His noteworthy contributions extend to mathematics and physics. This entry focuses on his philosophical contributions in the theory of knowledge. Specifically, the focus is on the epistemological project of Descartes' famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy. Upon its completion, the work was circulated to other philosophers for their comments and criticisms. Descartes responded with detailed replies that provide a rich source of further information about the original work.
He indeed published the first edition of the Meditations together with six sets of objections and replies, adding a seventh set with the second edition Famously, Descartes defines knowledge in terms of doubt. While distinguishing rigorous knowledge scientia and lesser grades of conviction persuasio , Descartes writes:.
Elsewhere, while answering a challenge as to whether he succeeds in founding such knowledge, Descartes writes:. First of all, as soon as we think that we correctly perceive something, we are spontaneously convinced that it is true. Now if this conviction is so firm that it is impossible for us ever to have any reason for doubting what we are convinced of, then there are no further questions for us to ask: Replies 2, AT 7: These passages and others clarify that Descartes understands doubt as the contrast of certainty. As my certainty increases, my doubt decreases; conversely, as my doubt increases, my certainty decreases.
The requirement that knowledge is to be based in complete, or perfect certainty, amounts to requiring a complete absence of doubt — an indubitability , or inability to undermine one's conviction. Descartes' methodic emphasis on doubt, rather than on certainty, marks an epistemological innovation. It has also a distinctively epistemic character, involving a kind of rational insight. Should we regard Descartes' account as a version of the justified true belief analysis of knowledge tracing back to Plato?
The above texts block quoted are among Descartes' clearest statements concerning the brand of knowledge he seeks. Yet they raise questions about the extent to which his account is continuous with other analyses of knowledge. Prima facie, his characterizations imply a justified belief analysis of knowledge — or in language closer to his own and where justification is construed in terms of unshakability , an unshakable conviction analysis.
There's no stated requirement that the would-be knower's conviction is to be true , as opposed to being unshakably certain. Is truth, therefore, not a requirement of Descartes' brand of strict knowledge? Many will balk at the suggestion. It might therefore seem clear, whatever else is the case, that Descartes conceives of knowledge as advancing truth. Without denying this, let me play devil's advocate. It is not inconsistent to hold that we're pursuing the truth, even succeeding in establishing the truth, and yet to construe the conditions of success wholly in terms of the certainty of our conviction — i.
Thus construed, to establish a proposition just is to perceive it with certainty; the result of having established it — i. Truth is a consequence of knowledge, rather than its precondition. On one reading of this remark, Descartes is explicitly embracing the consequence of having defined knowledge wholly in terms of unshakable conviction: If this is the correct reading, the interesting upshot is that Descartes' ultimate aspiration is not absolute truth, but absolute certainty.
On a quite different reading of this passage, Descartes is clarifying that the analysis of knowledge is neutral not about truth, but about absolute truth: Harry Frankfurt defended such an interpretation in his influential work, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen. Yet, in a follow-up paper he retracted the view:. More recently, Ernest Sosa a and Michael Della Rocca have helped revive interest in whether Descartes should be read as holding some form of coherence theory. A definitive interpretation of these issues has yet to gain general acceptance in the literature.
What is clear is that the brand of knowledge Descartes seeks requires, at least, unshakably certain conviction. Arguably, this preoccupation with having the right kind of certainty — including its being available to introspection — is linked with his commitment to an internalist conception of knowledge. One way to divide up theories of justification is in terms of the internalism-externalism distinction. Descartes' internalism requires that all justifying factors take the form of ideas. For he holds that ideas are, strictly speaking, the only objects of immediate perception, or conscious awareness.
More on the directness or immediacy of perception in Section 5. Independent of this theory of ideas, Descartes' methodical doubts underwrite an assumption with similar force: This assumption is tantamount to requiring that justification come in the form of ideas. An important consequence of this kind of interpretation — namely, a traditional representationalist reading of Descartes — is that rigorous philosophical inquiry must proceed via an inside-to-out strategy.
