Descartes notes week 4 - Prof David William Bates PDF

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Prof David William Bates...

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Descartes and the Origins of Modern Reason Discourse on the Method

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Key points  War because of religious conflict, Time of colonization and spreading of culture, Renaissance and modern science  Discourse o D’s view on reasoning and diversity of beliefs o D reject everything he has learned, seeks to find truth with own mind o Find faults with multiple architects, prefers one man o Questions syllogisms o 4 parts of method: evidence, analysis, order, record

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 Under what circumstances did Descartes develop his ideas?  

European conflict over religion (protestant vs. catholic), Christianity

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strong linked to politics and society and culture Concurrently time of colonization: foundation of culture expanding

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and interacting with other cultures Period of intellectual awakening: Renaissance, modern science 

Fighting in 30 years war in Germany in the 16th century

question and not rely on authority, new perspectives o E.g. 1543 Heliocentric model, Galileo’s instrument for 

measuring motion on inclined plane D was first to reflect systematically to a return to ourselves, without reliance on political culture or religious legacies

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Discourse PART 1  Method of rightly conducting one’s reason and seeking truth in the 

sciences (1637 published in French) Reason is equal inherent in man

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Diversity of opinion is NOT because of varying amount of reason,

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but different experiences and thoughts (thinking differentiates us) D is a “reading brain”: nourished and taught by reading from children  need to question what we know, but different opinions

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are not wrong or crazy, need to accept and respect D find too many contradictions, needs to seek truth with own mind,

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rely on thinking self D doubts philosophy and sciences, like math: certain and

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self evident D: most persuasive people have the 1) strongest reasoning 2) strongest thought organization that is clear and intelligent

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Discourse PART 2  Thought experiment: plasticity of the mind: same men develop 

differently if placed in different contexts, openness of the mind Argue: one man offers organization, consistency and perfection compared to many o Parallels thoughts put in child’s mind before he/she achieves capability of thought and reasoning o Syllogism: what if major and minor premises are not true? D:

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syllogisms explain things we already know o Also lacking: geometric proof, algebraic analysis D: need true conclusion derived from true knowledge using the own mind as a guide

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What is Descartes’ method on discourse?

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1. not accept anything as true without evident knowledge  clear and distinct to mind 2. Divide difficulties into parts to examine more carefully- analysis

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3. Direct thoughts in an orderly manner 4. Complete enumerations and review sot be nothing Is left out

Descartes continued Part three of Discourse  D makes sure that he is following customs as he breaks from 

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society The thinking mind (vs. reading brain) o 1641 Meditations on 1st philosophy  thinking is a technological human capacity  cartesian doubt: possibility that we are being deceived 

at any time, demons could have deceiving him must reject anything slightly dubious as wrong

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“necessary to reject as if absolutely false everything in which I could imagine the least doubt” –part 4 senses can be deceiving: “because own sense

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sometimes deceive us, I decided to suppose that nothing was such as they led us to imagine” reject all demonstrative proofs because people are

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prone to error in reasoning no evidence to show difference between dream and

reality: what is truth? Mind-body duality

o “immediately noticed that while I was trying to think everything false, it was necessary that I, who was thinking this, was something.”

o COGNITO, ERGO SUM- I THINK, THEREFORE I AM  

1st principle of philosophy, foundation can pretend no body, no world, but cannot pretend I

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don’t exist he is a substance whose essence is simply to think,

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does not rely on a place or a material thing to exist method NOT syllogism: once noticed, seen very clearly by the mind, the connection cannot be undone

o general rule: “things that we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true”  2 ways of arriving at knowledge of things without fear of being mistaken: Rules for the Direction of the Mind 1628

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intuition: conception of a clear and attentive mind that proceeds solely from the light of

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reason deduction: continued and uninterrupted movement of thought in which each individual proposition is clearly intuited: a chain

o GOD EXISTS 

Saint Anselm’s ontological argument: circular, start at

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definition of God 1) idea of supremely perfect being (since he is prone to

