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René Descartes 'Method Of Doubt'

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René Descartes was a 17th century mathematician and philosopher who was exceedingly intrigued about his own existence and the existence of everything he believed to be true and real. Descartes’ curiosity triggered him to discover the ultimate truth of reality. He was curious to learn if anything was true or false. Due to his curiosity, he created an intense experiment that reconstructs philosophy known as the Method of Doubt. He was highly aware that his senses were not reliable and can be deceived. Another thing he was skeptical about was the idea of not indicating if he was dreaming or if he was awake. Descartes, also has an idea of a powerful God that is capable of deceiving him. He began his intense experiment by doubting absolutely everything. This would ensure a route to particular knowledge by finding things that cannot be doubted. Descartes’ Method of Doubt featured a number of structures. First, he attempted to only accept extremely significant evidence that is recognized to be undeniably correct. Then, he worked on constructing the truths into smaller units. By breaking down truths into smaller unites, it simplifies difficult …show more content…

He argued that one cannot be sure about the external and internal reality. He wanted to discover if dreaming and being awake is or isn’t the same content. Descartes could not identify a sign or clue to determine if one is dreaming or awake. He believed that things can seem realistic to him while he is asleep. He stated that it can be skeptic enough to believe everything could be false and everything could be generated and monitored by a dream. Descartes believed that a dream made him feel as though the dreamer is carrying out actions in real life, for one does not realize during a dream that it is a dream one is experiencing. Descartes claims that his whole life can be false and only just a dream. Dreams appear so real even though it is

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In addition, due to dreams mainly consisting of objects and events, Descartes believed that there is no reason to doubt general beliefs as much as physical objects as 3+2 still equals 5, and a square will always have four sides (14). As a result of this, Descartes concluded that there is a degree of truth in objects we sense as those concepts must have come from somewhere,

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Although, Descartes makes a good claim for doubting our knowledge, he lacks fundamental support for his claims. Therefore, the dream argument is not credible and is not a good enough reason to doubt our perception of the world. Although I disagree with Descartes claim that we must doubt all our knowledge because the world as we know it might be a dream and therefore, unreliable, I do not doubt his idea that we may be living in a dream. In my paper, I will proceed to prove that the fault in Descartes argument is doubting our knowledge of a real world based on our perceptions of the world we live in. Descartes’ Dream Argument is flawed in the sense that we cannot doubt our knowledge because our perceptions (real or not) must come from something that

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Notre Dame ID: 902008117 In René Descartes ' Mediations on First Philosophy, Descartes abandons all previous notions or things that he holds to be true and attempts to reason through his beliefs to find the things that he can truly know without a doubt. In his first two meditations Descartes comes to the conclusion that all that he can truly know is that he exists, and that he is a thinking being. In his third meditation, Descartes concludes that he came to know his existence, and the fact that he is a thinking being, from his clear and distinct perception of these two facts. Descartes then argues that if his clear and distinct perception would turn out to be false, then his clear and distinct perception that he was a thinking being would not have been enough to make him certain of it (Blanchette).

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“How do I know that I am not dreaming” is one of the main questions that Descartes brings afloat in the dream argument. He wants to know how can it be possible to prove that he is not dreaming while he is seating and holding his piece of paper, and this is what creates a skeptic argument about his perceptual beliefs. In effect, the dream argument is powerful because it depicts how the senses may deceive us while putting into question if it is possible to know what is real and what is not. In fact, it is very sufficient to produce uncertainties about waking experiences. As Descartes poses it in the in the First Meditation, “…I dreamt that I found myself in this particular place, that I was dressed and seated near the fire, whilst in reality

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Descartes ‘Dream Argument’ is the idea that as there is no way to tell one's dreams from one's waking experience, because they are phenomenologically identical (Meaning they have the same epistemological and cognitive value); senses cannot be trusted. Descartes arrives at this conclusion because he believes that he had often confused the dream world with the waking, as he dreams that, “that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire” showing that one cannot trust knowledge gained through the senses if they are so easily deceived by dreams. In theory, one would be inclined to believe what Descartes presents, if one couldn’t verify the validity of an experience one would logically reject the things the experience relies on as a valid source of knowledge. However, one can tell when they are dreaming or not, hence Descartes has no ground to stand on in saying arguing this. Descartes explicitly states that there “are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep”.

