Friday, October 5, 2012
The Cogito
In Meditation II, Descartes believes he has both defeated skepticism and
discovered a foundational belief that he will use to justify all his
other claims to knowledge. He argues that the very act of doubt proves
that he exists. Is he right? Does the Cogito disprove skepticism? Even
if it does is it a Pyrrhic victory -- or can this belief be the basis
for the rest of his knowledge?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Descartes’ Cogito argument defeats skepticism by proving that he has the knowledge that he exists. The main criterion for skepticism is that we have zero knowledge. If we have no knowledge, then we have no inclination to know what is real and what is illusory. According the skepticism, we wouldn’t even know if we were real or have the knowledge and ability to question our existence.
ReplyDeleteThe argument “I think, therefore I am” reasons that because Descartes is able to think and doubt his own previous beliefs, he can conclude that some form of him he exists. He takes into account the possibility that he is deceived by God and therefore questions his prior beliefs. From Meditation 1, Descartes questions the reliability of his senses and the influence God in his mind and his sensory experiences when he says that we don’t know whether God did not “bring it about that there is no earth at all, no heavens, no extended thing, no shape, no size, no place, and yet bringing it about that all these things appear to me to exist precisely as they do now?”. It is possible that everything he previously believed is falsely presented by God. Also, the fact that he is deceived proves requires that he is something which can be deceived. The deceiver “will never bring it about that I am nothing so long as I shall think that I am something”(13). Therefore, even if Descartes is a deceived being, he is still an existent being. In order to deceive, he must be something. Given the possibility that God is an evil deceiver, Descartes realizes that God can control his senses and make him think that he has a body even if he doesn’t. Therefore, he denies the possibility of a real body and outside objects but relies on his knowledge of his mind instead.
Because Descartes is able to realize that what he sees, feels, or hears can be different than what actually exists, he is thinking and doubting out of his own free will. Because a deceiver can affect his sight, “everything I see is false”(13). For example, if a piece of wax starts out smelling like honey and flowers, hard, and cold, but is put by a fire, it is turned scentless, melted, and hot. The senses do not recognize the same piece of wax because it does not look, smell, or feel the same. However, the mind knows that the wax is the same piece of wax as it started out as and its form is a result of altered external conditions for the senses to perceive. If he is formulating thoughts on his own, then he is not depending on the basis of something else’s control and his thoughts cannot be separated from him. If he is the core of his beliefs and can control his doubts, then he can infer that he, or rather solely his mind, exists. The Cogito proves that real, concrete things are only related to his mind because his thoughts are definite and fixed without sight or hearing, whereas his physical body exists only through Descartes’ senses, which are likely to be skewed. The only existing part of a person is his or her mind because they can question the controller. Even if his mind is tied to some external beliefs, “nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than my own mind”(19). If his mind exists, then he has a piece of knowledge.
In my opinion, the Cogito argument disproves skepticism because Descartes pure ability to think and exist allows him to have knowledge. His knowledge is limited, but it is there. It is possible that his physical body might not exist, but the fact that his mind is perceptive and real proves that he knows something and is a thinking thing. The Cogito proves that an independent mind, which doubts God’s good nature, exists. Descartes beliefs regarding what is real and isn’t real are based on what is and isn’t based on his senses, which he knows can be tainted by an outside deceiver. His mind may not be math or a solid field of study, but it is the only knowledge that Descartes can have of his existence. One piece of knowledge, which eliminates skepticism, is all he needs to prove that if he thinks, he exists.
In meditation two, Descartes brings up three arguments for skepticism, with aim to prove them wrong, in the hope of defeating skepticism entirely. The three arguments function on the notion of methodic doubt, that is, the notion that anything that can be doubted is false. The first argument is that I perceive the world through my senses. However, sometimes my senses deceive me. Anything that devices me once, I can no longer trust. Therefore by methodic doubt, it is within reasonable doubt that I am being deceived by my senses and nothing exists. The second argument states that while you dream everything appears to be real even though it isn’t. Since there is no way to distinguish between what’s real and what’s a dream while I’m awake, I could also be dreaming. Therefore it is within reasonable doubt that this is all a dream and nothing exists. And lastly he argues that it is possible that god is an all-powerful deceiver. Since it is possible that god is an all-powerful evil genius it is possible that he is deceiving me. Therefore it is within reasonable doubt that god is deceiving me and nothing exists. Descartes defeats the great deceiver argument by stating that to be tricked by a great deceiver he must be thinking. And if he is thinking he must exist. Therefore he knows that he exists and that he is a thing that thinks. However, the other two arguments can still stand. By his very own principle of methodic doubt it is still possible that nothing exists. Descartes was not able to defeat skepticism.
ReplyDeleteHowever, assuming that the cogito did disprove skepticism, I don’t know if I would call the victory pyrrhic. What were the great loses that Descartes incurred trying to disprove skepticism? What I don’t understand is the significance of the cogito. With Plato, the different forms of government affected people. The discussions carried significance because the different forms of government, when put into practice, affected people’s state of happiness. If it turns out that I’m just being fooled, I could just accept it and move on with my life. I have no stake one way or the other, and I solve none of humanity’s problems. There’s probably something that I’m just not seeing. If that’s the case, which it probably is, I’d love nothing more than for someone to explain the significance of the cogito to me. However, as of right now, I don’t even consider the cogito pyrrhic, to me it just seems pointless.