This strategy is assiduously followed in the Meditations , and it endures as a hallmark of many early modern epistemologies. Ultimately, all judgments are grounded in an inspection of the mind's ideas. Philosophical inquiry is , properly understood, an investigation of ideas. The methodical strategy of the Meditations has the effect of forcing readers to adopt this mode of inquiry. In recent years, some commentators have questioned this traditional way of understanding the mediating role of ideas, in Descartes' philosophy.
Noteworthy is John Carriero's outstanding commentary on the Meditations , an account providing a serious challenge to traditional representationalist interpretations as are often assumed in the present treatment. He wants knowledge that is utterly indefeasible. Sceptical doubts count as defeaters.
This indefeasibility requirement implies more than mere stability. A would-be knower could achieve stability simply by never reflecting on reasons for doubt. But this would result in mere undoubtedness , not indubitability. Many readers conclude that Descartes' standards of justification are too high, for they have the consequence that almost nothing we ordinarily count as knowledge measures up. Before jumping to this conclusion, we should put the indefeasibility requirement into context. Descartes is a contextualist in the sense that he allows that different standards of justification are appropriate to different contexts.
This is not merely to say the obvious: It's to say something stronger: This example is potentially misleading, in that Descartes appears loath to count mere empirical evidence as knowledge-worthy justification. But upon ramping up the standard to what he finds minimally acceptable, the standard admits of context dependent variation.
Descartes' minimum standard targets the level of certainty arising when the mind's perception is both clear and distinct. For Descartes, clarity contrasts with obscurity , and distinctness contrasts with confusion. He allows that judgments grounded in clear and distinct perception are defeasible at least, for those who've not yet read the Meditations.
But he regularly characterizes defeasible judgments at this level of certainty using terminology e. In the context of inquiry at play in the Meditations , Descartes insists on indefeasibility. Descartes' aim is, once and for all, to lay a lasting foundation for knowledge. Better to have a standard that excludes some truths, than one that justifies some falsehoods. Descartes maintains that though atheists are quite capable of impressive knowledge, including in mathematics, they are incapable of the indefeasible brand of knowledge he seeks:.
How is the would-be Knower to proceed in identifying candidates for Knowledge? Distinguish particularist and methodist responses to the question. The particularist is apt to trust our prima facie intuitions regarding particular knowledge claims. These intuitions may then be used to help identify more general epistemic principles. The methodist , in contrast, is apt to distrust our prima facie intuitions.
The preference is instead to begin with general principles about proper method. The methodical principles may then be used to arrive at settled, reflective judgments concerning particular knowledge claims. Famously, Descartes is in the methodist camp. Were we to rely on our prima facie intuitions, we might suppose it obvious that the earth is unmoved, or that ordinary objects as tables and chairs are just as just as they seem. Yet, newly emerging mechanist doctrines of the 17th century imply that these suppositions are false. Such cases underscore the unreliability of our prima facie intuitions and the need for a method by which to distinguish truth and falsity.
Descartes' view is not that all our pre-reflective intuitions are mistaken. But such pre-reflective judgments may be ill-grounded, even when true. The dialectic of the First Meditation features a confrontation between particularism and methodism, with methodism emerging the victor. In response and at each level of the dialectic , Descartes invokes his own methodical principles to show that the prima facie obviousness of such particular claims is insufficient to meet the burden of proof.
Descartes' commitment to innate ideas places him in a rationalist tradition tracing back to Plato. Knowledge of the nature of reality derives from ideas of the intellect, not the senses. An important part of metaphysical inquiry therefore involves learning to think with the intellect. Plato's allegory of the cave portrays this rationalist theme in terms of epistemically distinct worlds: The metaphor aptly depicts our epistemic predicament given Descartes' own doctrines. An important function of his methods is to help would-be Knowers redirect their attention from the confused imagery of the senses to the luminous world of the intellect's clear and distinct ideas.
Further comparisons arise with Plato's doctrine of recollection. The Fifth Meditation meditator remarks — having applied Cartesian methodology, thereby discovering innate truths within: Elsewhere Descartes adds, of innate truths:. This storehouse includes ideas in mathematics, logic, and metaphysics. Interestingly, Descartes holds that even our sensory ideas involve innate content.
