Descartes’ Cogito & Criterion of Truth: A Discourse on Method
Descartes’ Discourse on Method: Doubt and Certainty
Summary
In Descartes’ Discourse on Method, he addresses the uncertainty of moral opinions and actions. While philosophy aims to know the truth, uncertainty pervades our lives. Descartes argues that doubt, often associated with skepticism, is the path to truth. He rejects arguments based on sensory perception, recognizing their deceptive nature. Even thoughts during wakefulness can mirror those in dreams.
Concepts: Doubt and Certainty
Descartes employs methodical doubt, not as an embrace of skepticism, but as a tool for uncovering truth. This involves questioning everything susceptible to doubt. He begins by doubting the senses, acknowledging their potential to mislead. Next, he questions reason itself, recognizing humanity’s inherent fallibility. Even in arithmetic and geometry, errors occur. Finally, he doubts reality, highlighting the indistinguishability of dreams and waking experiences. From this radical doubt emerges the foundational truth: “I think, therefore I am” (Cogito ergo sum). This truth is objective, applicable to all. Certainty, however, is subjective—the individual’s conviction of truth. An idea can be clear (distinct from other ideas) and distinct (comprehensible in its components), but not necessarily vice-versa. Descartes emphasizes reason as a universal faculty, stating, “What we think of as real is universal, because everyone has one and the same reason.”
The Cogito and the Criterion of Truth
. Descartes was sent to the Jesuit College and received a solid classical education, philosophical and scientific. Its main objective was to find a certain knowledge, stable is beyond all possible doubt. The contemporary scientific philosophical culture is not guaranteed, nor the Aristotelian tradition, still in force in education. The skeptical movement raised the issue, that if you really, man was able to acquire certain knowledge and stable outside world through his natural ability. Mathematics admired by the certainty and evidence of their reasoning and, therefore, acquired the conviction that all knowledge should govern through mathematics. The math is an axiomatic system that requires axioms, ie the true principles which proves the rest of the problem. Therefore, the first issue is absolutely guaranteed to find a principle immune to doubt, a first truth that is impossible to doubt the clarity and distinction.
In turn, the first truth is the beginning of the orderly and methodical construction of knowledge, according to the rules of the Cartesian method. These are: the rule of evidence not admitted as true anything that is not in our mind so clearly, that is clearly (apart from other ideas) and distinction (apart the components of the idea.) Not accept any idea that is not clear and distinct. The second rule (analysis) can only have evidence of simple natures.So, any idea that is presented to our reason, we will divide into parts and check minimum clarity and distinction of such parties. The third rule (summary): after receiving the second rule, we have decomposed the complex ideas in parts minimal, meet again by means of synthesis. The fourth rule (enumeration or count): Once assembled, we look to see what we have not forgotten anything, nor have we added anything new. Descartes methodical doubt used to search for the truth certainly requires first rule of evidence. There is a skeptical doubt which undermines any truth or even deny the validity of knowledge, but a tool to approach the truth. The aim is to reject as absolutely false everything as we imagine the least doubt. First, we doubt the senses and the senses deceive us, and therefore can not be relied upon as a source of secure knowledge. Neither reason is a completely reliable knowledge, and that man naturally tends to error (the evil genie us wrong). In everyday life, commit fallacies, ie, we make judgments as truth, but in reality are false. Therefore, our reason as well as the senses fail. Finally, Descartes also doubts the reality, since it is impossible to distinguish sleep from wakefulness. Representations of objects in the outside world in the waking state are indistinguishable from the representations in dreams. At this point, Descartes states that the first truth of which no doubt is that “I think therefore I am”, also known as “Cogito ergo sum.” This statement has two consequences: the first is based on what am I? I am a substance that thinks, or what is, I am a soul (mental activity), I am a thinking substance (res cogitans). The second consequence is the criterion (clarity and distinction) of truth (certainty). The truth is a statement that applies to everyone. Descartes argues that the certainty and truth are the same as what I think a soul is to be the same as everyone think. Rely on reason which is one and the same for everyone. According to him, we think of as real is universal because everyone has one and the same reason.