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Descartes' view |
Descartes and Doubt
Descartes epistemology rests heavily upon his methods of doubt and foundationalism.
He insists that the customary routes to knowledge – the senses – are
unreliable therefore we have good reason to doubt knowledge gained in such
a fashion. Obviously he doesn’t expect us to reject all we know –sincere
doubt – instead we must employ hypothetical doubt when pertaining to
true knowledge.
Cognito, ergo sum!
It was in doubting, Descartes realised that the only thing that he could be
sure of was that he was thinking about doubting, thought was a certainty! ‘I
think, therefore I am’ is Descartes most famous saying. This is the
foundation upon which he believes we can build – it is the first principle
of Descartes philosophy.
From these roots Descartes maintains that a thinking thing will reflect upon its base ideas to gain more true knowledge. In doing so it will encounter the idea of an infinite and perfect being. Due to the fact that Descartes believes that the content of this being is too vast for our minds resources to have ever been capable of constructing, then the idea of it must have been placed in the thinking thing by the infinite being – God. God is therefore innate within a thinking thing, a human being. Descartes goes on to argue that this being would be ‘no deceiver, therefore we can have faith in the minds ideas and thoughts. Descartes believes that due to the logicity of our creator and his creations we have a tendency to ascend to certain truths, knowledge is not innate as such rather we have an innate dispositions towards truth. This bias and lack of neutrality is very much like Leibniz’s conception of innate dispositions that helps us act in certain ways.
Descartes Joke
Rene Descartes went into his favorite bar and the bar tender asked, "would you like your usual drink, Monsieur Descartes? " Descartes replied "I think not" and promptly disappeared.
