Rene Descartes Discourse On Method And Meditations On First Philosophy
I. Introduction
Rene Descartes was born in Lay Haye, France on March 31, 1596. He was a prized mathematician and philosopher (Cress, vii). Descartes published many works on philosophy, one of his most famous being Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. This book discusses the nature of human knowledge. He does this by first differentiating skepticism from doubt, then he goes through the different steps of doubt, and concludes with the idea of the cogito. His philosophy on the nature of human knowledge emphasizes how there is only one thing that people know for certain, and that knowledge comes from people thinking. One of Descartes biggest critics was David Hume. Hume grew up in Edinburgh and, like Descartes, was regarded …show more content…
as a well-known philosopher. Hume disagreed with Descartes’ philosophy, because he claimed that Descartes overemphasized the cogito and deemphasized experience (Hume, 10). In this paper, I will analyze Descartes’ philosophy on the nature of human knowledge, as well as acknowledge the criticisms of this philosophy presented by Hume.
II. The Author’s Argument
Descartes’ philosophy on the nature of human knowledge begins with doubt, which can be found in Descartes’ First and Second Meditations. In these Meditations, Descartes mentions three steps of doubt. The first step of doubt mentioned uses the senses to make observations and shows how the senses can be misleading (Descartes, 63). The second step of doubt focuses on dreams and how people can imagine whatever they want and to that person it would be true (Descartes, 65). The final step of doubt that Descartes mentions focuses on God as an Evil Genius who has the ability to trick people into thinking that certain things are true, when they are in fact not (Descartes, 71). Descartes first step of doubt, which focuses on the senses can be interpreted in a few ways. Raffaella De Rosa, the author of Descartes and the Puzzle of Sensory Representation, discusses how Descartes’ first step of doubt can be seen in three specific ways. The first way that Descartes philosophy about the sense can be interpreted is as “ideas that exist in the mind and which one thinks” (De Rosa, 13). This refers to ideas that a person forms inside of their head rather than ideas that come from a person’s observation of the world around them (De Rosa, 13). An example of this would be imagining a theme park on the moon. A theme park has never existed on the moon, that idea was purely formed inside of my mind and not influenced by the idea of a real theme park that does exist on the moon. The second way of interpreting Descartes idea of sense that De Rosa introduces are ideas that form from “objects outside of the mind” (De Rosa, 13). This interpretation refers to objects that have the ability to exist in the mind or outside of the mind. A person who is thinking about an idea this way did not completely create the idea, but was instead influenced by a real object and was internalizing their reaction to it (De Rosa, 13). An example of this would be imagining a futuristic Washington, DC. DC is a real place, so the person would be taking aspects of this as well as creating their own ideas for what they believe to be futuristic. This utilizes more of a person’s imagination. In addition, this shows how people have the ability to take an objective thing, adds their own thought behind it, and create a new idea that they would then continue to think about. The third method that De Rosa presents for the way that sense can be interpreted is as ideas that form from “objects that actually exist outside of the mind” (De Rosa, 13). This interpretation would mean that the senses come from people looking and observing the world around them, and then taking that information and internalizing it (De Rosa, 13). An example of this would be looking at the sky and thinking about it. This method of interpretation differs from the previous methods because people did not create the sky, they just observe it and try to understand it. De Rosa’s interpretation of the senses makes sense because Descartes does leave this idea open ended.
For Descartes, anything that people understand with certainty is real (De Rosa, 14). That idea leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Descartes values “objectivity of ideas”, but it seems that when a person thinks about those ideas they are thinking about them subjectively (De Rosa, 14). People do not know whether or not Descartes is referring only to the idea of thinking or whether he is referring to the way in which people think as being objective. For example, people can look at the moon and understand that it is real and exists. The moon exists in people’s thoughts but the real moon itself does not exist in people’s minds, only the idea of it which is …show more content…
objective. Descartes second step of doubt focuses on dreams.
