Eithe Argument In Descartes

Descartes first presents this idea with the statement "How often does my evening slumber persuade me of such ordinary 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 490). By using an experience of his own, Descartes shows how dreams can be asymptotic to reality. Descartes implies that he often sits next to his fireplace, clothed in his dressing gown, so his dream that he is doing so is very believable. In conclusion, one cannot distinguish between a dream and reality because the gradient between them is so finitely small at times.

Descartes is considering that all of his experiences could be false and that everything is just the invention of a powerful being. This resulted in this argument:

When Descartes remembers occasions when he is dreaming, he falsely believes he is awake. Reflecting on this, Descartes thinks he cannot

Descartes’ Evil Demon argument is the idea that instead of his God deceiving him- because he is too good to do so – that perhaps there is an evil being of a similar power to God who is in fact deceiving him to believe falsehoods as fact (Reason and Responsibility, Feinberg and Shafer-Landau, 2015, 242-244). The premises for this go like 1. If I am to be certain of anything I need to be certain I am not being deceived by a powerful evil demon, 2. I cannot be certain I am not being deceived by a powerful evil demon, therefore 3. I cannot be certain of anything. This is harder to argue against because there is no evidence for an evil demon existing- however this does not stop Descartes from believing in God. This is a valid argument because the premises do follow on from each other however, it is not a sound argument because premise 2 is

Descartes’ skeptical arguments begin from the thought that everything can be doubted; the first being our senses. He claims that our senses can sometimes deceive us (e.g. when viewing things from far away). Things that can deceive us once, have the possibility to be deceiving us all the time—giving us reason to doubt all sensory claims. This leads to a problem since humans rely on empirical knowledge. If one cannot consider any claim delivered by sense to be true knowledge, then it gives reason for one to doubt reality. Following is the dream argument in which what seems to be tangible reality, is an effect of a dreaming experience. Descartes gives the example of dreaming he is sitting by a fire when in actuality he could be asleep

The one thing Descartes cannot doubt is that he exists, because he thinks and question the world around him. Descartes felt that our senses and perception of can skew every aspect of our understanding of reality, so only the fact that he exists is without doubt. This reasoning is known as solipsism (1). Basically, everything seen, felt, heard, or experienced are misrepresented by perception. With perception skewing everything, the only certainty is mind and the thoughts it holds, not necessarily that the thoughts are correct.

Descartes arguments in his First and Second Meditations (the universal doubt argument, the dream argument and the evil demon argument) all succeed. In his universal doubt argument Descartes was able to prove that our senses deceive us. He doubted all the beliefs that come to from the senses. Descartes was able to prove that nothing exists and that it is impossible for us to know if anything exists. Later in his Second Meditation Descartes proves that we can only know that we exist because we think. In order to further gain knowledge to doubt Descartes presented his dream argument and the evil demon argument. Both arguments continued to prove that our sense experience never puts us in contact with the objects themselves. It only puts us with

Descartes’ method of radical doubt focuses upon finding the truth about certain things from a philosophical perspective in order to truly lay down a foundation for ideas that have the slightest notion of doubt attached to them. He believed that there was “no greater task to perform in philosophy, than assiduously to seek out, once and for all, the best of all these arguments and to lay them out so precisely and plainly that henceforth all will take them to be true demonstrations” (Meditations, 36). The two key concepts that Descartes proves using the method of doubt are that the “human soul does not die with the body, and that God exists” as mentioned in his Letter of Dedication, since there are many that don’t believe the mentioned concepts because of the fact that they have not been proven or demonstrated. (Meditations, 35). In order to prove the above, he lays out six Meditations, each focusing on a different theme that leads us “to the knowledge of our mind and of God, so that of all things that can be known by the human mind, these latter are the most certain and the most evident” (Meditations, 40).

In this section I will thoroughly discuss and explore both of Descartes arguments. Firstly, scepticism is the doubting of knowledge or the doubting of a belief. Descartes holds the view that to know something or attain a certain belief for example God is omnibenevolent, I must know that God is omnibenevolent, believe that God is omnibenevolent and have reasoning/evidence that God is omnibenevolent. I think Descartes definition of knowledge is logical because again using the example God is omnibenevolent, I can’t know that God is omnibenevolent if I don’t believe that it is true and if I have no justification or reasoning for believing that God is omnibenevolent then I can’t possibly be certain that He is omnibenevolent. Descartes believes without knowing, believing and having reasoning/evidence, I cannot know that God is real. Descartes argues that “it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” . Descartes argues that you cannot trust someone or something which has made you believe or accept a false truth. For example, in Descartes 6th Meditation he writes “sometimes towers which had looked round from a distance appeared square from close up; and enormous statues standing on their pediments did not seem large when observed from the ground”. This indicates that it is very easy to be deceived by someone or something which results in someone believing a false truth therefore I agree with Descartes that you cannot trust something which has deceived you more than once. Furthermore, looking at Descartes dreaming argument, the dreaming argument is an argument which infers when you are asleep, you can have dreams which do not allow you to distinguish whether you are asleep or awake. Dreams very often lead the dreamer to believing false situations which does not enable to dreamer to know they are asleep. The dreaming argument is about if you should trust

