Essay on Descartes Knowledge

René Descartes believed that the mind and body are separate; that the senses could not always be trusted, but that because we as humans are able to think about our existence, we possess some sort of entity separate than our fleshly body. I believe this separate entity to be a soul”an immaterial and

Descartes says that we understand and learn through two things that God gives us. In order to make perfect decisions or the right conclusions we must be clear and distinct in what we decide. Clear refers to something that I cannot help but to take notice of, and distinct is something I

5. Therefore, you can’t know anything about the external world based on your sensory experiences.

interpretations it is stated that what we view within our minds are just rifts between reality and

This essay attempts to explain Descartes’ epistemology of his knowledge, his “Cogito, Ergo Sum” concept (found in the Meditations), and why he used it [the cogito concept] as a foundation when building his structure of knowledge. After explaining the concept I give a brief evaluation of his success in introducing and using this cogito as a foundation. Finally, I provide reasons why I think Descartes succeeded in his epistemology.

Constructive perception is in part something that our minds manufacture. Thus what we perceive is determined, not only by what our eyes and ears and other senses detect, but also by what we know, what we expect, what we believe, and what our physiological state is. Just because something seems or feels real doesn’t mean that it is real.

A long time ago the difference between perception and reality was defined as the act of understanding in contrast to the act of being real. Reality could be tricky; most of us including myself depending on scenarios of our lives tend to give in to ideas which are not applicable to reality as a whole. The best example of this is written in the short story “All Over” by Guy de Maupassant. In which his main character Lormerin is very self conscious and narcissistic also Lise de Vance, a former old love plays a big role in hurting Lormerin ego and opening his eyes by showing him, his real self. Many would say that when reality knocks it could be harsh and confusing. In the next couple of

Epistemology is the study of knowledge, or how we know anything and what it means to know anything. It is where one can explain how our mind is linked to reality and if these relationships are valid or invalid. In this paper, I will first present the views of Descartes on epistemology. Next, I will clarify his view of God, the body, and the mind. I will also discuss how well Descartes presents the arguments and how well they work for each topic. Lastly, I will discuss my overall agreement with his project for knowledge in general, however, I further discuss a few key components that later philosophers came to add on.

there, in the experience we are associating ourselves with it. By repeating this our thoughts around

“our memories of the immediate past in conjunction with our current sensory experiences is sufficient enough to enable us to know that we aren’t dreaming” (5).

In Descartes Objection and Replies the idea of knowledge, how it is gained and defined, and the idea of true intellect are discussed. Through the use of the wax experiment true intellect is found, defined, and explained. With this being said he wanted to demonstrate how none of the truths we found through basic perceptive tools or senses can be relied upon and that you had to utilize deep though or knowledge to know how something is defined or even if it exists.

Recalling his previous thoughts in Meditation Two, the Meditator supposes that what he sees does not exist, that his memory is faulty, that he has no senses and no body, and that extension, movement and place are mistaken notions. Perhaps, he remarks, the only certain thing remaining is that there is no certainty. Although this argument often seems logical and fully-developed, Descartes uses this meditation to as inspiration prove that perhaps there is one thing that is absolutely certain in the universe: his existence.

In Descartes’ second Meditation, he presents his first premise and argument for personal existence, or the “cogito”. In this argument, he looks inward and searches for any stable truth to grab hold of. He reasons that even if he perceives his existence in a fallible way, he is still existing in the process of those perceptions. Therefore,

Descartes takes this idea and applies it to book learning, and he concludes that book-learning is “composed and enlarged little by little from the opinions of many different persons.” However, he believes that book-learning “does not draw nearly as close to the truth as the simple reasonings that a man of good sense can naturally make about the things he encounters.” Descartes believes that one should trust in their reason rather than in their knowledge which has been collected from the opinions of others.

These preconceived notions keep us from “the knowledge of the truth” (Descartes 193). In order to access the truth, we must doubt everything. Doubting everything will lead to the distinction between mind and body. Once you recognize that distinction, you will recognize that “neither extension nor shape nor local motion, nor anything of this kind which is attributable to a body, belongs to our nature, but that thought alone belongs to us” (195). This thought that we have produces ideas, and these ideas are given to us by God, they are innate. Since God gave us this “faculty for knowledge […], it can never encompass any object which is not true” (203). For we are able to see the truth clearly and distinctly this way. Descartes argues that God would be a deceiver if what he gave us was able to be distorted and that we can mistake what is false as true. This is not the case, because God is not a deceiver. Some would argue that people do believe things to be true when in fact they are false. This, however, is not the doing of God, it is of our own free will, and it is what Descartes calls “errors.” Errors do not rely on our intellect, but rather on our own will. Ultimately, doubting will lead to deductive reasoning, or a series of logical statements eventually