Rene Descartes Argument

     On the journey to find truth to base all thought upon, Descartes explains his first step in doing so. “Never accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgment than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt.”(Kolak, Pg.228). Assuming that everything you see is fictitious, Descartes believed he had no senses at all; “body, shape, extension, motion, and place are unreal.”(Weissman, Pg.23). Our senses have failed us all at one point or another in our lives, so why use the senses as a base for thought? The most famous quote and philosophy by Descartes in history ever, “Je pense, donc je suis, cogito ergo sum” (Durant, Pg.639). “I think, therefore I am” was the first step towards a basis to understand truth, and leaning away from truth through the senses.

The one thing Descartes cannot doubt is that he exists, because he thinks and question the world around him. Descartes felt that our senses and perception of can skew every aspect of our understanding of reality, so only the fact that he exists is without doubt. This reasoning is known as solipsism (1). Basically, everything seen, felt, heard, or experienced are misrepresented by perception. With perception skewing everything, the only certainty is mind and the thoughts it holds, not necessarily that the thoughts are correct.

Descartes claims that sensation is deceptive, and therefore cannot be trusted. He says that our senses tell us that distant objects are small, when they are actually large. Descartes goes on to state that “it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once” (Descartes, First Meditation, 2). Descartes then proceeds to prove his claims about human knowledge through deductive reasoning. First, he claims that sensation is deceitful, so we cannot trust anything that our bodies or senses perceive. Next, Descartes states that if God is

Called into Doubt, Descartes says, "he needed to be sure, and he needed proof that his senses were not

And the question is what about the sense that deceive him, so he basically says we think we see things, especially in the distance that we later discover that we were incorrect about. We misperceive things, Descartes notes that this happens with some frequency that your sense seem to tell you something and you’re about them hence that gives you reason to doubting everything from senses. The idea being “You can’t trust something that has deceived you in the past” such as if someone has coned you out money, they are removed of all your trust. So what kind of things are now doubtful as a result of thinking about deceptive sense argument that we have. Remember there is a distinction between a priori, which is independent of experience, and a posteriori, which is dependent on experience. The senses argument is really only about things you know are postero that are knowable a posteriori (contingent) only true. It does not matter whether we suspect falsity or not- either way there are reasons to doubt. Descartes's has this visual, sensory analogy that Descartes has that is that is a idea of clear and distinct perceptions (“clearly and distinctly perceive the truth”) is like hands in front of your face, and your being very careful, paying attention to what is going on and am not distracted my some other sense. In that case I cannot be deceived. So there is some deception here. So

There are many reasons to question the reliability of the senses as skeptics since ancient Greece have noted. For example, we regularly experience sensory illusions when things at a distant appear much smaller than they really are such as the stars on the sky. Since we can get used to sensory illusions and trust our senses for more important things, Descartes argues that it is not a very big obstacle even though this is obviously a problem. Skeptics of the past have also suggested that the reliability of my senses is undermined when I consider the possibility of whether or not I’m dreaming. I look at the car in front of me and my senses

The conclusions that Descartes draws from this are that all his beliefs regarding the world are centered on the essential perception that the senses tell him the truth. However, his beliefs are not certain. There is at least a possibility that everything his senses tell him is an illusion developed by a powerful being. Hence,

Descartes as a rationalist believes that knowledge comes from the mind alone. During the First Meditation, Descartes came to the conclusion that there must be some kind of evil deceiver that "leads him to a state of doubt" (Descartes 77). Descartes starts out with the fact that distant sensations are subject to doubt and uncertainty. He then goes on to try and cast doubt onto close sensations. Descartes starts off by stating that close sense perception must be certain because we are not crazy, and only a insane person would doubt what was right in front of them. Descartes then uses the dream argument to cast uncertainty on close sense perception because "they are as lively, vivid and clear as reality is when we are awake" (Descartes 76). Descartes then states that geometry and math are certain. "For whether I am awake or sleeping, two and three added together always make five, and a square never has more than four sides; and it does not seem possible that truths so apparent can be suspected of any falsity or uncertainty" (Descartes 98). Descartes comes to realize this certainty because math, geometry, and the simple sciences can be understood and proved through logic and reasoning. He then uses his Deceiver Argument to cast doubt on close sensations. He questions how we know for certain that God is good, and how we know that