Ironically, Descartes philosophy on human knowledge came to him through dreams. He had three dreams, the first one in which he was in a courtyard “where he received a pomegranate” from someone that seemed to know him (Pagel, 45). His second dream was about “a sharp notice, which he interpreted as thunder”, and his final dream “featured an anthology and diction”, which he interpreted to signify philosophy and wisdom (Pagel, 45). Descartes claimed that there was significance in dreams and allowed his dreams to determine his own path in life and encouraged people to listen to their dreams. In the book Dream Science: Exploring the Forms of Consciousness it is mentioned that a scientific method was able to be formed from Descartes philosophy regarding dreams (Pagel, 45). The steps of this method were “don’t accept anything to be true that is not known to be true”, break down problems into “multiple parts”, start from what you understand, “and keep records” (Pagel, 45- 46). This method requires people to take the content of their dreams seriously and to document what they dream. By documenting their dreams, people will have something to reference back to and will be able to better understand their dreams. Descartes emphasis on dreams shows how he felt that dreams had the ability to reveal actual truth to people, if they took the proper steps to understand
it.
The third step of doubt that Descartes presents is the Evil Genius. The Evil Genius idea is based off of God having the ability to “deceive [people] about matters that seem most evident” (Descartes 71). Descartes claimed that it is possible that God is always trying to deceive human beings. Since God is always trying to deceive people that means that facts that people think they know might actually be false (Descartes, 71). An example of the way that Descartes Evil Genius theory works would be through mathematics. For example, most people understand four plus four to equal eight. Using this third step of doubt, Descartes would say that people do not know four plus four equals eight because four plus four could actually equal nine. The reason that he would say that four plus four could actually equal nine is because the Evil Genius is putting the false idea that it equals eight in people’s heads. Through the idea of the Evil Genius, Descartes is able to prove that God is a perfect being because something cannot come from nothing; therefore, mankind could not have been created by something that was imperfect (Descartes, 71).
David Rosenthal, the author of the academic journal article "René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy" mentions that Descartes did not doubt things merely for the purpose of doubting them, “rather” his doubt “is an exploration of how much it is psychologically possible to doubt” if a person were to take the time to do it (Rosenthal, 1). This means that there is a purpose behind Descartes methods, even though they may initially appears solely as skepticism. Descartes utilizes doubt so that he can better understand the world around him and to learn new things. In addition, Descartes uses doubt as an example of how people cannot always trust their senses or even their own bodies, but they can always trust their mind.
III. The Cogito Another idea that Descartes uses to explain the nature of human knowledge is cogito ergo sum, which is the innate idea of existence (Descartes, 64). Descartes’ idea of cogito ergo sum is irrefutable. This applies to human knowledge because it means that as long as a person can think about something they are able to know it. Descartes understood that his idea would seem like pure skepticism. The cogito helped because not only was it certain but it also showed that through this process of analyzing the world around him, he was able to find one thing that is certain (Sakar,58). This idea of the cogito shows how the act of just thinking has the ability to not only confirm our existence to ourselves but to also give people something that is certain. For Descartes, that is what he wanted and it was why he began questioning everything.
There is a method to Descartes use of the cogito. This method begins with “a particular conscious thinking” (Campbell, 365). This refers to just thinking about something, for example the grass is green. The next step that stems from the cogito is “I am thinking” (Campbell, 365). This step is what happens after a person acknowledges what their sense has already revealed to them. The final step, is “I exist” (Campbell, 365). A person starts by noticing something, they then think about it, and from thinking about it they are able to conclude that they exist.
In addition, Daniel Flage, author of the academic journal "Descartes and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body”, writes that Descartes’ ideas are material truth and formal truth, which were mentioned in Descartes Third Meditation. To Descartes, material truth is the idea that "whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive is true” (Flage, para 4). This means that whatever Descartes thinks about is true. Formal truth is Descartes way of acknowledging that if material theory is true that means that it is true for everyone. He does this by mentioning that ideas that may be true to him may not “conform to […] things located outside [of himself] “(Flage, 5). This reflects back to the idea of Descartes philosophy for human knowledge being objective, and yet subjective when applied to a person’s personal thought process.
