Descartes
DOUBT AND CERTAINTY
Descartes
• French
philosopher,
mathematician,
and
physicist
• Considered
the
“father”
of
modern
philosophy
Meditations
on
First
Philosophy
(1641)
Rene Descartes
(1596–1650) Meditation
I:
“Of
the
Things
Which
We
May
Doubt”
Descartes’ worry
“I
have
accepted,
even
from
my
youth,
many
false
opinions
for
true.”
What
does
Descartes
mean
by
opinion?
Fact
vs.
opinion?
Opinion
=
belief.
But
what
is
a
belief?
I am sitting by
the fire
Belief
Beliefs are attitudes that can be true or false.
Beliefs are true if they correspond to the facts,
false otherwise. Descartes’ belief that he is
sitting by the fire is true if there is in fact a fire
there, and he is in fact sitting next to it.
I am sitting
by the fire
False!
Belief
How do we distinguish true beliefs from false beliefs,
and acquire true beliefs about the world?
We don’t have to either believe or disbelieve every claim; we
can also withhold judgment (be agnostic)
Descartes: “I was convinced of the necessity … of
building from the foundation.”
What does he mean by ‘foundation’ for belief?
One way to understand what D. means by
“foundation” is “grounds,” or reasons for belief.
The senses: “I saw it with my own eyes!”
Testimony: “My professor said so!”
Logic/reasoning: “Jen is taller than Cheryl, and Cheryl is taller
than Mariko, so Jen is taller than Mariko.”
Self-evidence: “A = A”
Knowledge
Descartes is after knowledge.
What makes knowledge different from mere belief?
It has to be true that I have two hands; I can’t
know something that’s false. And I have to have
good reason to think it’s true.
Doubt
Descartes: “My reason convinces me that I ought not
the less carefully to withhold belief from what is not
entirely certain and indubitable, than from what is
manifestly false.”
Descartes seems to be implying that knowledge requires
certainty.
Why does D insist on certainty? Do we have to be certain to
know something?
Suppose I have the belief “I have two hands.”
Pretty certain. But now, what if I don’t know that
something incompatible with my belief is false?
What if I am just waking up after surgery, and I
don’t know for sure that they haven’t cut off one of
my hands? If I don’t know they haven’t cut off a
hand, how can I be certain that I have two hands?
Knowledge
Formally:
1. I know that P (I have two hands)
2. Q logically entails not-P (‘They cut one of my hands
off’ logically entails ‘I do not have two hands’ for 2-
handed creatures like myself)
** Entailment: IF Q is true, not-P HAS to be true **
3. I don’t know that not-Q (They didn’t cut off a hand)
Are 1 and 3 compatible?
“Whatever I have so far accepted as supremely true I
have learned either from the senses or through the
senses.”
The problem: the senses can deceive us.
John Pollock, “Brain in a Vat”
The scenario: Pollock is told that evil neuroscientists
have removed his brain, put it in a vat, and are
feeding it sensory stimulation in such a way that it
seems to him that nothing has changed.
Is it true? How could he tell?
How can we be certain of anything, until we rule out
competing hypotheses that explain why we believe
what we do while rendering those beliefs false?
“Let us suppose, then, that we are dreaming, and
that all these particulars – namely, the opening of
the eyes, the motion of the head, the forth–putting of
the hands – are merely illusions; and even that we
really possess neither an entire body nor hands such
as we see.”
Doubt
What is the point of doing this? Is he really worried
that he might actually have been dreaming all his life?
No. It is a mechanism for withholding assent – of
refusing to believe anything until he can be sure it is on
indubitable ground and he has ruled out competing
hypotheses.
Surely, though ,we cannot doubt the truth of our
mathematical beliefs!
But any belief you have might be the result of some
deception. Suppose there is an omnipotent evil
demon who is out to deceive you in every way, and
even makes it seem to you that 2+2 = 4 when it
doesn’t.
Skepticism: the thesis that knowledge is
impossible for beings like us
Is Descartes advocating skepticism?
Recap
The question: how do we acquire knowledge?
The problem: knowing something requires being
certain of it.
It is possible to be misled by our senses, and even
our thinking.
Therefore, to know anything, we need to rule out
the possibility that we are being misled about that
thing.
In order to avoid error, Descartes will withhold
belief from everything by imagining someone is out
to deceive him in every way, and seeing what he
still knows with certainty.
For next time
Where do we go from here? Is there any way to rule
out the possibility that we are being radically
deceived about everything?
Do we have to rule out this possibility to have
knowledge?
What kind of thing could be the indubitable
foundation for all our knowledge that Descartes is
looking for?