Descarte`s Cartesian Doubt
In his first meditation, Descartes sets out with amazing clarity and
persistence
to clear himself of every false idea that he has acquired
previous to this, and
determine what he truly knows. To rid him of these
"rotten apples" he
has developed a method of doubt with a goal to construct a
set of beliefs on
foundations which are indubitable. On these foundations,
Descartes applies three
levels of skepticism, which in turn, generate three
levels at which our thoughts
may be deceived by error. Descartes states quite
explicitly in the synopsis,
that we can doubt all things which are material
as long as "we have no
foundations for the sciences other than those which we
have had up till
now"(synopsis:12). This skepticism also implies that doubt
can free us from
prejudices, enabling the mind to escape the deception of the
senses, and
possibly discover a truth which is beyond doubt. The first and
main deception in
Descartes opinion has evolved from sense perception
"What ever I have up
till now accepted as most true I have acquired either
from the senses or through
the sense. But from time to time I have found that
the senses deceive, and it is
prudent never to trust completely those who
have deceived us even
once"(1:18[13]). At the root of our beliefs, Descartes
argues, lie the
experiences we gain from our senses, because these are
sometimes mistaken, as in
the case of mirages or objects which appear small
in the distance, and because
of this he will now forfeit all of his most
reliable information . More
importantly it may be to follow in the steps of
Plato and require knowledge that
is certain and absolute ( Prado 1992 ). This
argument consists of four main
premises: 1. All that he has accepted as true
up to this point, he has acquired
by the senses or Cartesian Doubt 3 through
the senses; 2. but on occasion these
senses have been deceptive. 3. It is
wise not to trust anything that has been
deceiving in the past 4. Therefore,
it is possible to be mistaken about
everything. In premise one his beliefs
are derived from the senses, such as he
sees that he has a paper in his hand
and concludes that it is a paper, and what
is meant by through the senses, is
that his beliefs may have been based on
others sense experience. All
Descartes requires for the second premise is the
possibility that he may have
been deceived, for if he cannot decide which is
wrong, than he must not have
any knowledge. This leads to the third premise
where it seems at least
reasonable to assume, that if one has been deceived
previously, there is no
absolute assurance that it is presently correct.
Therefore, there is a
chance of being deceived about everything. But many
critics will argue that
several of these false percepts can be corrected by
means of alternative
senses, such as he bent stick in water example. Although
our sight may be
tricked into thinking that the mirage exists, by using the
sense of touch we
can correct this falseness, and uncover what truly exists.
Descartes does
retreat, and assess the damage from his first level by saying,
"there are
many other beliefs about which doubt is quite impossible, even
though they
are derived from the senses-for example, that I am here, sitting by
the fire,
wearing a winter dressing gown.." (1:18[12]). Here even he
objects to the
validity of his argument, even if he could be deceived about
anything he
perceives, this does not mean that he is deceived about everything.
Just
because his senses are unreliable at times is not proof enough
that
everything in the world is false (Williams 1991). In addition to
being
delusional, Descartes believes we can be tricked by madness or
insanity. Since
those who are insane may interpret things detached from
reality by means of
their senses, " how could it be denied that these hands
or this whole body
are mine? Unless perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen,
whose brains are so
damaged by the persistent vapours of melancholia" (1:19
[13]), they in fact
believe these percepts to be true. Though Descartes does
go on to say "such
people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I
took anything from
them as a model for myself", and continues by likening the
dreams he has to
the experiences a madman faces when awake. From here
Descartes makes a stronger
argument for calling into question his common
sense beliefs, the possibility
that he might be dreaming, that every emotion
and every sense perception appears
to him only in a dream. Since there is
always a possibility that we may in fact
be dreaming, this hypothesis is done
to provoke his faith in reality and the
senses, to get the absolute certainty
of how things may appear or feel (Prado
1992). His view on this is taken
from the fact that when dreaming, the same
types of mental states and
feelings are present as when we are awake, "How
often, asleep at night , I am
convinced of just such a familiar event-that I am
here in my dressing-gown,
sitting by the fire- when in fact I am lying undressed
in bed" (1:19[13]).
