On Rene Descartes

Posted by Winnie Melda on January 8th, 2019

1) What is the Method of Doubt?

Rene Descartes starts Meditation I by claiming that he has known over time that, if anything constant should be established in the sciences, one has to start from the very basis of all knowledge. Descartes says that he need not reject as false everything he perceives as truth, but he rather says that he has to ‘avoid believing things that are not completely certain and indubitable. He is adopting skepticism. He only aims to doubt rather than rejecting his tenets. Therefore, he starts by understanding knowledge by certainty. He has to test his beliefs by doubt for the purpose of establishing certainty. Thus, doubt is the opposite of certainty. According to Descartes is you doubt a belief, then that is not certain, and thus it cannot be considered as knowledge.

2) What is the Foundation of our Knowledge according to Descartes?

The basic strategy of the method of doubt is to overcome skepticism on its ground. One must start by doubting the truth about everything including the evidence of the senses, the extravagant cultural presuppositions, as well as the fundamental reasoning process. According to Descartes’ method of doubt, if any specific truth concerning the world can survive that kind of extreme skeptical challenge, then it should be certainly indubitable and thus a perfectly true foundation for knowledge. The point of this whole exercise is to defeat the skeptics, to raise the broadest potential grounds for doubt, so that at the end, whatever we come to believe amidst such challenges will be something that that cannot be doubted.

3) What are these Three Theories that Descartes has proven True with Certainty?

The first theory that Descartes has proven true with certainty is the theory of epistemic justification.  His internalism requires that all the justifying factors are in the form of ideas.  That is because he holds that ideas speak and they are the only objects of conscious awareness and immediacy perception.  Descartes also proves the correspondence theory truth by saying that he believes in what he believes because of the preceding premises that form the foundation of his belief.  He also adds that something can be true or false if one believes it to be so.  Descartes also proves the coherence theory of truth that he claims that it can help to explain falsehood. According to this theory, Descartes says that the truth or uncertainty of any proposition consists in its coherence with another specific set of truths of uncertainties.

4) Are you convinced by Descartes? Are these Truths as certain as he claims? Explain your View

I am not convinced by Descartes’ arguments and beliefs.  Descartes believes that what makes a given belief true, we have to care about it. However, by adopting the belief, we cannot also be sure that we are right because we are unable to prove beyond doubt that belief that we hold. Also, according to Descartes, something can be considered to be true or false if other propositions within the same system are believed to be true or false. For one, I think that, just like science, we should use base our beliefs on a tested and proven truth. If we cannot test something using all means possible, then it is not possible to say that it is truth.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in online nursing papers if you need a similar paper you can place your order from medical essay writing service online.