Descartes

Descartes Project: Revolutionary or Conservative? Rather than to revolutionize philosophy, what Descartes actually tried to achieve with his admittedly innovative skeptical method was really a very conservative objective. He tried to ground knowledge in utterly reliable, unchanging truths. 36 The crucial thing to understand about Descartes objective, and how he could have it as an objective, is that he thought knowledge to be piece, to be ultimately unitary in a way we now have difficulty in understanding. For Descartes, knowledge was not to be carved up into various disciplines; it was not to be divided into the physical sciences, the social sciences and the arts. And because he deemed knowledge to be unitary, Descartes thought it was capable of being grounded on a small number of fundamental truths. p37

=AGNES G. PONSARAN PHD=

The initial and most important item Descartes sought in his enterprise was a single unquestionable truth to serve as a base for an inverted pyramid of ever more complex truths and knowledge. This first truth would provide a fundamental and absolutely reliable standard, enabling us to test by comparison with it anything else which we might think to be true.

Visual metaphor of truth p. 39 Descartes thought of truth as a simple and evident property: a property discernible by the light of natural reason, just as a color is discernible by ordinary light. For Descartes, recognition or realization of truth was a form of perception conceived on a model of sight.

Descartes thought that having a single indubitable truth is having a wholly unproblematic sample of truth to which we can compare other beliefs, just as we compare fabric swatches to test similarity of color. He thought there would be an obvious similarity between the true beliefs: a similarity actually more obvious to reason than the color similarity is to visual perception. He further thought that the lack of similarity between true and false beliefs would be equally obvious. So long as we are able to discern just one unquestionable, undoubtable truth, we can compare any other belief or claim to it and so to judge if that claim or belief is true or false. We will know the claim or belief we are testing to be true, as our sample is true, if it has the same clarity and distinctiveness as our sample truth. And we will know the belief or claim we are testing to be false, or at least questionable if it falls short of our standard to any degree.

What makes this assumption nave? There is no hint here of the complexities introduced by interpretation, by point of view. 40 He gives no thought at all to how what we see is so often a function of what we want or what we do not expect to see, nor does he consider how seldom we encounter our ideas, things or events that present themselves as completely unambiguously. 40 It is easy enough to find credible examples of what Descartes is calling clear and distinct truths in basic arithmetic, but what about in history, psychology, or interpersonal relations?

Cartesian Method: Analysis p. 42 The key part of the Cartesian methodology for discerning truth and developing knowledge is the application of analysis. This is the process of breaking down complex beliefs into their simplest components and testing the truth of each of those components by comparison with touchstone evident truths. If each of the various components of a complex belief or potential belief individually passes the comparative test for truth, if each component matches the standard of truth in clarity and distinctness, then the truth of the complex belief or potential belief is established by simple addition of tested components.

Essence of the Cartesian method: To analyze the complex into its most basic components, and to test those basic components by comparing them to an indubitable sample of truth. Only when the various components have been found to be individually true can the aggregate be accepted as true. Secondary objectives: To understand the nature of what he called our ideas as well as the origins of our ideas.

Idea for Descartes: p 43 By an idea Descartes meant anything present to the mind, anything that is an object of awareness.
Thought coverseverything that exists in us in such a way that we are immediately conscious of it; Descartes adds that [i] dea is a word by which I understand the form of any thought (Descartes, Arguments, Haldane and Ross, 1969).

Descartes Concet of Ideas

It follows from Descartes conception and definition of thought that sensing something, as in experiencing cold or pain or the taste of strawberries, is having ideas and therefore having thoughts. In short being aware, being conscious, is, for Descartes, having or entertaining ideas. To be a thinking being is to have ideas, and to be a sentient being is to have ideas. We are minds and bodies only in the extended sense: basically what we are is minds, and to be a mind, to be a thinking thing, is to have ideas. When we sense something in or around our bodies, we have ideas. Whatever is going on in our bodies and around them is conveyed and presented to us as ideas. p. 44

Cartesian mind If the heart of Cartesian epistemology is methodological doubt, the most important metaphysical implication of Descartes conception of the mind and its contents is that we are, each of us, pure consciousness that achieve knowledge of ourselves and the world by having ideas and establishing that some of those ideas represent- were caused by- realities independent of the ideas they cause in our minds. As Cartesian minds, we are not spatial: consciousness is not the sort of thing that takes up room.

Hints for reading Meditations His project was neither to articulate his points for himself nor to present them to others as his own contentions: he was in effect writing a do-it-yourself guide that everyone could follow to establish basic truths for themselves. Every time you read the word I it must refer to you, not to Descartes. Otherwise, you will not really understand what he was really doing.

Hints for reading meditations

It has to be you that may be daydreaming, you that may be fooled by the evil spirit; it has to be you who understand that in the very act of doubting your existence, you are demonstrating your existence. 49
Reference: Prado, C.G. Starting with Descartes, NY : Continuuing International Publishing Group, 2009.