Since there is no absolute way in determining the
waking state from the
dreaming state, when it comes to sense experience, we are
no better off awake
than asleep. Therefore our judgment must be suspended even
when we are sure
that our state is that of waking because "we clearly have
no reason to
believe that effects resemble their causes in the waking state,
since they
clearly do not in the dreaming state" (Prado, 1992). The only
way we can
avoid the suspension of judgement is only if we have a standard to
determine
where the truth exists (Williams 1986). To use the conflict of the
stick
being bent in water, what sense is it that we should believe, when we have
no
tool to decipher the truth? Thus, the suspension of truth works for the
doubt
of he senses as well. The reason why doubting the senses is not enough
to base
an entirely new set of ideas, is due to the fact that it does not
call into
question all of ones common sense beliefs, for the representations
found in
dreams are derived from real objects, although possibly arranged in
a different
way. The thoughts and feelings of a dream are real, they are the
same thoughts
and feelings that occur every day in the waking state. To be
afraid during a
dream is the same feeling experienced if . It is due to the
similarities in
feelings and thought between dreaming and waking, that
Descartes is able to find
ground for doubt, "there are never any sure signs
by means of which being
awake can be distinguished from being asleep"
(1:19[13]). This than leads
to the eternal skeptical question : "How can I
tell whether at this moment
I am awake or asleep?" (Malcolm, 1967). If we
take any series of thoughts,
emotions or feelings, it is possible that the
same series can occur while
dreaming or awake. Thus, we can never be
absolutely clear on whether what we are
experiencing at that exact moment in
time is a dream, or that of a waking state.
Though Prado (1992) insists
that Descartes states in the sixth meditation, that
temporal coherence allows
us to decipher between the waking and dreaming states.
The aim here then
would be to prove that there is nothing in the waking state to
confirm the
accuracy of sense experience. The fact that at any given moment our
current
state could change drastically and render the previous state an
illusion, may
be enough to support his skeptical nature on thus, his Cartesian
Doubt 6
second level of doubt (Williams 1991). As long as Descartes second level
of
doubt is accepted, we are able to continue on to his third level of doubt,
or
what is known as hyperbolical doubt. Descartes considers our beliefs
within
dreams when he says that some beliefs remain indubitable while others
are swept
away by imagination. Such things as the laws of physics can be
broken within
dreams, where other concepts such as arithmetic or geometry
remain unchanged:
physics, astronomy, medicine and all other disciplines
which depend on the study
of composite things, are doubtful; while
arithmetic, geometry ans other subjects
of this kind, which deal only with
the simplest and most general things,
regardless of whether they really exist
in nature or not, contain something
certain and indubitable. (1:20[14]) He
decides that certain things which are
accepted universally, such as
mathematics, are irrefutable. The dream hypothesis
is not enough to doubt
such things as mathematics, as we may be dreaming that
there appears a square
in front of us, but we cannot doubt our reason, such that
it has four sides,
or that there is only one square that we see and not two or
three. He moves
on to discuss the origins of our beliefs, and the role of an
omnipotent God.
He believes that there is a God, due to the fact that this idea
of God is
"firmly rooted" in his mind, and he also believes that this
omnipotent God
would not deceive him since he is "supremely good". He
examines the
assumption that God is perfect and omnipotent, and therefore the
source for
all of our thoughts and ideas. Since Descartes is abandoning all of
his old
beliefs, this would suggest that God tried to deceive him. He wonders
why
such a perfect God would deceive him, and figures it must be
doubtful.
Cartesian Doubt 7 Now Descartes imagines that God is not the
one who is
deceiving him, but none other than a malevolent demon, who with
deceitful power,
implants false beliefs, " I will suppose therefore that not
God, who is
supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious
demon of the
utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order
to deceive
me" (1:22[15]). When determining what is open to doubt, Descartes'
evil
demon hypothesis conveniently creates a being who is omnipotent and who
uses the
power solely to deceive. What Descartes achieves is making
problematic a host of
ideas he entertains as products of reason , opposed to
products of the senses,
which the dream hypothesis takes care of (Prado
1992). Although L.G. Miller
(1992) suggests that the propositions of
mathematics survive the perception and
dream arguments, but only to be
unsettled by the deceiver God hypothesis,
"Could not an all-powerful demon
make me believe those propositions are
true when, as a matter of fact, they
are not?" The deceiver God does not
succeed if the person accepts that the
reality he lives in is true. However,
with the rise of skepticism and
questioning the veracity of whether the world we
live in is accurate or not,
perhaps the demon has won after all. Descartes then
leaves the first
meditation in a state of confusion. He knows at least how
things seem to
appear to him, even if he has no idea how they really are "I
am like a
prisoner who is enjoying an imaginary freedom while asleep, he dreads
being
woken up, and goes along with the pleasant as long as he
can"(1:23[15).
