of sex trafficking are stripped of their basic human rights and forced to live a life of modern slavery. The U.S. State Department (Stop Child Trafficking Now, 2012) has stated that human trafficking is “one of the fastest growing crimes in the world.” It it hard to put a number on how on many people are living inside the sex trafficking industry for many reasons, one being that not all victims come forward. It is estimated by the U.S. State Department (Stop Child Trafficking Now, 2012) that every year “600,00-800,000 people will be trafficked across international borders, 80% being women and children.” This
Descartes gives reasons to say his mind could exist without his body, however these reasons are not good enough for us to agree with him. Descartes’ two strongest reasons for this are the doubt argument and the divisibility argument.
In “Bad Dreams, Evil Demons, and the Experience Machine: Philosophy and the Matrix”, Christopher Grau explains Rene Descartes argument in Meditation. What one may interpret as reality may not be more than a figment of one’s imagination. One argument that Grau points out in Descartes essay is how one knows that what one think is an everyday experience awake is not all a part of a hallucination. He uses the example of dreams to draw a conclusion about is claim based on experiences one would experience with dreaming. He asserts that there are times when one wake up from a dream that seems to be “vivid and realistic” however soon finds that it was not. The experience of reality in the dream was all a part of the mind. If dreams seem to be reality and one would not have any concept that one is dreaming how does one know that one is not dreaming now? Descartes point is that one cannot justify reality in the sense that one could be dreaming right at this moment and not know therefore one cannot trust the brain as an indicator of what is reality.
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.
One of the ways in which Descartes attempts to prove that the mind is distinct from the body is through his claim that the mind occupies no physical space and is an entity with which people think, while the body is a physical entity and cannot serve as a mechanism for thought. [1]
Descartes argues that the mind and body can be thought of as separate substances. Descartes writes “I have a body that is very closely joined to me, nevertheless, because … I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, insofar as I am merely a thinking thing and not an extended thing and because … I have a distinct idea of a body, insofar as it is merely an extended thing and not a thinking thing, it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it” ( Descartes 50). With this quote, Descartes is saying that the mind and body are separate because he has two distinct ideas of the body and the mind and the body is not a thinking thing as he is but an extended substance. Another point to Descartes argument is that the mind and body are different due to one being indivisible and the other being divisible. Descartes writes “a body, by its very nature, is always divisible. On the other hand, the mind is utterly indivisible” (53). Here is saying that there are ...