On his understanding of the new mechanical physics, bodies have no real properties resembling our sensory ideas of colors, sounds, tastes, and the like, thus implying that the content of such ideas draws from the mind itself. But if even these sensory ideas count as innate, how then are we to characterize the doctrine of innateness? Importantly, the formation of these sensory ideas — unlike purely intellectual concepts — depends on sensory stimulation.
On one plausible understanding, Descartes' official doctrine has it that ideas are innate insofar as their content derives from the nature of the mind alone, as opposed to deriving from sense experience cf. This characterization allows that both intellectual and sensory concepts draw on native resources, though not to the same extent.
Though the subject of rationalism in Descartes' epistemology deserves careful attention, the present article generally focuses on Descartes' efforts to achieve indefeasible Knowledge. Relatively little attention is given to his doctrines of innateness, or, more generally, his ontology of thought. For a contrary understanding of Descartes' conception of scientia , see Jolley On the internalism-externalism distinction, see Alston and Plantinga For a partly externalist interpretation of Descartes, see Della Rocca For coherentist interpretations of Descartes' project, see Frankfurt , Sosa a , and Della Rocca ; for a reply to such interpretations, see Frankfurt and Newman For a stability interpretation of Descartes, see Bennett On the indefeasibility of Knowledge, see Newman and Nelson On contextualism in Descartes, see Newman On the methodism-particularism distinction, see Chisholm and Sosa On analysis and synthesis, see Smith The theory whereby items of knowledge are best organized on an analogy to architecture traces back to ancient Greek thought — to Aristotle, and to work in geometry.
That Descartes' method effectively pays homage to Aristotle is, of course, welcome by his Aristotelian audience. But Descartes views Aristotle's foundationalist principles as incomplete, at least when applied to metaphysical inquiry.
His method of doubt is intended to complement foundationalism. The two methods are supposed to work in cooperation, as conveyed in the above quotation. Let's consider each method. The central insight of foundationalism is to organize knowledge in the manner of a well-structured, architectural edifice. Such an edifice owes its structural integrity to two kinds of features: A system of justified beliefs might be organized by two analogous features: Exemplary of a foundationalist system is Euclid's geometry.
Euclid begins with a foundation of first principles — definitions, postulates, and axioms or common notions — on which he then bases a superstructure of further propositions. Descartes' own designs for metaphysical Knowledge are inspired by Euclid's system:. It would be misleading to characterize the arguments of the Meditations as unfolding straightforwardly according to geometric method. As alluded to above, the Meditations contains a destructive component that Descartes likens to the architect's preparations for laying a foundation.
Though the component finds no analogue in the method of the geometers, Descartes appears to hold that this component is needed in metaphysical inquiry. The discovery of Euclid's first principles some of them, at any rate is comparatively unproblematic: In contrast, metaphysical inquiry might have first principles that conflict with the senses:.
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Unless they are set aside, we're apt to regard — as first principles — the mistaken though prima facie obvious sensory claims that particularists find attractive. Such mistakes in the laying of the foundations weaken the entire edifice. Though foundationalism brilliantly allows for the expansion of knowledge from first principles, Descartes thinks that a complementary method is needed to help us discover genuine first principles.
In the architectural analogy, we can think of bulldozers as the ground clearing tools of demolition. For Knowledge building, Descartes construes sceptical doubts as the ground clearing tools of epistemic demolition. Bulldozers undermine literal ground; doubt undermines epistemic ground. Descartes' ultimate aims, however, are constructive. Bulldozers are typically used for destructive ends, as are sceptical doubts. Descartes' methodical innovation is to employ demolition for constructive ends.
Where a bulldozer's force overpowers the ground, its effects are destructive. Where the ground's firmness resists the bulldozer's force, the bulldozer might be used constructively — using it to reveal the ground as firm. Descartes' innovation is to use epistemic bulldozers in this way.
He uses sceptical doubts to test the firmness of candidates put forward for the foundations of Knowledge. According to at least one prominent critic, this employment of sceptical doubt is unnecessary and excessive. Here, Gassendi singles out two features of methodic doubt — its universal and hyperbolic character. In reply, Descartes remarks:.
