Q. Does Descartes succeed in his quest for certainty?
Specimen Outline Answer:o Background…rise of scepticism in Europe…causes…Descartes response is the
attempt to find certainty.
o Method of doubt…Cartesian Method….conventional knowledge not
trustworthy..disagreement among authorities.
o Whatever it is possible to doubt cannot be accepted…what is not certain is
rejected…can do this by class rather than individually…senses as a group rather
than individually.
o Sense experience unreliable…sticks in water…towers from a
distance…”imprudent to trust what has deceived us even once”
o Dream experience confirms sense experience unreliable…do not even know if
we are having sense experience at all!
o Evil demon scenario..even purely mental ideas are doubtful.
o A posteriori and a priori routes to knowledge blocked.
o Searching like a drowning man for a solid foundation…an Archimedean point.
o Finds it in the cogito…”I think, therefore I am”…something has to be in order to
be deceived.
o What though…what sort of thing…a thinking thing…thinking is the primary
definition of what we are…not experience..rationalism rather than empiricism!
o Accepts the clear and distinct rule…just as the cogito was clearly and distinctly
true…any other clear and distinct perception will be equally trustworthy…like
God..numbers.
o Recognises the need to bring God into the picture.
o Proves God using the Trademark argument…the concept of the perfect can only
arise from the perfect. This is an a priori proof because a proof dependent upon
a world is not open to him…evil demon still in control.
o Assumes the Christian God…omnipotent and wholly good…no argument for this.
o God, being good, would not deceive us in anything.
o Existence of good God eliminates evil demon idea.
o We have sense experience…we are not the source of it and since God no
deceiver it must be real experience.
o But some sense experience error…itch in an amputated leg…sticks in water.
o Descartes says God guarantees sense experience as a whole and when there is
error gives us faculties to correct mistakes…memory, experience and
rationality.
o Revisits dream argument and argues that continuity and coherence found in
waking life are not in dream experience and so we can tell them apart.
o Descartes thinks he has now torn down a weak and shaky building and replaced
it with one with strong foundations…has united scientific and religious thinking
in one system.
o But has he achieved certainty in this way?
o Critique of the cogito…suppressed premise….weak inductive argument…moves
from particular to general but there may be no other minds at this stage…how
can he generalise?
o Do the laws of reason, upon which he depends, still operate when the evil
demon controls reality?
o Is it certain that thinking means a self that exists to do the thinking…David
Hume and the Buddha cast doubt on this.
o The clear and distinct idea is foundational…it is the absolute certain conviction
that something is the case…this means the basis of his knowledge is
psychological/existential rather than purely rational.
o But clear and distinct concept is hazy…what exactly characterises this
experience as opposed to a slightly less certain perception… what about the
experiences of the mad and hypnotised who are clearly certain but clearly
wrong?
o God is a clear and distinct perception but it is God who guarantees, being no
deceiver, that clear and distinct perceptions are true…this is a vicious
circle…known as the Cartesian Circle.
o Even granting the cogito is true…how is Descartes to leap from this to the
existence of an external world..from solipsism to physical reality?
o Proof of God is weak….no concept of the perfect…causal adequacy principle is
wrong…evolution demonstrates this…can’t define God into existence.
o Descartes merely assumes nature of God as good…a cultural assumption…but
crucial to the argument yet wholly unsupported.
o God has deus ex machine function…highly suspect!
o Descartes now using reason in ways his own method of doubt would not allow.
o Certainty rests on cogito, clear and distinct perception and the existence of a
wholly good God….the cogito may well be sound but is a cul de sac and the
other two are far from certain and most particularly the key role of a good God
is highly questionable…therefore there is no certainty.
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