Epistemology Model Answer
(a) Describe the arguments Descartes uses to arrive at a position of universal
doubt in Meditation One.
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(b) How effective are Descartes’ sceptical arguments in Meditation One?
(c) Critically evaluate the claim that the cogito is beyond doubt.
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a) In meditation one, Descartes contemplates the various
sources of falsehoods in his life and attempts to show that
we can, in fact, not trust any of our knowledge at all – a
position called ‘universal doubt’, in which everything can
be pulled into question.
Descartes starts by considering knowledge gained from
‘authorities’ – the church, teachers etc. It is very clear
that this knowledge can be doubted, because to hold it to be
true, we simply have to put faith in these institutions.
Next, he thinks about his sensory experience. Again, this
can be doubted, since it is clear that our senses sometimes
deceive us – in the case of optical illusions, or where the
thing that we are observing is very small or far away.
Descartes does maintain, however, that sensory experience is
still quite sturdy, and he contemplates that because he is
not insane, he feels that he can, by and large, trust this
sort of knowledge.
This is cast into further doubt with the ‘dream argument’,
however. Descartes realises that when he is dreaming, he
often imagines that he is sensing real objects, and is
rarely aware, in these instances, that he is dreaming. The
meditator considers, however, that even though his current
sensory experience could be a dream, even dream images are
drawn from our waking experience, much like paintings. When
a painter creates an imaginary being, like a mermaid, the
composite parts are drawn from real things - women and fish.
In fact, even when a painter creates something entirely new,
at least the colours are drawn from experience. At this
point, Descartes concludes that even though he can doubt
composite things, he cannot doubt the simple and universal
parts from which they are constructed, like our rational, a
priori understanding of arithmetic and geometry.
On further reflection, however, Descartes realises that even
these simple things could be wrong. Perhaps there is an evil
demon whose sole purpose is to mislead him, and who sends
incorrect sensory information – indeed, the entire world
around us could have been created by the evil demon to
deceive us. Descartes does not suggest that this is actually
true, but he plants the doubt – how do we know that there is
not an evil demon, or that we are not dreaming?
b) Descartes’ attempt to arrive at universal doubt is
reasonably successful. His reasoning to explain why it is
impossible to trust our senses appears to be logical, and he
makes good use of the evil demon argument to imply that our
senses could be deceived. Descartes only needs the first
meditation to introduce the possibility that our knowledge
might be wrong, and it seems that he does this quite
successfully. It could be argued that Descartes does not
successfully arrive at a position of universal doubt,
however, and there are a number of reasons for this.
Descartes never doubts his own logic, memory, or his use of
language. This makes it easier for him to rely on logic
later in the meditations, but he has given no evidence as to
why logic should be beyond all doubt when our senses can not
be trusted.
Whilst it is true that our senses can sometimes be deceived
– with optical illusions and so forth – it may be possible
to corroborate the reliability of the senses with the
experience of others, or scientific instruments etc, and so
it could be argued that completely denying the senses is not
necessary.
In the ‘dream argument’, Descartes posits that because you
don’t always know you are dreaming when you are asleep, we
may also never be sure that we are awake when we are awake.
There is no evidence for this, however, and his argument is
asymmetric – just because something is true when we are
asleep does not mean the same will be true when we are
awake. This is bad logic.
Finally, there are a number of problems with the evil demon
argument. To suggest that sometimes we are being deceived
raises a number of problems, because it raises the
possibility that we are being deceived all the time. If this
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is the case, all knowledge would be up for doubt, even
knowledged gained through reason (a priori knowledge). It is
possible that the only reason 2+2=4 is because we have been
deceived to believe this to be the case.
c) ‘The Cogito’ refers to the assertion made by Réné
Descartes in the second meditation that ‘cogito ergo sum’ or
‘I think therefore I am’. Descartes has shown in the first
meditation that he doubts the sources of knowledge, and yet
for him to have these doubts – for him to have the ability
to doubt – he must exist. He goes on to think about the
nature of this ‘I’ that exists. Originally, Descartes
believed that he had a soul and a body, but both of these
things had been cast into doubt in meditation one. He cannot
doubt that he thinks, however, therefore the ‘I’ that exists
must be a thinking thing. ‘I’ only exist as long as ‘I’ am
thinking.
Descartes believed that he was a rationalist, that is to
say, only a priori knowledge gained through reason should be
trusted. It could be argued that the cogito fails here,
because the assertion that ‘all thinking things exist’ is
based on Descartes’ knowledge and understanding of the world
around him, and on his observation of ‘thinking things’, and
so comes from a posteriori knowledge.
Descartes did not intend for the cogito to be a piece of
deductive reasoning, however. What this means is that
Descartes did not intend for the argument to be: 1) Things
that think exist, 2) I think, therefore 3) I exist. Instead,
he wanted ‘cogito ergo sum’ to be taken as a whole or as a
‘self-authenticating principle’. It seems like common sense,
using one’s intuition, that when one is thinking, one must
exist. This is a strength of the cogito because it is true
that we believe ourselves to exist using our own intuition.
This still does not place the cogito entirely beyond doubt,
however. Just because ‘thoughts’ definitely exist does not
necessarily mean that ‘the thinker’ definitely exists. If
Descartes had written ‘there is thinking going on, therefore
there are thoughts’, the cogito may have logically made more
sense, but in its current formulation, we could argue that
merely thinking does not guarantee that ‘I’ exist, and
therefore the cogito is not beyond all doubt.
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