Evidently, Descartes holds that the universal and hyperbolic character of methodic doubt is helpful to its success. Further appeal to the architectural analogy helps elucidate why. Incorporating these features enables the method to more effectively identify first principles. Making doubt universal and hyperbolic helps to distinguish genuine unshakability from the mere appearance of it. The point is not merely to apply doubt to all candidates for Knowledge, but to apply doubt collectively.
Descartes offers the following analogy:. That even one falsehood would be mistakenly treated as a genuine first principle — say, the belief that the senses are reliable , or that ancient authorities should be trusted — threatens to spread falsehood to other beliefs in the system. A collective doubt helps avoid such mistakes. It ensures that the method only approves candidate first principles that are unshakable in their own right: How is the hyperbolic character of methodic doubt supposed to contribute to the method's success?
The architectural analogy is again helpful. Suppose, further, that she attempts to use bulldozers for constructive purposes. A problem nonetheless arises. How big a bulldozer is she to use? A light-duty bulldozer might be unable to distinguish a medium-sized boulder, and immovable bedrock. In both cases, the ground would appear immovable. The solution lies in using not light-duty, but heavy-duty tools of demolition — the bigger the bulldozer, the better. The lesson is clear for the epistemic builder: A potential problem remains. No matter how firm one's ground, might it not be dislodged in the face of a yet bigger bulldozer?
This raises the worry that there might not be unshak able ground, as opposed to ground which is yet unshaken. Descartes' goal of utterly indubit able epistemic ground may simply be elusive. Perhaps the architectural analogy breaks down in a manner that serves Descartes well.
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For though there is no most -powerful literal bulldozer, perhaps epistemic bulldozing is not subject to this limitation. Descartes seems to think that there is a most -powerful doubt — a doubt than which none more hyperbolic can be conceived. The Evil Genius Doubt and equivalent doubts is supposed to fit the bill.
If the method reveals epistemic ground that stands fast in the face of a doubt this hyperbolic, then, as Descartes seems to hold, this counts as epistemic bedrock if anything does. Hence the importance of the universal and hyperbolic character of the method of doubt. Descartes' method of doubt has been subject to numerous objections — some fair, others less so. Rendered in the terms Descartes himself employs, the method is arguably less flawed than its reputation. Let us consider some of the common objections. Two such objections are suggested in a passage from the pragmatist Peirce:.
The procedure of the Meditations is not that universal doubt is supposed to flow simply from adherence to a maxim; to the contrary, the doubt is supposed to flow from careful attention to positive reasons for doubt. Descartes introduces sceptical arguments precisely in acknowledgement that we need such reasons:.
Is Peirce therefore right that only belief-defeating doubts can undermine knowledge? Longstanding traditions in philosophy acknowledge that there may be truths we believe in our hearts as it were , but which we do not know. This is one of the intended lessons of methodic doubt. Justification-defeating doubts are sufficient to undermine Knowledge, and this is the sort of doubt that Descartes puts forward. A related objection has the method calling not merely for doubt, but for disbelief or dissent.
One of Gassendi's objections reads in this manner. Based on Descartes' most careful statements, however, his method does not require us to dissent from the beliefs it undermines.
Descartes' Epistemology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Finally, a common objection has it that the universality of doubt undermines the method of doubt itself , since, for example, the sceptical hypotheses themselves are so dubious. Descartes thinks this misses the point of the method: On Cartesian inference, see Gaukroger and Hacking On needing reasons for doubt contrary to direct voluntarism , see Newman On the analysis-synthesis distinction closely related to issues of doubt and methodology: Historically, there are at least two distinct dream-related doubts.
The other doubt undermines the judgment that I am ever awake i. A textual case can be made on behalf of both formulations being raised in the Meditations. The Similarity Thesis may be formulated in a variety of strengths. A strong Similarity Thesis might contend that some dreams are experientially indistinguishable from waking, even subsequent to waking-up; a weaker thesis might contend merely that dreams seem similar to waking while having them, but not upon waking.