IV. David Hume’s Criticisms of Descartes’ Argument
Hume challenges Descartes ideas for the nature of human knowledge. Hume challenges Descartes philosophy by emphasizing experience over the cogito. He believes that experience plays a much bigger role than the mind. To Hume when people are born their mind is a blank slate (Hume, 13). As people develop and live their lives they gain memories and experience. Hume disagrees with Descartes because he believes that experience plays a much greater role than reason. Hume emphasizes the association of ideas, especially cause and effect. Cause and effect is the idea that we do not know anything or what caused anything we only know the effect that it leaves behind (Sabl, 27).
Hume disagreement with the cogito, stems from his emphasis on experience. Hume felt that Descartes ideas as well as those ideas that stem from philosophers influenced by Descartes were “nothing but false temptresses, nihilisms shielded under a guise of objectivity” (Green, 170). He felt that Descartes was not only denying religion but also denying that there is meaning in life because everything is objective (Green, 170). Hume disagrees with Descartes because Hume claims that the world is meant to be experienced. . Hume’s process of understanding the world would be based on “live human experience” (Green, 174). For Hume, Descartes’ the cogito was too reflexive, and because of that he believed that it made it difficult to experience life.
Another way that Hume challenges Descartes’ philosophy is through impressions and ideas. Descartes emphasized dreams and imagination and he would say that if a person can think something that makes it real (Descartes, 19). Hume would say the opposite. For Hume “what cannot be observed and experienced” does not count (Coventry, 78). Instead of emphasizing dreams and imagination, Hume emphasizes impressions and ideas. Impressions refer to “what we hear, what we see, and what we feel”, while ideas refer to thinking back on something that happened, such as a memory (Coventry 80). The use of impressions and ideas is what allows people to form thoughts and to imagine. For Hume if we have never experienced something, then there is no possible way that a person could imagine it, because all of that stems from life and the impressions that it leaves on us.
Another important part of Hume’s philosophy is cause and effect. Hume created the basic idea of causation because he believed that “reason can never show us the [connection] to one object with another (“David Hume” 8). Hume doubted that reason alone could make cause and effect true. Instead of cause and effect, Hume claimed that people can observe and experience what an event is like and from there they can form an association between certain events. Since Hume doubts cause and effect that means that he does not acknowledge scientific laws. For Hume, scientific laws are almost impossible (“David Hume”, 8). An example of this would be how the sun rises every day. Hume would say that people cannot possibly know that the sun will rise tomorrow because that is beyond our human capability. People do not know that something will happen until it happens. Experience aids in this and allows people to understand that it is very likely that the sun will rise tomorrow, but people will never know for certain whether or not that event will take place.
Another law to apply this to would be the law of gravity. Hume would say that Newton’s law of gravity is false. He would say this because people only see the effect that gravity has on them which is making them stick to the earth (Hume, 45). People do not have the ability to understand what causes gravity to happen. Therefore, if people have never experienced the cause of gravity and only the effect, using Hume’s philosophy it would be impossible to say that the law of gravity is in fact true. Hume does not dispel that gravity exists, but rather that it is an association of events rather than a law (Hume, 45). Based on Descartes philosophy, Descartes would interpret the laws differently. Since Descartes places so much emphasis on the cogito, his philosophy would say that if you can imagine the law of gravity and understand it with certainty, then it must be true.
To apply Hume’s philosophy to Descartes requires looking at the way that Descartes approached a block of wax. In his writing Descartes states that if he were to see a block of wax and that same block of wax were to be melted into liquid form, he would think of that as a different substance (Descartes, 68). The reasoning behind Descartes idea is that what we things to be is what we understand them to be. Hume would disagree with Descartes approach to a block of wax. Based on Hume’s Philosophy he would say that experience would tell a person that they should know better. Maybe the first time that a person witnesses a block of wax melt they would be unsure, but after experiencing seeing a block of wax melt a person would then be able to associate that the melted wax and the block of wax are the same wax.
