Here I continue my series investigating Descartes' book Meditations on First Philosophy, which I began not too long ago. In the previous entry in this series [1] I examined a letter placed before the work itself which detailed what Descartes hoped to accomplish by the creation of this writing, namely, to demonstrate that the human mind is not synonymous with the human body and that a deity exists. As I have already addressed the letter beforehand, I will not dive into a deep elaboration on its contents here. Here I will quote and interact with the first chapter of Meditations.
In the very first sentences in his work, Descartes immediately explains how his awareness of human error motivated him to reexamine and restructure his worldview:
"Some years ago I was struck by the large number of falsehoods that I had accepted as true in my childhood, and by the highly doubtful nature of the whole edifice that I had subsequently based on them. I realized that it was necessary, once in the course of my life, to demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations if I wanted to establish anything at all in the sciences that was stable and likely to last." (12)
Descartes here describes the personal psychology and thought process behind what triggered the intellectual journey detailed in his Meditations. He bears legitimate philosophical concerns about his worldview--he recalls that he has at various points believed in false notions which he acquired as a youth, and he sets about to correct any potential mistakes in his worldview by examining the foundations of it.
As I explained in a previous post of mine [2], all epistemologies (frameworks of knowledge) ultimately reduce down to one of two kinds of frameworks: 1) one that both acknowledges and starts with what is absolutely certain--what cannot be false and what can be proven entirely--and then incorporates what follows from what is absolutely knowable, or 2) one that begins with arbitrary, unverified, untested starting points that can be false. A worldview or epistemology that reduces down to the second type I just described is not one that can claim to have actual knowledge, as a starting point that is not provable or absolutely certain is simply assumed and not known to be true. To obtain actual knowledge about objective reality, one must subject all propositions or possibilities to doubt for the sake of finding what cannot be false. This is called Cartesian skepticism. It is not a self-refuting skepticism that claims nothing is true (meaning it could not be true) or that nothing is knowable (meaning it could not be known), both of which defeat themselves by contradicting their very tenets; Cartesian skepticism or Cartesian doubt aims at discovering truth and reality and does not deny what is demonstrable true. It has as its goal the identification of a sound, infallible, reliable foundation of human knowledge.
Descartes continues on to clarify the nature of his evaluation. He will not be refuting every single individual proposition he can refute, as that would require an almost unquantifiable amount of time. Instead, he will target the bases for various beliefs, which, if toppled, will pull down everything constructed atop them.
"But to accomplish this, it will not be necessary for me to show that all my opinions are false, which is something I could perhaps never manage. Reason now leads me to think that I should hold back my assent from opinions which are not completely certain and indubitable just as carefully as I do from those which are patently false . . . And to do this I will not need to run through them all individually, which would be an endless task. Once the foundations of a building are undermined, anything built on top of them collapses of its own accord; so I will go straight for the basic principles on which all my former beliefs rested." (12)
He draws attention to how he does not need to demonstrate that something is false to understand that he cannot know it. For example, he would not have to prove that extraterrestrial life does not exist to realize that any belief in extraterrestrial life is not justified. The former might prove an impossible feat for him, yet he can definitely accomplish the latter. To know something one must know it with absolute certainty. Now he has proclaimed both his intent and his methodology.
With both of these presented, he targets his past reliance on his senses which enable him to perceive aspects of the external world:
"Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us once." (12)
His reasoning is simple: 1) in the past, he believed his senses provided certain knowledge; 2) he cannot prove that his senses are not now deceiving him (and he recalls that they have before, meaning there is actual past precedent, not just hypothetical speculation, that demonstrates that could be doing so even now); 3) he cannot credit his senses with providing him certain knowledge.
I arranged the basic argument into a syllogism below:
1. If the senses cannot be demonstrated to be reliable, they are not a secure source of knowledge about objective external reality.
2. The senses cannot be demonstrated to be reliable.
3. Therefore the senses are not a secure source of knowledge about objective external reality.
The conclusion follows from the premises and the premises are true (or at least at this phase of evaluating reality the senses are not yet shown to be verifiably reliable); thus it follows inescapably that the information provided by the senses is not demonstrably accurate. Of course, it remains objectively true and thus a part of objective reality that Descartes has senses and that they are processing and perceiving something. His senses cannot deceive him unless he actually has senses to begin with. But I will elaborate on such issues later in this series.
And that concludes this entry. Expect the sequel post soon, where I will assess how Descartes realizes the ramifications of his epistemology and will begin actually purging more specific ideas from his trusted beliefs. I look forward to diving into this endeavor!
Summary of observations:
1. Only someone who has forsaken assumptions and discovered an infallible foundation for knowledge has actual verified knowledge; any other starting point is unverified and uncertain.
2. Knowledge requires absolute certainty, so any sound foundation for knowledge will have absolute certainty.
3. Reason and skepticism target the reliability of the senses, which provide perceptions of the external world that may or may not describe how external reality really is.
Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies. Descartes, Rene. Ed. Cottingham, John. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/examining-meditations-part-1-religion.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-necessity-of-cartesian-skepticism.html
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