Debates about precisely how similar waking and dreaming can be, have raged for more than two millennia. The tone of the debates suggests that the degree of qualitative similarity may vary across individuals or, at least, across their recollections of dreams. Granting such variation, dreaming doubts that depend on weaker versions of the Similarity Thesis are other things equal apt to be more persuasive.
Let us consider a textually defensible formulation that is relatively weak. Note, however, that some texts suggest a strong thesis: The relatively weak thesis is this: This version of the Similarity Thesis is endorsable by those who never recollect dreams that seem, on hindsight, experientially indistinguishable from waking; indeed, it's perhaps endorsable even by those who simply do not remember their dreams to any significant degree.
Since it is thinkable that a dream would convincingly seem as realistic while having it as my present experience seems, then, for all I Know, I am now dreaming. Recall that Descartes' method requires only a justification-defeating doubt, not a belief-defeating doubt. The method requires me to appreciate that my present belief that I'm awake is not sufficiently justified. It does not require that I give up that belief. I might continue to hold it on some merely psychological grounds.
Nor does the belief need to be false — I might, in fact, be awake. The Now Dreaming Doubt does its epistemic damage so long as it undermines my reasons for believing I'm awake — i. The First Meditation makes a case that this is indeed thinkable. The conclusion — that I don't Know that I'm now awake — has widespread sceptical consequences. Reflection on the Now Dreaming Doubt changes his mind. He comes around to the view that, for all he Knows, the sensible objects of his present experience are mere figments of a vivid dream.
Much ado has been made about whether dreaming arguments are self-refuting. According to an influential objection, similarity theses presuppose that we can reliably distinguish dreams and waking, yet the conclusion of dreaming arguments presupposes that we cannot. Therefore, if the conclusion of such an argument is true, then the premise stating the Similarity Thesis cannot be.
Some formulations of the thesis do make this mistake. Of present interest is whether all do — specifically, whether Descartes makes the mistake. Interestingly, his formulation presupposes simply the truism that we do in fact distinguish dreaming and waking never mind whether reliably.
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He states his version of the thesis in terms of what we think of as dreams, versus what we think of as waking: This formulation avoids the charge of self-refutation, for it is compatible with the conclusion that we cannot reliably distinguish dreams and waking. Does Descartes also put forward a second dreaming argument, the Always Dreaming Doubt?
There is strong textual evidence to support this see Newman , though it is by no means the standard interpretation. The conclusion of the Always Dreaming Doubt is generated from the very same Similarity Thesis, together with a further sceptical assumption, namely: For in the cases of both waking and dreaming, my cognitive access extends only to the productive result , but not the productive process. On what basis, then, do I conclude that the productive processes are different — that external objects play more of a role in waking than in dreaming? For all I Know, both sorts of experience are produced by some subconscious faculty of my mind.
As Descartes has his meditator say:. The sceptical consequences of the Always Dreaming Doubt are even more devastating than those of the Now Dreaming Doubt. For all I Know, there might not be an external world. My best evidence of an external world derives from my preconceived opinion that external world objects produce my waking experiences.
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Yet the Always Dreaming Doubt calls this into question:. The two dreaming doubts are parasitic on the same Similarity Thesis, though their sceptical consequences differ. The Now Dreaming Doubt raises the universal possibility of delusion: The Always Dreaming Doubt raises the possibility of universal delusion: Though dreaming doubts do significant demolition work, they are light-duty bulldozers relative to Descartes' most power sceptical doubt. What further judgments are left to be undermined? In the final analysis, Descartes holds that such transparent truths — along with demonstrable truths, and many judgments of internal sense — are indeed Know able.
To become actually Known , however, they must stand unshakable in the face the most powerful of doubts. The stage is thus set for the introduction of another sceptical hypothesis. The most famous rendering of Descartes' most hyperbolic doubt takes the form of the Evil Genius Doubt. Suppose I am the creation of a powerful but malicious being. The suggestion is perhaps unbelievable, but not unthinkable. It is intended as a justification-defeating doubt that undermines our judgments about even the most simple and evident matters. This is to misunderstand Descartes.