Rene Descartes was born in Lay Haye, France on March 31, 1596. He was a prized mathematician and philosopher (Cress, vii). Descartes published many works on philosophy, one of his most famous being Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. This book discusses the nature of human knowledge. He does this by first differentiating skepticism from doubt, then he goes through the different steps of doubt, and concludes with the idea of the cogito. His philosophy on the nature of human knowledge emphasizes how there is only one thing that people know for certain, and that knowledge comes from people thinking. One of Descartes biggest critics was David Hume. Hume grew up in Edinburgh and, like Descartes, was regarded …show more content…
as a well-known philosopher. Hume disagreed with Descartes’ philosophy, because he claimed that Descartes overemphasized the cogito and deemphasized experience (Hume, 10). In this paper, I will analyze Descartes’ philosophy on the nature of human knowledge, as well as acknowledge the criticisms of this philosophy presented by Hume.
II. The Author’s Argument
Descartes’ philosophy on the nature of human knowledge begins with doubt, which can be found in Descartes’ First and Second Meditations. In these Meditations, Descartes mentions three steps of doubt. The first step of doubt mentioned uses the senses to make observations and shows how the senses can be misleading (Descartes, 63). The second step of doubt focuses on dreams and how people can imagine whatever they want and to that person it would be true (Descartes, 65). The final step of doubt that Descartes mentions focuses on God as an Evil Genius who has the ability to trick people into thinking that certain things are true, when they are in fact not (Descartes, 71). Descartes first step of doubt, which focuses on the senses can be interpreted in a few ways. Raffaella De Rosa, the author of Descartes and the Puzzle of Sensory Representation, discusses how Descartes’ first step of doubt can be seen in three specific ways. The first way that Descartes philosophy about the sense can be interpreted is as “ideas that exist in the mind and which one thinks” (De Rosa, 13). This refers to ideas that a person forms inside of their head rather than ideas that come from a person’s observation of the world around them (De Rosa, 13). An example of this would be imagining a theme park on the moon. A theme park has never existed on the moon, that idea was purely formed inside of my mind and not influenced by the idea of a real theme park that does exist on the moon. The second way of interpreting Descartes idea of sense that De Rosa introduces are ideas that form from “objects outside of the mind” (De Rosa, 13). This interpretation refers to objects that have the ability to exist in the mind or outside of the mind. A person who is thinking about an idea this way did not completely create the idea, but was instead influenced by a real object and was internalizing their reaction to it (De Rosa, 13). An example of this would be imagining a futuristic Washington, DC. DC is a real place, so the person would be taking aspects of this as well as creating their own ideas for what they believe to be futuristic. This utilizes more of a person’s imagination. In addition, this shows how people have the ability to take an objective thing, adds their own thought behind it, and create a new idea that they would then continue to think about. The third method that De Rosa presents for the way that sense can be interpreted is as ideas that form from “objects that actually exist outside of the mind” (De Rosa, 13). This interpretation would mean that the senses come from people looking and observing the world around them, and then taking that information and internalizing it (De Rosa, 13). An example of this would be looking at the sky and thinking about it. This method of interpretation differs from the previous methods because people did not create the sky, they just observe it and try to understand it. De Rosa’s interpretation of the senses makes sense because Descartes does leave this idea open ended.
For Descartes, anything that people understand with certainty is real (De Rosa, 14). That idea leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Descartes values “objectivity of ideas”, but it seems that when a person thinks about those ideas they are thinking about them subjectively (De Rosa, 14). People do not know whether or not Descartes is referring only to the idea of thinking or whether he is referring to the way in which people think as being objective. For example, people can look at the moon and understand that it is real and exists. The moon exists in people’s thoughts but the real moon itself does not exist in people’s minds, only the idea of it which is …show more content…
objective. Descartes second step of doubt focuses on dreams.