Descartes clearly refocused metaphysical thinking into the
physical world, by
turning it toward the natural world. His basic structure has
four uses of
doubt, firstly to free us from preconceived opinions or prejudice,
the second
is to lead the mind away from the senses, the Cartesian Doubt 8 third
use of
doubt makes it impossible to have any further doubts about those things
which
alter such an "extensive doubt" and are discovered to be true,
while the
fourth is to provide us with an understanding of what certainty
is.
Descartes methodological doubt can be defined as foundationalism,
which is the
belief that knowledge is formed on different levels, much like
an inverted
pyramid. Such that, complex beliefs come first, then beneath that
are simpler
beliefs and beneath them are the simplest beliefs.
Foundationalism requires not
only this hierarchy effect, but also that
nothing is accepted as knowledge until
we know upon what it is based (Prado
1992). In summary of what the three main
arguments undermine, the argument
from the illusion or deceptiveness of the
senses undermines ordinary sense
perception. Undermining ordinary sense
perception and scientific observation
as well as the more theoretical parts of
the physical sciences and hence
these sciences as a whole is the dream
hypothesis, while the deceiver God
hypothesis undermines the pure mathematical
sciences such as arithmetic and
geometry. Descartes' metaphysical doubt
emphasizes purging the old falsehoods
and buildings up again from the bedrock of
the indubitable of our existence
as thinkers. Whether or not the extensiveness
of such skepticism used by
Descartes is necessary, remains open for doubt. But
for one to gain any
knowledge what so ever, they must be capable of doubting at
some point or
another, rather than accepting all that they may hear. It would be
extremely
credulous and naive to never doubt or question it is only natural to
doubt
and challenge that which one does not believe, and to a certain extent,
being
the natural extent, it is useful and necessary, "When Descartes
begins to
doubt in an epistemological mode, he cannot stop short of doubting
whether
Cartesian Doubt 9 he himself exists as a doubter" (Prado 1992)..
Perhaps,
when the poet Charles Bukowski said "the more crap you believe,
the better
off you are," he realized that such an extensive doubt can be
harmful to the
majority of people, because they are in fact "better
off" believing in their
senses, their God, and their ability to determine
whether they are sleeping
or awake. It is possible that it may be beneficial to
live and die being
deceived, and be ignorant to that deception, than to live and
die searching
for truth where truth may not be found, for the true determinant
to whether
such an extensive skepticism is beneficial or necessary depends on
the
individual. Neither Descartes nor Bukowski can speak for anyone other
than
themselves. In his first meditation, Descartes sets out with amazing
clarity and
persistence to clear himself of every false idea that he has
acquired previous
to this, and determine what he truly knows. To rid him of
these "rotten
apples" he has developed a method of doubt with a goal to
construct a set
of beliefs on foundations which are indubitable. On these
foundations, Descartes
applies three levels of skepticism, which in turn,
generate three levels at
which our thoughts may be deceived by error.
Descartes states quite explicitly
in the synopsis, that we can doubt all
things which are material as long as
"we have no foundations for the sciences
other than those which we have had
up till now"(synopsis:12). This skepticism
also implies that doubt can free
us from prejudices, enabling the mind to
escape the deception of the senses, and
possibly discover a truth which is
beyond doubt. The first and main deception in
Descartes opinion has
evolved from sense perception "What ever I have up
till now accepted as most
true I have acquired either from the senses or through
the sense. But from
time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is
prudent never to
trust completely those who have deceived us even
once"(1:18[13]). At the root
of our beliefs, Descartes argues, lie the
experiences we gain from our
senses, because these are sometimes mistaken, as in
the case of mirages or
objects which appear small in the distance, and because
of this he will now
forfeit all of his most reliable information . More
importantly it may be to
follow in the steps of Plato and require knowledge that
is certain and
absolute ( Prado 1992 ). This argument consists of four main
premises: 1. All
that he has accepted as true up to this point, he has acquired
by the senses
or Cartesian Doubt 3 through the senses; 2. but on occasion these
senses have
been deceptive. 3. It is wise not to trust anything that has been
deceiving
in the past 4. Therefore, it is possible to be mistaken about
everything. In
premise one his beliefs are derived from the senses, such as he
sees that he
has a paper in his hand and concludes that it is a paper, and what
is meant
by through the senses, is that his beliefs may have been based on
others
sense experience. All Descartes requires for the second premise is
the
possibility that he may have been deceived, for if he cannot decide which
is
wrong, than he must not have any knowledge. This leads to the third
premise
where it seems at least reasonable to assume, that if one has been
deceived
previously, there is no absolute assurance that it is presently
correct.
Therefore, there is a chance of being deceived about everything.