He contends that an equally powerful doubt may be generated on the opposite supposition — namely, the supposition that I am not the creature of an all-powerful being:. Descartes' official position is that the Evil Genius Doubt is merely one among multiple hypotheses that can motivate the more general hyperbolic doubt. Fundamentally, the doubt is about my cognitive nature — about the possibility that my mind is flawed. Descartes consistently emphasizes this theme throughout the Meditations italics added:. I can convince myself that I have a natural disposition to go wrong from time to time in matters which I think I perceive as evidently as can be.
I saw nothing to rule out the possibility that my natural constitution made me prone to error even in matters which seemed to me most true. What is essential to the doubt is not a specific story about how I got my cognitive wiring; it's instead the realization — regardless the story — that, for all I Know, my cognitive wiring is flawed. Even so, I regularly speak in terms of the evil genius following Descartes' lead , as a kind of mnemonic for the more general doubt about our cognitive nature. Having introduced the Evil Genius Doubt, the First Meditation program of demolition is not only hyperbolic but universal.
As will emerge, the early paragraphs of the Third Meditation clarify a further nuance of the Evil Genius Doubt — a nuance consistently observed thereafter. Descartes clarifies, there, that the Evil Genius Doubt operates in an indirect manner, a topic to which we return in Section 5.
For a more general philosophical treatment of dreaming arguments, see Dunlap and Williams Early in the Second Meditation, Descartes has his meditator observe:. As the canonical formulation has it, I think therefore I am. This formulation does not expressly arise in the Meditations. Presumably, it must attach to all of these, if the cogito is to play the foundational role Descartes assigns to it. But this answer depends on whether the cogito is understood as an inference or an intuition — an issue addressed below.
Testing the cogito by means of methodic doubt is supposed to reveal its unshakable certainty. As earlier noted, the existence of my body is subject to doubt. The existence of my thinking, however, is not. The very attempt at thinking away my thinking is indeed self-stultifying. The cogito raises numerous philosophical questions and has generated an enormous literature.
Let us try, in summary fashion, to clarify a few central points. First, a first-person formulation is essential to the certainty of the cogito. There are a number of passages in which Descartes refers to a third-person version of the cogito. But none of these occurs in the context of establishing the actual existence of a particular thinker in contrast with the conditional, general result that whatever thinks exists.
Second, a present tense formulation is essential to the certainty of the cogito. Third, the certainty of the cogito depends on being formulated in terms of my cogitatio — i. Any mode of thinking is sufficient, including doubting, affirming, denying, willing, understanding, imagining, and so on cf. My non-thinking activities, however, are insufficient.
Maybe I'm just dreaming that I have legs. Replies 5, AT 7: Fourth, a caveat is in order. That Descartes rejects formulations presupposing the existence of a body commits him to no more than an epistemic distinction between the ideas of mind and body, but not yet an ontological distinction as in so-called mind-body dualism. Indeed, in the passage following the cogito , Descartes has his meditator say:.
Fifth, much of the debate over whether the cogito involves inference, or is instead a simple intuition roughly, self-evident , is preempted by two observations. It seems a mistake to emphasize this absence, as if suggesting that Descartes denies any role for inference. For the Second Meditation passage is the one place of his various published treatments where Descartes explicitly details a line of inferential reflection leading up to the conclusion that I am , I exist.
A second observation is that it seems a mistake to assume that the cogito must either involve inference, or intuition, but not both. There is no inconsistency in claiming a self-evident grasp of a proposition with inferential structure. It is indeed widely held among philosophers today that modus ponens is self-evident, yet it contains an inference.
In short, that a statement contains an inference does not entail that our acceptance of it is grounded in inference — a fact applicable to the cogito. Whatever the cogito 's inferential status, it is worth noting a twofold observation of Barry Stroud: In the very next sentence following the initial statement of the cogito , the meditator says: The cogito purports to yield certainty that I exist insofar as I am a thinking thing, whatever that turns out to be.
The ensuing discussion is intended to help arrive at an understanding of the ontological nature of the thinking subject. More generally, we should distinguish issues of epistemic and ontological dependence. In the final analysis, Descartes thinks he shows that the occurrence of thought depends ontologically on the existence of a substantial self — to wit, on the existence of an infinite substance, namely God cf.