Ironically, Descartes philosophy on human knowledge came to him through dreams. He had three dreams, the first one in which he was in a courtyard “where he received a pomegranate” from someone that seemed to know him (Pagel, 45). His second dream was about “a sharp notice, which he interpreted as thunder”, and his final dream “featured an anthology and diction”, which he interpreted to signify philosophy and wisdom (Pagel, 45). Descartes claimed that there was significance in dreams and allowed his dreams to determine his own path in life and encouraged people to listen to their dreams. In the book Dream Science: Exploring the Forms of Consciousness it is mentioned that a scientific method was able to be formed from Descartes philosophy regarding dreams (Pagel, 45). The steps of this method were “don’t accept anything to be true that is not known to be true”, break down problems into “multiple parts”, start from what you understand, “and keep records” (Pagel, 45- 46). This method requires people to take the content of their dreams seriously and to document what they dream. By documenting their dreams, people will have something to reference back to and will be able to better understand their dreams. Descartes emphasis on dreams shows how he felt that dreams had the ability to reveal actual truth to people, if they took the proper steps to understand
it.
The third step of doubt that Descartes presents is the Evil Genius. The Evil Genius idea is based off of God having the ability to “deceive [people] about matters that seem most evident” (Descartes 71). Descartes claimed that it is possible that God is always trying to deceive human beings. Since God is always trying to deceive people that means that facts that people think they know might actually be false (Descartes, 71). An example of the way that Descartes Evil Genius theory works would be through mathematics. For example, most people understand four plus four to equal eight. Using this third step of doubt, Descartes would say that people do not know four plus four equals eight because four plus four could actually equal nine. The reason that he would say that four plus four could actually equal nine is because the Evil Genius is putting the false idea that it equals eight in people’s heads. Through the idea of the Evil Genius, Descartes is able to prove that God is a perfect being because something cannot come from nothing; therefore, mankind could not have been created by something that was imperfect (Descartes, 71).
David Rosenthal, the author of the academic journal article "René Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy" mentions that Descartes did not doubt things merely for the purpose of doubting them, “rather” his doubt “is an exploration of how much it is psychologically possible to doubt” if a person were to take the time to do it (Rosenthal, 1). This means that there is a purpose behind Descartes methods, even though they may initially appears solely as skepticism. Descartes utilizes doubt so that he can better understand the world around him and to learn new things. In addition, Descartes uses doubt as an example of how people cannot always trust their senses or even their own bodies, but they can always trust their mind.
III. The Cogito Another idea that Descartes uses to explain the nature of human knowledge is cogito ergo sum, which is the innate idea of existence (Descartes, 64). Descartes’ idea of cogito ergo sum is irrefutable. This applies to human knowledge because it means that as long as a person can think about something they are able to know it. Descartes understood that his idea would seem like pure skepticism. The cogito helped because not only was it certain but it also showed that through this process of analyzing the world around him, he was able to find one thing that is certain (Sakar,58). This idea of the cogito shows how the act of just thinking has the ability to not only confirm our existence to ourselves but to also give people something that is certain. For Descartes, that is what he wanted and it was why he began questioning everything.
There is a method to Descartes use of the cogito. This method begins with “a particular conscious thinking” (Campbell, 365). This refers to just thinking about something, for example the grass is green. The next step that stems from the cogito is “I am thinking” (Campbell, 365). This step is what happens after a person acknowledges what their sense has already revealed to them. The final step, is “I exist” (Campbell, 365). A person starts by noticing something, they then think about it, and from thinking about it they are able to conclude that they exist.
In addition, Daniel Flage, author of the academic journal "Descartes and the Real Distinction between Mind and Body”, writes that Descartes’ ideas are material truth and formal truth, which were mentioned in Descartes Third Meditation. To Descartes, material truth is the idea that "whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive is true” (Flage, para 4). This means that whatever Descartes thinks about is true. Formal truth is Descartes way of acknowledging that if material theory is true that means that it is true for everyone. He does this by mentioning that ideas that may be true to him may not “conform to […] things located outside [of himself] “(Flage, 5). This reflects back to the idea of Descartes philosophy for human knowledge being objective, and yet subjective when applied to a person’s personal thought process.
