Paste your essay in here…In both the Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes emphasizes the importance of doubt in the quest for truth. While his Discourse examines the foundations upon which his method of doubt is based by means of autobiography, Descartes’ Meditations involves the application of this method in an attempt to establish what can be considered indubitable truth. In his First Meditation, subtitled “Of the things as to which we may doubt,” Descartes offers three distinct skeptical arguments in order to illustrate his principle of universal doubt. In this essay, I will examine the foundations of Descartes’ method of doubt as presented in the Discourse. Further, I will analyze his principle of universal doubt with regards to the three skeptical arguments that make up his First Meditation, as well as present an inherent flaw within his method of doubt.
Descartes begins the story of how his method of doubt came to be in Part I of the Discourse in reflecting upon his formal education. He writes: “I was in one of the most celebrated schools of Europe, where I thought there must be some learned men if there were any in any place on earth” (page 17). However, he indicates that he felt utterly dissatisfied upon completing his education. “As soon as I had finished that whole course of studies at the end of which one is customarily received into the ranks of the learned,” Descartes recalls, “I found myself embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that there seemed to me to have been no other benefit in trying to instruct myself except that I had discovered more and more my own ignorance” (page 17). Hence, it was this dissatisfaction that inspired Descartes to attempt to seek out an alternative method by which he could achieve absolute truth.
Descartes’ journey to find this method was both metaphysical and physical as he traveled and observed various cultures in order to learn from “the great book of the world” (page 20). It was by doing so that he discovered that humans’ ability to utilize their reason to find truth is inhibited by their habituation. He writes: “the greatest profit I derived from this was that, seeing many things that, although they seem most extravagant and ridiculous to us, do not fail to be commonly received and approved by other great peoples, I learned not to believe too firmly anything of which I had been persuaded only by example and custom, and thus I liberated myself little by little from many errors that may obscure our natural light and render us less capable of listening to reason” (page 20). Further, he contends that a pivotal point in his journey occurred when he spent an entire day shut up in solitude in Germany. Here, he came to the revelation that “there is less perfection in works composed of several pieces and made by the hand of diverse masters than in those at which one alone has worked” (page 21). By means of combining the two concepts which I have just previously discussed, Descartes deduces that “because we have all been children before being men, and because it was necessary for us to be governed for a long time by our appetites and our preceptors…it is almost impossible for our judgements to be so pure and solid as they would have been if we had had the entire use of our reason from our birth and had always been conducted only by it” (page 22). Hence, although he believes humans are all equally equipped with reason, and thus equally capable of arriving at truth, this does not actually occur because an individual’s reason is inevitably clouded by external teachings and habituation.
Thus, Descartes arrives at the conclusion that “as regards all the opinions that I had hithero accepted as credible, I could not do better than to undertake to reject them once and for all and replace them afterwards by better ones, or even by the same ones, when I had adjusted them to the standard of reason” (page 22). In other words, he would abandon all of his previous teachings and habituation in order to attempt to utilize his own reason to find truth. This is the fundamental basis by which Descartes forms the first step of his method of yielding absolute truth, which is: “never to accept anything as true that I did not know evidently to be so; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice, and to include nothing in my judgements except what presented itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that I would have to occasion to place it in doubt” (page 25). In addition to things learned through previous teaching and habituation, Descartes believed that he must also reject anything perceived by the senses. “Because our senses sometimes deceive us,” he writes, “I chose to suppose that there was nothing that was such as they make us imagine it” (page 32). Ergo, complete and utter doubt of all things is the first and most integral step in the search for absolute truth for Descartes.
This emphasis on the importance of doubt rests at the core of Descartes’ later work, Meditations on the First Philosophy, in which he adopts his systematic method of doubt and applies it in order to establish what can be considered indubitable truth. Reiterating the ideas central to his Discourse, Descartes begins his method of doubt in his First Meditation with the rejection of all former beliefs for which it was possible to entertain even the slightest amount of doubt. He illustrates this principle through three different arguments, the first of which being that of sense perception. Descartes states: “all that up to the present time I have accepted as most true and certain I have learned either from the senses or through the senses; but it is sometimes proved to me that these senses are deceptive, and it is wiser not to trust entirely to anything by which we have once been deceived” (page 145). As he previously stated in his Discourse, Descartes argues that he mustn't trust the senses due to their capability for deception. Hence, things are not always as they appear, as is the case with mirages and similar perceptual illusions. Since all of his opinions were derived either directly or indirectly via the senses, it is necessary then that he doubt all of these things. However, Descartes acknowledges the fact that such perceptual illusions are unusual cases, and do not necessarily justify the need to doubt all sense perceptions. For example, it seems certain to Descartes that he is “seated by the fire, attired in a dressing gown, [and] having this paper in [his] hands” (page 145).
Nonetheless, Descartes undermines even the most certain of sense perceptions in his second argument concerning dreams. He considers the fact that when one dreams, they often cannot themselves distinguish their dream from waking reality. He writes of himself: “on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep” (page 146). Thus, Descartes extends his argument concerning sense perception. One cannot accept as true anything perceived by the senses not only because it is possible for the senses to deceive us, but also because we cannot be sure what we perceive isn't merely a dream.
Although he has successfully called into doubt any beliefs derived from the senses, Descartes still cannot justify doubt of things such as mathematical beliefs, since these are not based on sensation, but rather on reason. “For whether I am awake or asleep,” Descartes says, two and three together always makes five” (page 147). Hence, even if one is dreaming, the certainty of the mathematical belief that 2+3=5 is not called into doubt.
However, Descartes refutes this in his third and final argument, in which he considers the existence of an evil demon. He writes: “I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed his whole energies in deceiving me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity” (page 148). Considering this to be true, one cannot be sure that his/her reasoning abilities can be trusted, and therefore must doubt absolutely everything.
Insofar as Descartes’ method relies on complete doubt of all things, it fails due to an inherent flaw. That is, if we doubt everything, we must also doubt whether we are truly doubting. Of course, this results in an endless cycle of doubt, making the ultimate goal of achieving absolute truth impossible. Additionally, I would argue that Descartes’ method conflicts with basic human nature–we cannot seize to trust our sensory perceptions completely, and therefore cannot actually carry out Descartes’ method of doubt.
Thus, it seems that Descartes’ method of doubt ultimately collapses into absurdity. However, despite its inherent irrationality, Descartes’ theory still holds merit insofar as it encourages us to consider things critically, rather than dogmatically, and clear our minds of preconceived notions that serve to obscure the truth.