Arithmetician and philosopher, Rene Descartes, in his First Meditation, discusses about the skepticism he has developed for the senses, considering that the senses have provided Descartes with fabricated information of the material world. In other words, Descartes understands that he holds false opinions, which leads him to raise doubt on his entire foundation of knowledge. Bearing in mind that if some principles remain fabricated, then others might be too, since numerous principles have been constructed on the false ones. Therefore, Descartes endeavors to form a system that does not comprise any fabricated principles and where all the principles are definite. In addition, I do not think at the moment we can acquire any form of knowledge through

He finds it plausible that we are all living in a dream and we have never experienced reality. He can no longer give any credence to his senses and finds himself in a place of complete uncertainty. Descartes comes to the conclusion that nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than his own mind. He has discovered that even bodies are not accurately perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination, and are only accurately being perceived by the intellect. He also realizes that they are not distinguished through being touched, smelled, or tasted, but by being understood alone. (An apple is an apple because our mind tells us that it is an apple.) It is the faculty of reason that gives the knowledge and lets the mind know the truths and essences of objects. Descartes assumes that all of us can be decided by our senses, someone can see something far away, and then discover that is not what we thought it was. Or even a oar when is immerse half in water attempt to be bent, but instead is straight. Descartes think that we cannot always be sure of what we sense, and gives the example of himself seated by the fire.

To begin with, Descartes holds Cartesian skepticism that doubts the trueness of every past and present opinions, including the ones we gain by sensation. He believes that our sense organs can deceive us not only about the external world, but the trueness of our beliefs as well. Descartes states in his Sixth Meditation that faculty of sensation is a sort of passive activity that receives sensorial ideas from something else than itself. He examines what kind of thing can contain such sensory ideas or holds

I believe Descartes did think correctly when he tried to do without the senses, but this is kind of tricky because I also think he give himself on an impossible task. I don’t agree with the part that is pointless because even myself many times have the same thought of course about different things. One of the main confusion still today is that we don’t know if we are following the right path and if the devil is the one ruling or what it is that is controlling our mind. Like the teacher mention in the course content, “doubting everything you could conceivably doubt including the fact that he exists.” He’s trying to do an impossible task, but a very important one. Descartes, “main foundation of all we know (our senses) can be deceptive and that we have souls.”(Coursecontentbb) in this line I totally agree our souls has a big part of what we sense, I may not make any senses at all,

Through his meditations, Descartes explored doubts in the search for finding true certainty of knowledge. During Mediation I, he shows through his argument of dreaming and argument of the evil demon that deception relates to our senses and is therefore unreliable. Descartes continues in his other meditations, building upon prior points and expanding on his idea that even when one believes to be using their senses, the intellectual mind actually takes over when perceiving. However, objections to such statements are evident. Though one should not solely trust their senses due to the possibility of deception, using intellect along with senses can help confirm certainty of knowledge because it can explore the subject further oppose to just relying

Descartes, being a mathematician, had advance understanding in mathematics and knew intrinsically that the sum of the angles summed up to two right angles. Descartes goes on to explain that a priori truths are obvious and require only common understanding. Descartes also states that a priori truths do not rely on the sense. On the other hand, Descartes believed that only the mind can be trusted and many of life’s problems could be solved by looking deep inside for solutions. Descartes didn’t trust his sense and used many examples to prove that the senses only served to alter the mind. The most famous example he used involved wax. Descartes uses the wax analogy to prove how our senses can see an object and perceive it differently using another

Let’s observe how Descartes starts by doubting the truth of everything. He wants to give a reason to uphold the value of the sciences. He’s proceeds to do this exact thing by introducing the “Method of Doubt.” With this he can show not that knowledge doesn’t exist, but it allows him to go in depth to doubt the makeup of knowledge and its constitution. With this being said, Descartes does not necessarily doubt knowledge, that’s not the point of this; he simply doubts the configuration of it. He believes that knowledge is not possible because everything is subject to doubt. Whatever can be even thought of can just as much be doubted and it should be treated as such. He starts off this claim by doubting the senses. He expresses that your senses