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In this paper, I will deliver a reconstruction of Descartes’ Cogito Argument and my reasoning to validate it as indubitable. I will do so by justifying my interpretations through valid arguments and claim, by showcasing examples with reasoning. Rene Descartes is a French Philosopher of the 17th century, who formulated the philosophical Cogito argument by the name of ‘cogito ergo sum,’ also known as “I think, therefore, I am.” Rene was a skeptic philosopher amongst many scholastic philosophers of his time. To interpret his cogito argument as indubitable and whether it could serve as a foundational belief, he took a skeptical approach towards the relations between thoughts and existence.

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Descartes, in his Meditations on First Philosophy, used a method of doubt; he doubted everything in order to find something conclusive, which he thought, would be certain knowledge. He found that he could doubt everything, expect that he was thinking, as doubting is a type of thinking. Since thinking requires a thinker, he knew he must exist. According to Descartes if you are able to doubt your existence, then it must mean that you exist, hence his famous statement cogito ergo sum which is translated into ‘I think, therefore I am.’ Descartes said he was able to doubt the existence of his body and all physical things, but he could not doubt that his mind exists.

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The idea that if one can comprehend something in a dream, it therefore must exist in real life. The fact of this is that we know no positive transition between our dream state and the state of reality, and since dreams are so similar to reality, one can never tell when they are truly dreaming. Descartes demonstrates this idea with his own experiences, “How often, asleep at night, am I convinced of just such familiar events-that I am here in my dressing-gown, sitting by the fire – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet at the moment my eyes are certainly awake” (Descartes 145). By using simple experiences like these Descartes is able to emphasize that when a person is dreaming, they do not usually know they are dreaming, and the sensations they experience are as real as if they were awake.

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One of his most famous arguments is known as the Dream Argument. During his explanation of this argument, the meditator tries to identify the difference between imagination and knowledge. Descartes’ meditator often claims that “he is convinced that he is in his dressing-gown, sitting by the fire. When in fact, he is lying undressed in bed” (Feinberg 243). Not only has he had encounters of thinking that he was awake, but was actually asleep, he has also experienced himself believing that he was sleeping, but was indeed awake.

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Descartes argues that one can exist because one has the capacity to think and therefore some part of him or her must exist for them to think. Through a series of meditations, Descartes wants to prove that one can possess true knowledge, a keystone with which one can build the rest of their beliefs on. As a result, Descartes describes the belief that one cannot rationally doubt their own existence as true knowledge and uses this as his keystone for further science. To build credibility for his argument, Descartes undergoes a series of meditations to prove that one cannot truly rationally doubt their existence. Anything in which Descartes finds a reason to rationally doubt, he treats as false until he discovers something that he cannot rationally

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Everyone has an opinion about something. They can feel strongly about it, have enough evidence to back up their claims, or believe something “just because”. Descartes, on the other hand, wanted to find out if we can know something with complete certainty. Using many examples, such as the Brain in a Vat and melting wax theories, Descartes came to the conclusion that the mind is greater than the senses, and that the senses cannot be trusted (Appearance).

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The first thing he does is doubted what the senses give us. However, Descartes pushes his doubting one step further by doubting whether we are actually awake. In the dream argument Descartes is saying that he often experiences the sensations of dreaming while he is awake. From reflecting on this he comes to the conclusion that if he can falsely perceive himself to be awake while he is dreaming then he can falsely believe he is dreaming while he is awake. So, he can never actually know when he is awake or dreaming (Windt).

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Justified, true belief knowledge is only real if there is no conceivable doubt, but nothing can truly be inconceivable fact. In “Mediation I: What can be Called into Doubt”, Descartes tries to find solutions to this, but he only raises more questions about the world. Skepticism arises to challenge the idea of a perfect knowledge and to question the human mind and the world. Descartes reflects on the countless falsehoods he believed that became his knowledge about the world and wipes everything out of his mind to begin anew. Descartes starts with the foundations of knowledge, deciding only to accept opinions as truths when there isn't any conceivable doubt in his mind.

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Descartes Epistemology: Descartes attempts to discover a foundation of knowledge as seen in his book ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’. He is essentially looking for total certainty. In order to do so, Descartes doubted everything, coming to the realization that he can only prove his

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Descartes Methodological Doubt and Meditations Methodological doubt is an approach in philosophy that employs distrust and doubt to all the truths and beliefs of an individual to determine what beliefs he or she is certain are true. It was popularized by Rene Descartes who made it a characteristic method of philosophy where a philosopher subjects all the knowledge they have with the sole purpose of scrutinizing and differentiating the true claims from the false claims. Methodological doubt establishes certainty by analytically and tentatively doubting all the knowledge that one knows to set aside dubitable knowledge from the indubitable knowledge that an individual possesses. According to Descartes, who was a rationalist, his first meditation

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