Descartes’ Methodical Doubt and Metaphysical Foundations
Descartes’ Method: Justification Part 4
Justification Part 4 – Descartes had discovered his method by considering the mathematical procedure. But it is about giving a general formulation, to be able to apply to all branches of knowledge. It is necessary to justify the method itself and the possibility of universal application, reaching to its ultimate foundation, that is, the subjectivity of man. This justification is given for its metaphysical inquiry. In Part Four of the Discourse on Method, Descartes describes the methodical doubt (cogito) and demonstration of a “God most truthful.” Descartes then gave the metaphysical foundations of the method and realizes that he has often accepted as true knowledge later proved wrong, but if you really seek truth, can not accept as true any knowledge that is susceptible to the slightest doubt. Undertake methodical doubt as the only way to found philosophy on a solid foundation on a principle that is really indubitable. The methodical doubt of Descartes has the following characteristics: it is universally applied to all knowledge, Descartes chooses to reject all knowledge admit the slightest possibility of doubt. It is methodical: Descartes is not a skeptic, no doubt considered as a final statement, but hopes to find the truth. It uses doubt as a source of certainty. It is a methodical doubt, that is, as an instrument to overcome the doubt itself, to achieve certainty. Methodical doubt should not be extrapolated to the level of beliefs or ethical behavior, since the method takes time and, therefore, there are certain routine matters on which we have to decide without having achieved the necessary degree of clarity. Thus, he proposes a provisional morality, based on some rules that govern our lives, while moral. Thus truth is, finding a starting point requires absolutely certain previous task to eliminate those of all possible doubt. Hence, Descartes begins with doubt. And this certainly is methodical, is a requirement of the method at the time analytical. The reasons to doubt are:
- 1 The question of the senses: These fool me once, then I think you can always cheat. But on this occasion not complete, since one could doubt the essence of things, but not its existence.
- 2 Inability to clearly distinguish sleep from wakefulness: the difficulty in distinguishing sleep from waking presents the possibility of also doubt the existence of things. When I dream I feel the existence of things like waking, and yet they do not exist. Neither this approach can be reached absolute.
With doubt he could doubt all the realm of the senses, but it would be the logical field of mathematics. Asleep or awake, the three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees.
- 3 The evil genius hypothesis or “god deceiver”: if you want to continue doubting, is to appeal a new ground methodological. The Evil Genius Hypothesis, a powerful being who is willing to deceive me whenever I think.
Descartes’ Method: Justification Part 2
Justification part 2 – Descartes rises to the Aristotelian-Thomistic system. We recall that for Aristotle there are three basic levels of abstraction of knowledge: physics, mathematics and metaphysics. Each one of these genres has its own object of study, corresponds to a proprietary method. But the methods are not comparable, since one can not study, according to Aristotle, a physical reality, with a mathematical method. Descartes rejects this principle of incommunicability of genres, arguing that human knowledge is not diversified by the distinction of objects, as being a reason, knowledge is one, and if knowledge is one, the method of learning will also be unique.
For Descartes, the various sciences are manifestations of a single knowledge. This unitary conception of knowledge comes ultimately from a unitary conception of reason. This communication grounded all knowledge on the same principles, provided a new way of doing science, in which the role of the senses is set aside in the background so that all the sciences began to mathematize. The novelty of Descartes and his time is in the enthronement of the mathematical method. For there is only one knowledge and the method suitable for that knowledge is the mathematical one. The superiority of the mathematical method is due to the certainty and evidence of their reasons. The basis of evidence and certainty is that intuitive knowledge is immediate and unquestioned, or they simply can not be false. Descartes gives epistemological priority to the simple. There are 2 basic operations of the mind: intuition, a kind of “natural light” through which we immediately grasp simple concepts of reason itself unambiguously, and deduction which is nothing more than long chains of reasoning, a succession of intuitions and the connections between them.