Can We Ever Reach Certainty? Essay, Research Paper
First, I would like to quote Descartes: “Cogito, ergo sum” – I think, therefor I am. He said this, because he didn’t know weather he knew if he existed or not. Descartes thought like this: I know that I’m dreaming, but I don’t know if it’s reality or dream, I doubt. But because I doubt, I think, and if I am thinking, I am a human, thinking, being, and therefor – I exist – “Cogito, ergo sum”. So with that prove that I exist, and if I exist, we can read what David Hume thought: What is an angel? -A man with wings. Do we know that angels exist? -No. Then how do we imagine an angel? A man. And two wings. A man with wings. We have cut something that we know, a man, and pasted it onto something else we know, two wings, and made an angel. Then what is ‘I’? -What do we know about ourselves? We know that sometimes we’re happy and sometimes we’re sad, some times we like a person and sometime we don’t like the same one. We change all the time, never constant. All we know is the past. And that is the same way of thinking, we put out past together and make ourselves. Therefor we don’t if ‘I’ exist right at this moment. So, can we ever reach certainty? No, because we don’t know the most important, the most basic question – Do we exist?. Therefor I say the answer is NO!