- Descartes finally arrives at something he takes to be known with absolute certainty. What is it? How does he claim to know it? Do you think he has proven anything?
What was the reading about:
In my opinion, I feel as though Descartes decided to go over all of his beliefs and question them. He did so by remaining skeptical and open-minded to the truth. He then went on to state that he isn’t necessarily trying to prove everything he knows as false but rather just establish a basis of just “pure” knowledge. This idea of having knowledge that can support all of his former beliefs, can be referenced back to the idea of foundationalism. At the very end of the passage Descartes mentions, ” ..I shall remain obstinately attached to this idea, and if by this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be.” I think what he mentions here is important. To me, he basically states that if and when we can’t find the solid truth to something the least we can do is be and remain cautious towards the things that we perceive/ receive as truth. He then goes on and states three arguments that pertains to the idea of deceptions/illusions.
His last sentence mentioned, ” however powerful and deceptive he may be”. This wraps around one of his three arguments that there is an Evil God. Therefore No matter how good something may sound or seem as being the truth that is just the “evil God” being deceptive to us. He then suggests that we have to remain solid in only what we now as true. This argument is kind of hard for me to come to terms with because i’m Christian. Therefore, believing that God himself is evil is just absurd because i believe that God in my eyes is pure so to put evil next to his name just seems a little absurd to me. However his other two arguments are more sound in my eyes.
Descartes Second point is his Illusion Argument, in short this argument is founded on the idea that our senses are not always accurate. This argument is based on the premise that even our own senses can deceive us.
Descartes last argument is the idea that everything could literally be just a Dream. This arguments is actually my favorite argument. He states that we all could be just dreaming right now and everything that we see is an illusion. However, even though we may be in a dream when we do actually dream certain things still remain true. The biggest example he gave in his passage is that of mathematics. If we were to do simple addition in our dreams that 3 +2= 5. The reason i think i found this argument more favorable is based upon the fact that in a way he plays the devils advocate and shows another side.
Overall, I think Descartes sought out this idea of knowledge in order to support all beliefs but while doing so he realized that somethings in life we really can’t find actual truth to it. Therefore, the only things that we can believe is our skepticism. While remaining skeptical our “job” is to figure out if what we are taking as truth is actually the truth and not an illusion such as deception by an evil God, and illusion or a dream. I personally believe that having skepticism, and being doubtful is the best knowledge to have so in a way yes i do believe that Descartes proved something.
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