Nigel Warburton: A Little History Of Philosophy

Granted that, we now have a better understanding of skepticism and skeptical arguments, we may examine Descartes arguments used to find reasonable doubt. The argument Descartes gives is the untrustworthiness argument. This argument states, that human senses can sometimes be deceiving and if human senses may sometimes be deceiving, then maybe they are always deceiving and if they are, humans should doubt their senses. This argument is not very strong and is self-defeating. Even Descartes voices objections to it in his writings.

pencil in a glass of water, the pencil will look like it is broken in half, but it is just the property of water that makes it seem like it’s broken. The next premise is that if my senses sometimes deceive me, then they might always deceive me. He stated that, “In a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once2.” So what Descartes means is that if someone or something deceives you once, there is a possibility that it will deceive you again. So you cannot fully trust that someone or something. His third premise was, “If my senses might always deceive me, then I cannot be certain about any beliefs acquired through my senses.” Descartes demands certainty. Therefore if something deceives him once, he cannot be certain it will not deceive him again. He cannot base any of his beliefs on his sense since he is not certain about his sense misleading him. His last premise was, “If I cannot be certain about any beliefs acquired through my senses, then I must suspend judgment on those beliefs.” Since he feels he cannot be certain about any beliefs that he gets from senses, he has to stop making conclusion based on those beliefs he got from his senses, because of his lack of certainty. Then he concludes by saying he must suspend judgment on those beliefs.

     On the journey to find truth to base all thought upon, Descartes explains his first step in doing so. “Never accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.”(Kolak, Pg.228). Assuming that everything you see is fictitious, Descartes believed he had no senses at all; “body, shape, extension, motion, and place are unreal.”(Weissman, Pg.23). Our senses have failed us all at one point or another in our lives, so why use the senses as a base for thought? The most famous quote and philosophy by Descartes in history ever, “Je pense, donc je suis, cogito ergo sum” (Durant, Pg.639). “I think, therefore I am” was the first step towards a basis to understand truth, and leaning away from truth through the senses.

Descartes aim throughout the first segment of his Meditations to overthrow existing foundations of knowledge and encourages readers to remove prior knowledge and prejudices in order to fully accept the new foundations which he aims to establish. The method of doubt is used to find beliefs that can serve as a new foundation for knowledge. Only beliefs that are certain, immune from doubt, can perform this function. Descartes argued that what we believe on the basis of the senses cannot meet the standard. Consequently, he concluded, we do not know anything on the basis of our senses and the dream argument is formed.

Children’s stories are usually simple tales with clear life lessons meant to help make kids think, without overwhelming them with complicated words or symbols. While “The Dream” is a story marketed towards children, the author, Arnold Lobel, managed to make it a piece that is beneficial to children and adults alike. Lobel included events that make the reader ask questions that have been the basis of several well-known philosophers work, yet made it simple enough for anyone to understand. The most profound question this story presents is “How do you distinguish reality from a dream?” Many people have experienced the feeling of waking up from a vivid realistic dream and wondering if they’re truly awake. The majority of people answer this question using rationalism and the famous philosopher, Descartes’, idea of “hyperbolic doubt”. This story gives a clear example of these ideas and how they are used.

Descartes claims that sensation is deceptive, and therefore cannot be trusted. He says that our senses tell us that distant objects are small, when they are actually large. Descartes goes on to state that “it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (Descartes, First Meditation, 2). Descartes then proceeds to prove his claims about human knowledge through deductive reasoning. First, he claims that sensation is deceitful, so we cannot trust anything that our bodies or senses perceive. Next, Descartes states that if God is

“As I think about this more carefully, I realize that there is never any reliable way of distinguishing being awake from being asleep.” (57, Mediation One) Descartes writes that he could be dreaming or indeed he could be part of a larger deception that he does not know about. Next, he composes his argument that prepared for his systematic inquiry of disbelief.

He tries to figure out where the images of his body (eyes, hands, etc.) have come from. He poses the question whether or not the images in his dreams are based on reality. For a second he thinks that maybe we do not look anything like that but the images we see in our sleep must be real because they are “like painted images, which could only have been produced in the likeness of true things…” (Descartes). He gives an example of an artist making a bizarre creature. The images used to create the creature are not completely new, the artist must take bits and pieces of other animals they have seen in the real world and combine them to make a new animal (Descartes). And even if the artist created a completely new being, surely the simplest aspects of it such as the color must be true (Descartes). It is from this that Descartes comes to believe that things that are dependent on other factors, such as astronomy and physics are doubtful and that what cannot be doubted are things that are built upon the simplest of factors such as mathematics, which does not depend on the existence of other factors (Descartes). Whether or not I am dreaming, 2 plus 2 will always equal

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 the First Meditation, Descartes introduces the idea that everything must be placed in doubt. He argues that everything he had known to be true came to him from the senses or through the senses. However, the senses must be doubted for at any moment, he could be dreaming or his senses could be deceived either by God or some malicious demon.

In part one of our book, “The Good Life,” we studied five different philosopher’s viewpoints on what is needed in order for a person to have a good, fulfilling life. They all included the concepts of pleasure and happiness to some extent in their theories, but they all approached the ideas in different ways. The two hedonists we studied, Epicurus and John Stuart Mill, place heavy emphasis on the importance of pleasure. They both believe that pleasure is a necessity in the ideal life. Jean Kazez agreed with their viewpoints in her theory and said that happiness was a necessity for a good life. Epicurus and Mill also argue that there is nothing else that we ultimately desire beyond pleasure and that it is an intrinsic good.

Called into Doubt, Descartes says, "he needed to be sure, and he needed proof that his senses were not

In the First Meditation, Descartes invites us to think skeptically. He entices us with familiar occasions of error, such as how the size of a distant tower can be mistaken. Next, an even more profound reflection on how dreams and reality are indistinguishable provides suitable justification to abandon all that he previously perceived as being truth. (18, 19) By discarding all familiarity and assumptions, Descartes hopes to eliminate all possible errors in locating new foundations of knowledge. An inescapable consequence of doubting senses and prior beliefs

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

In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes strives first and foremost to provide an infallibly justified foundation for the empirical sciences, and second to prove the existence of God. I will focus on the first and second meditations in my attempt to show that, in his skepticism of the sources of knowledge, he fails to follow the rules he has set out in the Discourse on Method. First I claim that Descartes fails to draw the distinction between pure sensation and inference, which make up what he calls sensation, and then consider the consequences of this failure to follow his method. Second, I will show that in his treatment of thinking Descartes fails to distinguish between active and passive thinking.