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error, he is imperfect, so perfection must exist and come from somewhere) 2) necessary existence is a perfection 3) God exists D not use definition but innate rational idea of a

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perfect being “ought never to be convinced except for reason”, not imagination or senses, unimaginable different from unintelligible

o BODY AND THE MIND 

D “Treatise on Mind”: human body actively engages

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with the external world Clocks can move on its own “I suppose the body to be nothing but a statute or

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machine” Animals are machines, human bodies are machines that

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presents conscious experiments to the soul, we experience the world through the corporeal D “Second Treatise”: what we see is not visual, but a

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judgment in brain The perception that I have of it is a case not of vision or

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touch or imagination ... but of purely mental scrutiny. Men could be automatons? We’re not sure. But two

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ways to distinguish Men vs. machine

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1. Machine cannot use language with meaning or

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to declare their thoughts 2. machine would fail in some things, they do not

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act through understanding but only disposition of organs human reason is a universal instrument, not tied to the

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body machines would need many different organs to make it act in a way that our human reason makes us act

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Descartes and the Origins of Modern Reason  

PART 2 D thinks about how accomplishments of a single individual is more

perfect than group efforts  Therefore, person is best served by following own reason alone, not 

letting judgment clouded by others Point out 1) meant for individual level, not topple public institution 2) he only wants to discuss method, not imitate, 3) there are 2 types of people the method is not suited for

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METHOD 1. only accept if evident to prevent hasty conclusions 2. divide problem into many parts to make simpler analysis 3. order: start with simplest then more difficult 4. constantly review progress to make sure nothing is left out

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Study mathematical sciences, lot of progress and certain knowledge  Before applying this method to other sciences, D need to find some philosophical foudations for his method

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PART 4

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT??

Descartes seems to argue in a circle later in his discussion, when he claims that God confirms the truth of clear and distinct perceptions. This implies that without God, clear and distinct perceptions would not be true. But he has only managed to "prove" that God exists by appealing to a clear and distinct perception to that effect. What, then, is the foundation upon which Descartes builds? If God is the source of all truth, including the truth of clear and distinct perceptions, how can Descartes prove that God exists? And if clear and distinct perceptions are the source of all truth, then what role does God play in all this?

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Doubts everything, observe he must be something in order to doubt,

doubt requires thought, thought confirms existence  I AM THINKING, THEREFORE I EXIST  Knowledge of existence hinges exclusively on thinking> soul is total    

distinct from body GOD EXISTS Proof 1 Thoughts of imperfect objects like the sky, earth and light can easily

invented by an imperfect mind, but impossible that an imperfect mind could invent the perfect idea of God  God is a perfect mind, so all the perfections in D and other bodies are due to God’s perfection. Proof 2 Existence is essential property of God as having 3 angles add up to 180 degrees is essential in triangle. People have difficult with geometric proofs because they rely exclusively on senses or imagination, but God’s existence can only be perceived by reason, not the other 2 Proof 3 All other things are subject to doubts, which can only be removed by recognition that God exists. Thanks to God we can be assured that clear and distinct perceptions are true because they come to Him. We perceive clearly and distinctly when we exercise reason properly, not when we rely exclusively on sense or imagination

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Profundity of the method D is engaged in  Method works, what he applies to is doubtful  Engage readers’ doubts  Engage his own thoughts, narrative his philosophizing, unlike other 

philosophers: Plato, Socrates (rule-based, declarative) Mind-body duality: Mind and soul is different from the human body, not environment (Juder butler)

o Stephen Hawking, machines, not need body, mediating mind to the world

o Mediation of him to the body, mediation of the world to him need body?

o Also 103A: SK has a social body 

Questioning exteriorization, our very ability to question ourselves is

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what humans ability, need ideologies in the first place I think therefore I exist

o Body agent to convey mind, need body to covey thoughts   

Build off of discussion > mind-body duality...