But Descartes denies that an acceptance of these ontological matters is epistemically prior to the cogito: One effort at reply has it that introspection reveals more than what Russell allows — it reveals the subjective character of experience. He is evoked by Descartes to cure his inordinate attachment to the senses; he does not complain and would not of a similar attachment to mathematics or geometry. Among the accusations of blasphemy made against Descartes by Protestants was that he was positing an omnipotent malevolent God.
Voetius accused Descartes of blasphemy in Jacques Triglandius and Jacobus Revius , theologians at Leiden University , made similar accusations in , accusing Descartes of "hold[ing] God to be a deceiver", a position that they stated to be "contrary to the glory of God". Descartes was threatened with having his views condemned by a synod , but this was prevented by the intercession of the Prince of Orange at the request of the French Ambassador Servien.
The accusers identified Descartes' concept of a deus deceptor with his concept of an evil demon, stating that only an omnipotent God is "summe potens" and that describing the evil demon as such thus demonstrated the identity. Descartes' response to the accusations was that in that passage he had been expressly distinguishing between "the supremely good God, the source of truth, on the one hand, and the malicious demon on the other".
He did not directly rebut the charge of implying that the evil demon was omnipotent, but asserted that simply describing something with "some attribute that in reality belongs only to God" does not mean that that something is being held to actually be a supreme God. However, it is not quite so straightforward.
For example, Wilson notes that "Gouhier has shown, the hypothesis of the malign spirit takes over from that of the Deceiving God from the end of the First Meditation to the beginning of the Third—where the latter figure is resubstituted without comment or explanation. As Gouhier has also noted, the summary of 'doubts' in the concluding passage It may also have some deeper significance, because of the association Similarly, Kenny who does say the evil genius is substituted for that of the deceitful God "simply because it is less offensive and less patently incoherent.
The content of the two hypotheses is the same, namely that an omnipotent deceiver is trying to deceive. According to Janowski, the fact that the demon is not said to challenge mathematics, implies either that the evil demon is not omnipotent or that Descartes retracted Universal Doubt. Janowski notes that in the Principles of Philosophy I, 15 Descartes states that Universal Doubt applies even to "the demonstration of mathematics", and so concludes that either Descartes' Meditation is flawed, lacking a reason for doubting mathematics, or that the charges of blasphemy were well placed, and Descartes was supposing an omnipotent evil demon.
However, this is only a problem if one assumes that Descartes was withdrawing the notion of a deceitful God and replacing it with the evil demon. More recent commentators take the argument to have reached its conclusion with the deceitful God. When Descartes says, "I will suppose therefore that not God, who is supremely good and the source of truth, but rather some malicious demon Instead, he is introducing an aid to the meditator who finds that, despite the arguments presented, "habitual opinions keep coming back". Kenny says, "The purpose of taking seriously the hypothesis of the evil genius is to counterbalance natural credulity and keep in mind the doubts raised by the supposition of the deceitful God.
In James Cornman and Keith Lehrer suggested something they called the braino machine that "operates by influencing the brain of a subject who wears a special cap, called a "braino cap. The braino is a hallucination-producing machine. The hallucinations produced by it may be as complete, systematic, and coherent as the operator of the braino desires to make them. If the braino is operated by an evil being whom Cornman and Lehrer call Dr. O then it would be possible for Dr. O to create in me experiences that are identical to the ones I am having now.
If that were the case then the experiences so created would not constitute knowledge for the source of those experiences would be the machine and not the world. However, since they are indistinguishable from my current experiences it follows that my current experiences are also insufficient to generate knowledge. In in the introduction to his book Thought , Gilbert Harman said, "it might be suggested that you have not the slightest reason to believe that you are in the surroundings you suppose you are in You might be sound asleep and dreaming or a playful brain surgeon might be giving you these experiences by stimulating your cortex in a special way.
You might really be stretched out on a table in his laboratory with wires running into your head from a large computer. Perhaps you have always been on that table. Perhaps you are quite a different person from what you seem Utilitarianism is not cold by Patrick Julius Goodreads Author 0.
René Descartes (1596—1650)
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