Descartes’ MeditationsPerceptual Knowledge

The Goal

Descartes wanted certainty.

• How can we know, for sure, that science is on a sure footing?

• How do we guard against discovering, centuries from now, we were wrong about basic observations on which science is built?

• Can we improve the foundations of our knowledge?

The Method of Doubt

Descartes employs a conceptual tool to find the certainty he seeks: the method of doubt.• If it is possible to doubt something,

Descartes will reject it completely.• If it is impossible to doubt

something, Descartes will accept it as a cornerstone for science, to see what can be built on it.

But, can’t we trivially doubt everything?

Yes, but we cannot methodologically doubt everything. To methodologically doubt something, we have to think of how it might be false.

First Meditation*

Method to Doubt the Senses

1. Variability of Sensation Argument:

Our senses deceive us: when we see something far off, our

judgments are often wrong

when we see very small things, our judgments are often wrong

We shouldn’t trust anything that has deceived us in the past.

*This is a nice place to read Descartes’ Meditations

First Meditation

Method to Doubt the Senses (cont.)

2. Dream Argument:

But what about trusting our senses regarding things close up, like the fire in the fireplace, and our own bodies?“Often in my dreams,” says

Descartes, “I am convinced of just such familiar events – that I am sitting by the fire in my dressing-gown – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed!”

First Meditation

Method to Doubt the Senses (cont.)

2. Dream Argument (cont.):

When we are dreaming, nothing we see or hear or feel is real.

Also, there are no sure signs by which to distinguish waking from sleeping. “As I think about this more carefully,

I realize that there is never any reliable way of distinguishing being awake from being asleep.”

First MeditationMethod to Doubt the Senses (cont.):

Okay, so, now we have lost the world of sense perception.

Still, Descartes reminds us, “For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three

makes five, and a square has only four sides.”

And the simple qualities that make up the objects in dreams still retain their reality.

At least we still know those things, even if we are dreaming!

Except …

First MeditationMethod to Doubt Reason Itself!

“I have for many years been sure that there is an all-powerful God.... How do I know that he hasn’t brought it about that there is no earth, no sky, nothing that takes up space, no shape, no size, no place, while making sure that all these things appear to me to exist? …how do I know that I myself don’t go wrong every time I add two and three or count the sides of a square?”

But perhaps there is no God? Descartes replies:

“But the less powerful they make my original cause, the more likely it is that I am so imperfect as to be deceived all the time….”

First MeditationMethod to Doubt Reason Itself!

Never mind atheism. I forgot my project is to destroy everything I can with the strongest methodological doubt, to see what remains, if anything.“I shall suppose that some malicious,

powerful, cunning demon has done all he can to deceive me – rather than this being done by God, who is supremely good and the source of truth.”

So, note that this evil demon can do what God can do: make Descartes fail to properly add 2+3, or count the sides of a square … and, being evil, will do so.

Descartes’ point: since this is possible, he has no certainty of even reason itself!

Second MeditationMethod to Doubt Reason Itself

Leads to One Certainty:

“But there is a supremely powerful and cunning deceiver who deliberately deceives me all the time! Even then, if he is deceiving me I undoubtedly exist: let him deceive me all he can, he will never bring it about that I am nothing while I think I am something. So after thoroughly thinking the matter through I conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, must be true whenever I assert it or think it.”

“Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum.” –Descartes, Discourse on Method

Second Meditation

Method to Doubt Reason Itself Leads to One Certainty:

So, if an evil demon is deceiving you, you have to be there to be deceived.

Descartes has found that one indubitable truth he sought.This first

indubitable truth guarantees 2 things:

1. You know at least one thing is true

2. You know at least one thing exists

Second MeditationOkay, so, Descartes knows he exists. But, what is

he?

Does he know he has a body?

Does he know himself to be a spirit or fire or breath or ether?“Well, then, what am I? A thing that thinks. What is

that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wants, refuses, and also imagines and senses.”

So, Descartes is a thing that thinks. What can he infer from that? That he also doubts, understands, affirms, etc? He knows those more directly than that he thinks, since thinking is the genus of those species.

Third MeditationSo, can Descartes get any further than just his own

existence as a thinking thing?

What can be built on that foundation, that cornerstone?

“I am certain that I am a thinking thing. Doesn’t that tell me what it takes for me to be certain about anything? In this first item of knowledge there is simply a clear and distinct perception of what I am asserting; this wouldn’t be enough to make me certain of its truth if it could ever turn out that something that I perceived so clearly and distinctly was false. So I now seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true.”

Third MeditationAre our beliefs about the external, physical

world clear and distinct in this way? Descartes says, no.

Are our beliefs that 2+3=5, or a triangle has 3 sides clear and distinct in this way? Descartes says, no.

Why?

Because of that possible evil demon!

“… when I get the opportunity I shall examine whether there is a God, and (if there is) whether he can be a deceiver. If I don’t settle this, it seems, then I can never be quite certain about anything else.”

Third MeditationWhat about the principle of sufficient

reason, is it clear and distinct in this way? Descartes says, yes.

“Now it is obvious by the natural light that the total cause of something must contain at least as much reality as does the effect. For where could the effect get its reality from if not from the cause?”

Then later,

“The longer and more carefully I examine all these points, the more clearly and distinctly I recognize their truth.”

Third Meditation

At this point, Descartes presents quite a complex argument for the existence of God, based on the principle of sufficient reason and the existence of a clear and distinct idea of God in his mind.

Rather than evaluate the argument, which is historically underwhelming, let’s just acknowledge the move and look at the whole picture of Descartes’ strategy.

Descartes’ ‘Surprising Circuit’David Hume wrote that Descartes’ answer to

skepticism, or skeptical doubts, involved a ‘surprising circuit’. Here it is: Doubt

Method of Doubt

Certainty of ‘I exist’

Certainty of God’s Existence

Certainty of God’s Goodness

Confidence of External World

FoundationalismDescartes’ philosophy nicely illustrates the

epistemological position of Foundationalism.

Foundationalism: knowledge is to be understood as two tiered:

• there is basic, foundational knowledge, knowledge based not on evidence but on what is evident, that forms the foundation of all other knowledge, and

• non-basic knowledge, knowledge derived logically from those basic pieces of knowledge*An alternative account of the structure of knowledge, for the sake of contrast, is Coherentism (knowledge consists in the compatibility and mutual-support among some maximally consistent set of our beliefs, none of which is evident, but all of which is supported by the coherence of the whole web).

FoundationalismQuestions:

What is Descartes’ first, most basic piece of foundational knowledge?

How does Descartes extend his knowledge from that first basic piece?

Once Descartes proves God’s existence and concludes he can rely on his goodness not to deceive him, what much wider foundation for knowledge is available to him?

Without knowledge of God’s existence, is there any hope of defeating the evil demon of skepticism?

How can you get knowledge of God’s existence without first defeating the evil demon of skepticism?