Methodical Doubt: Descartes’ Path to Certainty
Methodical doubt is the understanding that must be found if only the fundamental truths. The starting point must be an absolutely certain truth about which there can be no doubt, and discard anything that might imply doubt. Doubt is convenient in the previous step to reach certainty and evidence. Man has no certainty about anything, but the need and clear thinking are those in which it is impossible to doubt. From here begins his methodical doubt. Descartes said:
- The clearest reason to doubt our knowledge is the fallacy of our senses. They lead us into error, but not always. However, as there is already a case, we can doubt their certainty.
- The inability to distinguish waking from sleep. Dreams show us real objects, and we cannot know for sure when we are awake and when asleep. There are criteria to distinguish the two states, but they do not give us absolute certainty.
- The hypothesis of a deceiving god (evil genius) of extreme power and intelligence that misleads us. What follows is as if we were still asleep; there are certain mathematical truths. This spirit often confuses our understanding. From here, you have to doubt our continuous knowledge.
This certainly makes you reach a skepticism that fell for some time. At last, he found the first truth or absolute truth, based on the very existence of the subject who thinks and doubts. To be destroyed, the evil genius hypothesis requires the demonstration of the existence of God, an almighty, all-good, and therefore is unable to deceive. Cartesian doubt is a general question, radical, that is, it affects the level of knowledge in its totality, from sensitive perceptions to mathematical truths. But, as we shall see, it is a methodical doubt and only provisional, as it is practiced as a prelude to finding certainty.
The First Truth: My Existence as a Thinking Subject
The question led to the radical seems to end in skepticism. It was initially thought that Descartes until, at last, found a certain truth and immune to any doubt: my existence as a thinking subject. If I am convinced that nothing exists in the world, if I am deceived by an evil genius, if I am wrong, etc., then I think, and if I think, I exist as a thing that thinks. In other words, I can doubt everything, but I cannot doubt that I doubt, and I cannot, therefore (to be sure an activity of thought), doubt that I think. And if I think, I exist, at least as a thinking subject. My existence as a thinking subject (that doubts, makes mistakes, etc.) is free from error or possible doubt. Descartes expresses this with his famous phrase, “I think, therefore I am” (cogito, ergo sum). This is really clear and distinct and is captured by intuition immediately.
But we insist on the meaning of this phrase. Descartes cannot be defined as a body or as anything resulting from it, because, so far, he is persuaded by the doubt that there is nothing corporeal; the only material available is thought. So, when he states its true “I think, therefore I am,” he is saying that he exists as a thinking thing, a self that is pure thought. To think means to doubt, imagine, feel, etc. In short, Descartes’ first truth is the existence of the self and the nature of that self as a thinking thing.
The Criterion of Truth
In finding the first truth, Descartes discovers the general criterion of truth. The “I think, therefore I exist” is not just the first certainty, but it is also the prototype of all truth and certainty. The existence of the thinking subject is absolutely indubitable because it is perceived with great clarity and distinction. From this follows the criterion of certainty Descartes expressed in the first rule of method: What is perceived with equal clarity and distinction will be true and, therefore, can be said with unwavering certainty. Clarity and distinction are the notes of certainty.