But many
critics will argue that several of these false percepts can be
corrected by
means of alternative senses, such as he bent stick in water
example. Although
our sight may be tricked into thinking that the mirage
exists, by using the
sense of touch we can correct this falseness, and
uncover what truly exists.
Descartes does retreat, and assess the damage
from his first level by saying,
"there are many other beliefs about which
doubt is quite impossible, even
though they are derived from the senses-for
example, that I am here, sitting by
the fire, wearing a winter dressing
gown.." (1:18[12]). Here even he
objects to the validity of his argument,
even if he could be deceived about
anything he perceives, this does not mean
that he is deceived about everything.
Just because his senses are
unreliable at times is not proof enough that
everything in the world is false
(Williams 1991). Cartesian Doubt 4 In addition
to being delusional, Descartes
believes we can be tricked by madness or
insanity. Since those who are insane
may interpret things detached from reality
by means of their senses, " how
could it be denied that these hands or this
whole body are mine? Unless
perhaps I were to liken myself to madmen, whose
brains are so damaged by the
persistent vapours of melancholia" (1:19
[13]), they in fact believe these
percepts to be true. Though Descartes does go
on to say "such people are
insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I
took anything from them as a
model for myself", and continues by likening
the dreams he has to the
experiences a madman faces when awake. From here
Descartes makes a
stronger argument for calling into question his common sense
beliefs, the
possibility that he might be dreaming, that every emotion and every
sense
perception appears to him only in a dream. Since there is always
a
possibility that we may in fact be dreaming, this hypothesis is done to
provoke
his faith in reality and the senses, to get the absolute certainty of
how things
may appear or feel (Prado 1992). His view on this is taken from
the fact that
when dreaming, the same types of mental states and feelings are
present as when
we are awake, "How often, asleep at night , I am convinced of
just such a
familiar event-that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the
fire- when in
fact I am lying undressed in bed" (1:19[13]). Since there is no
absolute
way in determining the waking state from the dreaming state, when it
comes to
sense experience, we are no better off awake than asleep. Therefore
our judgment
must be suspended even when we are sure that our state is that
of waking because
"we clearly have no reason to believe that effects resemble
their causes in
the waking state, since they clearly do not in the dreaming
state" (Prado,
1992). Cartesian Doubt 5 The only way we can avoid the
suspension of judgement
is only if we have a standard to determine where the
truth exists (Williams
1986). To use the conflict of the stick being bent
in water, what sense is it
that we should believe, when we have no tool to
decipher the truth? Thus, the
suspension of truth works for the doubt of the
senses as well. The reason why
doubting the senses is not enough to base an
entirely new set of ideas, is due
to the fact that it does not call into
question all of ones common sense
beliefs, for the representations found in
dreams are derived from real objects,
although possibly arranged in a
different way. The thoughts and feelings of a
dream are real, they are the
same thoughts and feelings that occur every day in
the waking state. To be
afraid during a dream is the same feeling experienced if
. It is due to the
similarities in feelings and thought between dreaming and
waking, that
Descartes is able to find ground for doubt, "there are never
any sure signs
by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being
asleep"
(1:19[13]). This than leads to the eternal skeptical question :
"How can I
tell whether at this moment I am awake or asleep?"
(Malcolm, 1967). If we
take any series of thoughts, emotions or feelings, it is
possible that the
same series can occur while dreaming or awake. Thus, we can
never be
absolutely clear on whether what we are experiencing at that exact
moment in
time is a dream, or that of a waking state. Though Prado (1992)
insists that
Descartes states in the sixth meditation, that temporal coherence
allows us
to decipher between the waking and dreaming states. The aim here then
would
be to prove that there is nothing in the waking state to confirm the
accuracy
of sense experience. The fact that at any given moment our current
state
could change drastically and render the previous state an illusion, may
be
enough to support his skeptical nature on thus, his Cartesian Doubt 6
second
level of doubt (Williams 1991). As long as Descartes second level of
doubt is
accepted, we are able to continue on to his third level of doubt, or
what is
known as hyperbolical doubt. Descartes considers our beliefs within
dreams when
he says that some beliefs remain indubitable while others are
swept away by
imagination. Such things as the laws of physics can be broken
within dreams,
where other concepts such as arithmetic or geometry remain
unchanged: physics,
astronomy, medicine and all other disciplines which
depend on the study of
composite things, are doubtful; while arithmetic,
geometry ans other subjects of
this kind, which deal only with the simplest
and most general things, regardless
of whether they really exist in nature or
not, contain something certain and
indubitable. (1:20[14]) He decides that
certain things which are accepted
universally, such as mathematics, are
irrefutable. The dream hypothesis is not
enough to doubt such things as
mathematics, as we may be dreaming that there
appears a square in front of
us, but we cannot doubt our reason, such that it
has four sides, or that
there is only one square that we see and not two or
three. He moves on to
discuss the origins of our beliefs, and the role of an
omnipotent God. He
believes that there is a God, due to the fact that this idea
of God is
"firmly rooted" in his mind, and he also believes that this
omnipotent God
would not deceive him since he is "supremely good". He
examines the
assumption that God is perfect and omnipotent, and therefore the
source for
all of our thoughts and ideas. Since Descartes is abandoning all of
his old
beliefs, this would suggest that God tried to deceive him. He wonders
why
such a perfect God would deceive him, and figures it must be
doubtful.