IV. David Hume’s Criticisms of Descartes’ Argument
Hume challenges Descartes ideas for the nature of human knowledge. Hume challenges Descartes philosophy by emphasizing experience over the cogito. He believes that experience plays a much bigger role than the mind. To Hume when people are born their mind is a blank slate (Hume, 13). As people develop and live their lives they gain memories and experience. Hume disagrees with Descartes because he believes that experience plays a much greater role than reason. Hume emphasizes the association of ideas, especially cause and effect. Cause and effect is the idea that we do not know anything or what caused anything we only know the effect that it leaves behind (Sabl, 27).
Hume disagreement with the cogito, stems from his emphasis on experience. Hume felt that Descartes ideas as well as those ideas that stem from philosophers influenced by Descartes were “nothing but false temptresses, nihilisms shielded under a guise of objectivity” (Green, 170). He felt that Descartes was not only denying religion but also denying that there is meaning in life because everything is objective (Green, 170). Hume disagrees with Descartes because Hume claims that the world is meant to be experienced. . Hume’s process of understanding the world would be based on “live human experience” (Green, 174). For Hume, Descartes’ the cogito was too reflexive, and because of that he believed that it made it difficult to experience life.
Another way that Hume challenges Descartes’ philosophy is through impressions and ideas. Descartes emphasized dreams and imagination and he would say that if a person can think something that makes it real (Descartes, 19). Hume would say the opposite. For Hume “what cannot be observed and experienced” does not count (Coventry, 78). Instead of emphasizing dreams and imagination, Hume emphasizes impressions and ideas. Impressions refer to “what we hear, what we see, and what we feel”, while ideas refer to thinking back on something that happened, such as a memory (Coventry 80). The use of impressions and ideas is what allows people to form thoughts and to imagine. For Hume if we have never experienced something, then there is no possible way that a person could imagine it, because all of that stems from life and the impressions that it leaves on us.
Another important part of Hume’s philosophy is cause and effect. Hume created the basic idea of causation because he believed that “reason can never show us the [connection] to one object with another (“David Hume” 8). Hume doubted that reason alone could make cause and effect true. Instead of cause and effect, Hume claimed that people can observe and experience what an event is like and from there they can form an association between certain events. Since Hume doubts cause and effect that means that he does not acknowledge scientific laws. For Hume, scientific laws are almost impossible (“David Hume”, 8). An example of this would be how the sun rises every day. Hume would say that people cannot possibly know that the sun will rise tomorrow because that is beyond our human capability. People do not know that something will happen until it happens. Experience aids in this and allows people to understand that it is very likely that the sun will rise tomorrow, but people will never know for certain whether or not that event will take place.
Another law to apply this to would be the law of gravity. Hume would say that Newton’s law of gravity is false. He would say this because people only see the effect that gravity has on them which is making them stick to the earth (Hume, 45). People do not have the ability to understand what causes gravity to happen. Therefore, if people have never experienced the cause of gravity and only the effect, using Hume’s philosophy it would be impossible to say that the law of gravity is in fact true. Hume does not dispel that gravity exists, but rather that it is an association of events rather than a law (Hume, 45). Based on Descartes philosophy, Descartes would interpret the laws differently. Since Descartes places so much emphasis on the cogito, his philosophy would say that if you can imagine the law of gravity and understand it with certainty, then it must be true.
To apply Hume’s philosophy to Descartes requires looking at the way that Descartes approached a block of wax. In his writing Descartes states that if he were to see a block of wax and that same block of wax were to be melted into liquid form, he would think of that as a different substance (Descartes, 68). The reasoning behind Descartes idea is that what we things to be is what we understand them to be. Hume would disagree with Descartes approach to a block of wax. Based on Hume’s Philosophy he would say that experience would tell a person that they should know better. Maybe the first time that a person witnesses a block of wax melt they would be unsure, but after experiencing seeing a block of wax melt a person would then be able to associate that the melted wax and the block of wax are the same wax.