Meaning, we could be constantly dreaming and not be aware of it. He uses this line of reasoning to support his claim that sense and perception can not be trusted and that nothing is certain. Descartes mentions being able to have perceptions similar to the sensations he has while dreaming. Therefore there are no definitive signs of to discern between dream experience and wake experience. Which makes it possible for him to claim that he may be dreaming at that very moment, even though he may think he is meditating or writing, it is all a sensory and perceptive illusion. Backing his statement with the concept of doubt and skepticism, he is able to fully explain why one can not tell whether they are awake of dreaming. Consequently, we must carefully test and examine our senses to determine if they represent

Rene Descartes argues that a rational method is required to have knowledge. Descartes wants to determine which, if any beliefs, he has that are certain must be true! He employs a method of doubt whereby he hopes to find at least one foundational belief. The Evil Demon suggests that all of one’s experiences might be the result of a powerful outside force, a “Malicious demon”. Descartes had 3 types of beliefs: Beliefs about the world- Optical illusions, Beliefs about self- Dreaming and Beliefs about Math/Science- Evil Demon. He employs a method of doubt whereby he arrives at his one foundational belief. The evil demon can trick you into belief. According to Descartes a being cannot have knowledge of a being higher of the scale, unless the higher being imparts that knowledge to him. His limited intellect could never hope to comprehend God unless God imparted the Knowledge. Since Descartes has a clear and distinct notion of God, God must exist. Since God exists and all is good, all of Descartes previous doubts were washed away. God would not allow an evil being to deceive us.

The Dreaming argument first showed up in Descartes First Meditation, where he focusses on the task to educate himself on his own doubt. When meditating he starts to think about how he has a hard time distinguishing himself from being asleep and awaking. This is how the dreaming argument came forth. The Dreaming Argument easily said is “If I am certain of anything, then I have to be certain that

Along this process, Descartes invented the possibility of the Evil Demon. This demon could trick one into believing false ideas, turning what Descartes now thought of as fact into a false statement. Descartes has even begun to doubt the external world, his body and the basics of mathematics; it seems impossible to know if he is truly correct in his observations of the world if there is a possibility of deception lurking (Descartes 2-3). However, Descartes had found one solid belief; the Evil Demon could not deceive Descartes of the fact that Descartes exists. By the Evil Demon giving Descartes an idea or a thought, Descartes must exist in order to receive this thought therefore Descartes does exist (Descartes 4).

Descartes as a rationalist believes that knowledge comes from the mind alone. During the First Meditation, Descartes came to the conclusion that there must be some kind of evil deceiver that "leads him to a state of doubt" (Descartes 77). Descartes starts out with the fact that distant sensations are subject to doubt and uncertainty. He then goes on to try and cast doubt onto close sensations. Descartes starts off by stating that close sense perception must be certain because we are not crazy, and only a insane person would doubt what was right in front of them. Descartes then uses the dream argument to cast uncertainty on close sense perception because "they are as lively, vivid and clear as reality is when we are awake" (Descartes 76). Descartes then states that geometry and math are certain. "For whether I am awake or sleeping, two and three added together always make five, and a square never has more than four sides; and it does not seem possible that truths so apparent can be suspected of any falsity or uncertainty" (Descartes 98). Descartes comes to realize this certainty because math, geometry, and the simple sciences can be understood and proved through logic and reasoning. He then uses his Deceiver Argument to cast doubt on close sensations. He questions how we know for certain that God is good, and how we know that

Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) contains six Meditations. In the first two of these Descartes addresses doubt and certainty. By the end of the second Meditation Descartes establishes the possibility of certainty by concluding that he is a “thinking thing” and that this is beyond doubt. Having established the possibility of certainty, Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God. The argument he presents in the Third Meditation for the existence of God has been nicknamed the ‘Trademark’ argument. This argument deals with types of ideas, of which there are three, a principle called the Causal Adequacy principle, and a sliding scale of reality. The argument concludes that the idea of a God that is a perfect being is an innate idea that is real and was caused by God and therefore God is real. This argument will be explained with the greater detail in the next paragraph. In the Fifth Meditation Descartes again addresses the existence of God with an argument for His existence. This argument is a variation of St. Anselm’s ontological argument. This argument is also framed around his theory of ideas, as well as his principle of ‘clear and distinct perception’ and is explained and discussed in paragraph three. The paragraphs following these will discuss how convincing these two arguments from Descartes are and will deal with various objections. Many of these objections are strong enough that it will be clear why Descartes’ case has failed to convince everyone.