Cartesian Doubt 7 Now Descartes imagines that God is not the
one who is
deceiving him, but none other than a malevolent demon, who with
deceitful power,
implants false beliefs, " I will suppose therefore that not
God, who is
supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious
demon of the
utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order
to deceive
me" (1:22[15]). When determining what is open to doubt, Descartes'
evil
demon hypothesis conveniently creates a being who is omnipotent and who
uses the
power solely to deceive. What Descartes achieves is making
problematic a host of
ideas he entertains as products of reason , opposed to
products of the senses,
which the dream hypothesis takes care of (Prado
1992). Although L.G. Miller
(1992) suggests that the propositions of
mathematics survive the perception and
dream arguments, but only to be
unsettled by the deceiver God hypothesis,
"Could not an all-powerful demon
make me believe those propositions are
true when, as a matter of fact, they
are not?" The deceiver God does not
succeed if the person accepts that the
reality he lives in is true. However,
with the rise of skepticism and
questioning the veracity of whether the world we
live in is accurate or not,
perhaps the demon has won after all. Descartes then
leaves the first
meditation in a state of confusion. He knows at least how
things seem to
appear to him, even if he has no idea how they really are "I
am like a
prisoner who is enjoying an imaginary freedom while asleep, he dreads
being
woken up, and goes along with the pleasant as long as he
can"(1:23[15).
Descartes clearly refocused metaphysical thinking into the
physical world, by
turning it toward the natural world. His basic structure has
four uses of
doubt, firstly to free us from preconceived opinions or prejudice,
the second
is to lead the mind away from the senses, the Cartesian Doubt 8 third
use of
doubt makes it impossible to have any further doubts about those things
which
alter such an "extensive doubt" and are discovered to be true,
while the
fourth is to provide us with an understanding of what certainty
is.
Descartes methodological doubt can be defined as foundationalism,
which is the
belief that knowledge is formed on different levels, much like
an inverted
pyramid. Such that, complex beliefs come first, then beneath that
are simpler
beliefs and beneath them are the simplest beliefs.
Foundationalism requires not
only this hierarchy effect, but also that
nothing is accepted as knowledge until
we know upon what it is based (Prado
1992). In summary of what the three main
arguments undermine, the argument
from the illusion or deceptiveness of the
senses undermines ordinary sense
perception. Undermining ordinary sense
perception and scientific observation
as well as the more theoretical parts of
the physical sciences and hence
these sciences as a whole is the dream
hypothesis, while the deceiver God
hypothesis undermines the pure mathematical
sciences such as arithmetic and
geometry. Descartes' metaphysical doubt
emphasizes purging the old falsehoods
and buildings up again from the bedrock of
the indubitable of our existence
as thinkers. Whether or not the extensiveness
of such skepticism used by
Descartes is necessary, remains open for doubt. But
for one to gain any
knowledge what so ever, they must be capable of doubting at
some point or
another, rather than accepting all that they may hear. It would be
extremely
credulous and naive to never doubt or question it is only natural to
doubt
and challenge that which one does not believe, and to a certain extent,
being
the natural extent, it is useful and necessary, "When Descartes
begins to
doubt in an epistemological mode, he cannot stop short of doubting
whether
Cartesian Doubt 9 he himself exists as a doubter" (Prado 1992)..
Perhaps,
when the poet Charles Bukowski said "the more crap you believe,
the better
off you are," he realized that such an extensive doubt can be
harmful to the
majority of people, because they are in fact "better
off" believing in their
senses, their God, and their ability to determine
whether they are sleeping
or awake. It is possible that it may be beneficial to
live and die being
deceived, and be ignorant to that deception, than to live and
die searching
for truth where truth may not be found, for the true determinant
to whether
such an extensive skepticism is beneficial or necessary depends on
the
individual. Neither Descartes nor Bukowski can speak for anyone other
than
themselves.