Descartes Cartesian Doubt

Descarte`s Cartesian Doubt Essay, Research Paper

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