Descartes realizes that some of the beliefs he thought were true turned out to be false. In the pursuit of knowledge he seeks to tear down his previous beliefs and build them up again upon a firm foundation. In other words, he is engaged in a foundational project, searching for a class of beliefs that themselves are not in need of justification in order to justify his other beliefs. But is this quest a misguided one? Do such beliefs exist? If not, does that mean that knowledge is impossible? Or is there some other way to justify our beliefs?
I think Descartes is starting in the wrong place. It seems like if you're going to use anything as a foundation for belief, it should be that the world is actually a thing. Otherwise why is it even worth proving anything? That I am sitting at my computer typing a post in real life has to be taken as a given in order for thinking about anything else to really matter, so if this is actually a dream or illusion isn't really relevant since if I don't exist there's no reason for me to justify anything to myself. Therefore I should continue under the notion that I exist since if I don't there's no real reason for me to do anything. (This sounds like a great argument for why my homework is late: I did it in a dream that I couldn't distinguish from reality.)
ReplyDeleteEssentially, I assert that pondering whether or not there are actual solid facts we can use to build on is a waste of time. If there are we've wasted time getting there and if there aren't then it's not even worth thinking to begin with because we/the world don't exist. It's better, instead, to start from solid foundational beliefs that there aren't really reason to doubt, even if you haven't somehow proved them, instead of wondering whether anything is anything, a debate which, especially when taking all-powerful deities whose motives we can never truly know into the equation, is impossible to resolve. This is a bit ungracious and I know that Descartes is really just trying to figure out his own life but as a rule, I think it's better for a person, and everything around them, to try and find meaning in making the world around them, whether or not it's just an illusion, a better place. Because when it comes down to it, even if the world is an illusion, it's one that we all live in and treating it as a non-reality isn't going to help anyone. Besides, even if someone tries to refute this saying that maybe the people you're trying to help don't exist, we've already read a proof that doing good/moral things is inherently good for a person, so you might as well do your best regardless. When a structure (such as the mind) is faulty, but its use is still necessary, it's not the best course of action to just destroy it and start anew. Rather, you can replace elements of it that are no longer relevant, while continuing to use the parts there is no reason to doubt. Yes, it's hard to replace the bed of a road without destroying the driving surface, but it's impossible to do so without just accepting that the ground beneath it is viable.
All this said: the entire equation changes, bringing religion into this. Descartes is trying to use God as the foundation for everything, even if he doesn't realize it. While this works for him, I think that if we're going to let him do this, then others should be allowed to accept whatever they like as their foundation/reason to believe anything is anything.
In the attempt to prove knowledge, and therefore belief, one must prove not only that one exists, but that one’s senses do not deceive themselves as well. These two points are the foundation of all knowledge. Through meditations, Descartes realized that his senses have often deceived him in the past and are therefore unreliable. As all of his beliefs are founded on what he perceives in the world, he soon comes to realize that he has no knowledge as his perceptions could have been entirely false. To fix this everlasting crisis, he begins his search for foundational beliefs to build his knowledge from. Beliefs that could not be deceived or altered in any way. To begin this, he must determine that the thinking being who is parsing through these thought processes truly exists. To solve this, he makes the realization that “cogito, ergo sum” or “I think therefore I am.” This is due to the fact that he, the thinking being, knows for certain that he knows that he thinks, therefore he knows that the thinking being, himself, exists. This realization does not prove exactly what he is, or what he perceives. The realization only proves that he is a being that thinks. To solve the next problem, of ensuring his senses do not deceive him to then build fundamental knowledge, he turns to the only thing he still believes in: God. He, through many complex arguments, proves that if a perfect god exists, that he does not deceive or lie. Through this, he stretches to prove that his senses do not deceive him as God would not deceive him. Descartes stretches so far on this last argument that it creates a circular reasoning that by his earlier logic of apparent doubt, disproves his recent theory. Descartes earlier states that if he can find anything which raises sufficient doubt in any theory or belief, then he must take it as false. His last argument raises a great deal of doubt. This is due to the fact that a god can only be proven to exist by entirely reliable perception, however, entirely reliable perception can only be proven to exist if there is a god. Therefore, as Descartes never reliably proves the existence of god, and one cannot be proven without the other, knowledge, and therefore belief, is impossible.
ReplyDeleteIn Descartes’ Mediations on First Philosophy, he begins by claiming that he must raze all his previous beliefs to the ground and start from zero, as many of his beliefs could be based on assumptions, and correctly claims that he must have some foundational beliefs to build his later beliefs off. This way of thinking is known as foundationalism. I believe that Descartes was right, and there are a few ways to prove this. First, if we don’t have concrete assumptions that we can start off with, then any beliefs we have will be based off of assumptions. This is like building a bridge that isn’t connected to anything. Without beliefs we know to be true, we can’t move to more complex concepts and ideas. This way of thinking can also be seen in mathematics. In order to prove more complex concepts in math, we must start with the very basic ideas. Before we can figure out calculus, we must first start with basic geometry. In fact, Descartes’ idea of starting from the most basic beliefs and building from there has been explored in the math world as well. An example of this is Whitehead and Russell's Principia Mathematica, which famously took a thousand pages to prove that 1 + 1 = 2. Of course people could still do algebra and create concept of math without Whitehead and Russel’s help, but without this foundation we can never be certain that those concepts always remain true. This is especially relevant in Descartes’ writing, as he discusses concepts such as the “evil genius,” where an all-powerful being could be intentionally deceptive and disingenuous. In a scenario where an evil genius could exist, we must make sure the entire link chain of our beliefs holds strong, or else we couldn’t be certain of anything.
ReplyDelete