Descartes vs. Pascal

that we could use reason to find certain truth if we used it correctly, while

almost polar opposite of reason is showed in the numerous philosophers he references in the

What reason engages in is always its own manifestation, be that language with its power of signification or be that harmonious numbers. In and through the sciences, reason searches for itself. Reason's true object is reason itself. Reason never simply deals with physical or historical objects as such.it manifests itself in culture and nature.

Edmund Gettier’s argument that justified true belief is not a sufficient definition for knowledge is correct. There are many scenarios in which the conditions for justified true belief are met but cannot be said to qualify as knowledge; therefore justified true belief is not a sufficient definition for knowledge.

Theory of knowledge; often provokes big questions on the meaning and justifications of conventional knowledge.

In this paper I will contrast the ways that Blaise Pascal and Saint Anselm of Canterbury attempted to convince people to believe in God. Before getting into the two arguments I should first clarify a few key terms. Firstly, the difference between ordinary and religious beliefs. An ordinary belief is exactly what it sounds like, it’s a typical belief based on adequate evidence. An example would be “I believe the sky is blue because I’ve observed it as blue countless times”. Religious beliefs on the other hand, are not based on reasoning, but instead “Sola Fide”, or faith alone suffices, meaning that these beliefs are based only on trust that the proposition is true. A basic example of a religious belief would be “God exists” despite a lack of evidence for the claim. The major conflict between the two different types of beliefs is that in ordinary belief its considered shame worthy to belief something without have reasons to support it while belief without evidence is the core of religious belief. Another key term that must be understood to understand the arguments is “faith seeking understanding”. This idea was championed by Anselm and is crucial to understanding his argument. In short, he means that if someone begins with just faith in God then through that God will help them attain understanding.

William K. Clifford was a British philosopher and mathematician in the late 1800’s. In 1877, he wrote The Ethics of Belief with the main points being it is immoral to form a new belief and believe in it if there is not enough evidence to support it or believe in something that already exists but ignoring the logic and reason that goes behind it and consistently believing in something even though it harms you. These can also be used for Clifford’s objections to Pascal’s argument. Clifford uses an example of a ship owner who owns a ship that is in need of repairs. But he chooses not to do anything because he believes in his ship that has made many voyages to and back safely.

The Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the evolution of natural sciences. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism. Descartes modified it to account for a truth he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions. Whereas Francis Bacon’s Scientific Method wanted to replace the deductive reasoning by inductive reasoning. The important concept in this reformed

In his essay “Man and the Universe” from Pensées (1670), Blasie Pascal argues that human intellect is limited such that it is not possible to understand all there is to know of a subject, nor nothing of it, by suggesting that this limitation is analogous to humanity’s place in relation to the universe: too little to comprehend the grandeur of the all, yet too grand to understand the intricacies of the small. Pascal refers to this limited state as holding “the mean between two extremes,” saying that humans cannot know everything or know nothing, nor can they know the origin or purpose of anything; rather they exist in the space between these extremes, unable to comprehend either. Pascal goes on to express the paradoxical character of human nature,

Rene Descartes, a rationalist, said that each person contains the criteria for truth and knowledge in them. Finding truth and knowledge comes from the individual themselves, not necessarily from God. Descartes also believed that reason is the same for every single person. Descartes believed that nothing could be true unless we as humans could perceive it. He also believed that you could break down things into smaller simpler parts. Descartes also believed that there was a relationship between the mind and body. He also believed that the idea of being perfect originated from God since God himself was perfect. He also integrates his mathematical concepts into his methodology. Descartes also applied doubt to his ideas before he

For a lengthy period of time in philosophy the concept of knowledge as justified true belief was accepted without too much debate. The Gettier problem is an issue which assails the long held idea of knowledge as justified true belief, it is the result of a small but definite gap between the concepts of justification and truth. By revamping the concept of justification the defeasibility account is able to correct some Gettier cases by narrowing the gap between knowledge and truth, but ultimately still fails to solve the problem.

Epistemology is purposed with discovering and studying what knowledge is and how we can classify what we know, how we know it, and provide some type of framework for how we arrived at this conclusion. In the journey to identify what knowledge is the certainty principle was one of the first concepts that I learned that explained how we, as humans, consider ourselves to know something. The certainty concept suggests that knowledge requires evidence that is sufficient to rule out the possibility of error. This concept is exemplified in cases like The Gettier problem in the instance that we suppose (S) someone to know (P) a particular proposition. As Gettier established the Justified True Belief as a conceptual formula for knowledge, certainty

When someone makes a bold statement, the general consensus is that they should have some sort of reasoning to back it up. This is exactly what Descartes thought. His journey to seeking truth first started when he was a child. He was educated in all subjects, but just as soon as they ended, he was curious for more. So he went out into the world to try to find the truth he had been looking for. While he did learn new things, he was never satisfied. Finally, when he had exasperated the books and world, he was left with nothing other than himself. But this put him exactly where he needed to be. From meditative, self reflection he found his truth. He wrote on page 64, “I think, therefore I am”. Descartes concluded that nothing was for

Divine reasoning is beyond the scope of man, as it cannot be reached through our own way of thinking, researching or exploring. It calls for the guiding hand of divinity and thus, it is not always clear or

The production of knowledge is a process that occurs through a sequence of related actions, these series of actions allows for the Ways of Knowing to interact in a way that works to develop the knowledge that is being produced. From the prescribed title we can claim that while the Ways of Knowing may appear to be acting in isolation when forming knowledge, they are actually working in a variety of different ways in the construction and formation. In some cases, the Ways of Knowing are interacting so closely together that it is often hard to differentiate between them, for example emotion and reason, or imagination and memory. Given the right circumstances faith can be isolated to a point where it can be acting by itself to produce knowledge. However, this knowledge is often deemed as unreliable, due to faith being seen as one of the more “subjective” ways of knowing. This inability to differentiate the ways of knowing from each other during the production of knowledge, raises the questions “Can any knowledge in any Area of Knowledge be produced by a single Way of Knowing?” and “Is it possible to distinguish between Ways of Knowing if they are working together?”. While reason is used in almost all production of knowledge, it is the other Ways of Knowing used that can determine whether the knowledge is reliable or not, as some Ways of Knowing are more subjective than others. This essay will attempt to