While Cory has done a great job summarizing the three skeptical arguments that Descartes presents in the first meditation, I'll have to disagree with him on the point that Descartes' Cogito Argument, if true, does not address the first two arguments. I believe that the Cogito Argument is an ample negation of all three skeptical arguments simply because its premises hold their legitimacy in all three scenarios.
DeleteLet's start with the argument about the dreaming scenario. According to the argument, people often dream of an unreal world that they perceive to be real while they are sleeping. In all of, or at least some of (it doesn't matter) these unconscious dream states, people believe that everything they perceive is real and distinct when it actually does not exist. When people are awake, things likewise seem distinct and real. Because of the possibility that nothing that we perceive to be real is actually real in our "conscious" state, we can never be sure of anything at all. The Cogito argument establishes that, despite the fact that we may be dreaming, there is still one thing that we can be sure about. Namely, that we exist. Whether someone is dreaming or not, there are certain indubitable principals that can never be untrue. For example, it can never be that 2 + 2 = 7 regardless of whether we are dreaming or not. If, in my dream, I perceive twelve elephants flying through the air, there is an unchangeable distinction between the reality of twelve elephants and fourteen elephants. It can never be that two things are the same that are by logic, not the same. In a similar way, I exist whether I am dreaming or not dreaming simply because I am perceiving. All three skeptical arguments are similar in that they claim to prove that we know nothing. While it may be true that we don't know most of the things we think we know, how can it ever be that there is no "we" or "I" to do the knowing? If I am dreaming, I am entertaining thoughts of an unreal world. I am therefore thinking. If I am thinking, I must be a thinker and I must assuredly exist.
In regard to the skeptical argument about fallible senses, the Cogito argument still stands. The argument claims that, because all I think I know I have attained through sensory perception, and because senses have been known to provide incorrect information on some occasions, I am therefore unable to claim that at any instance, my senses are not providing me with incorrect information about reality. While I wholeheartedly agree that senses have a real potential to deceive and very well might be deceiving me all the time, I disagree that everything we know about the world we arrive at through sensory perception. The Cogito argument is one good counterexample. If the Cogito argument is correct, I can be sure that if everything I sense is incorrect, I nonetheless know that I am sensing and interpreting my sensory data. Because there is an "I" behind all that contemplation, I exist.
Now, on the question of whether establishing the Cogito was merely a Pyrrhic Victory, I believe that the Cogito Argument is substantial enough to disprove skepticism. While it might not have put science on firm footing, I believe it provided the world of supposed knowledge with a priceless contribution. That is, that real knowledge is to be had. Even if Descartes failed in all his subsequent arguments, his Cogito argument is enough to get the ball rolling in terms of discovering irrefutable knowledge. I personally am very content that Descartes was able to turn me from a skeptic into someone who believes that stuff exists. At the risk of sounding like one of those people on weight-loss commercials, I truly think that the Cogito is effective in disproving that true understanding of an objective reality is beyond or intellectual reach.
Skepticism is the idea that we as humans have no knowledge. Descartes argues that because I doubt my beliefs, I are thinking, and therefore I exist. Also known as the Cogito argument Descartes uses this argument, Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am), to justify all of his other beliefs. After successfully proving the cogito argument, he defeats skepticism. Despite disproving skepticism, I do not believe that it is a pyrrhic victory for Descartes. I believe that the Cogito argument is the only fact that he successfully justifies throughout the meditations. The method that Descartes uses is fundamentalism. He chooses the cogito argument as his foundation to justify everything else that humans know. From this fundamental belief, claims, "And thus I now seem able to posit as a general rule that everything I very clearly and distinctly perceive is true" (19). In meditation 1, Descartes makes three skeptical arguments that he attempts to disprove through his different arguments. First, he argues that God may be an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever and that he has the ability to deceive us. Because it is possible that he is deceiving us, there is doubt in all of my beliefs. Because of this doubt, we know nothing. His second argument is that everything we know to be true is taken by the senses and that it is possible that the sense deceive us. Because we can never trust anything that has deceived us once, we do not know anything. His final argument is that we dream when we sleep and that everything feels real I dreams. His third premise that things feel real when we are awake and that is impossible to distinguish whether we are awake or sleeping. Because it is a possibility that we are asleep, Descartes concludes that we have no knowledge. While Descartes forms that Cogito Argument from the idea of an evil genius, I believe that he fails to successfully disprove these three arguments. I believe that the largest flaw with Descartes meditations is that he fails to disprove the possibility of an evil genius. In Meditation 1 when he is proposing skeptical arguments, he suggests that 2+2=5 and that God has been deceiving us the entire time. Then towards the end of his meditations, he claims that we do not need God to prove the most basic of things. This is not true, because if a God is an evil genius. If Descartes was able to successfully prove that God is not an evil genius, I believe that his general rule would be accurate. Because his arguments about God and the evil genius are weak, the general rule is not reliable. To conclude, Descrates defeats skepticism through the Cogito argument, but it is the only that that he is able to prove and it is not a pyrrhic victory.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that with the Cogito argument, Descartes successfully defeats skepticism (to a certain extent) and successfully proves his existence. First of all, I believe that he successfully proves his existence because he uses very sound reasoning and logic (for once). If an object is able to doubt his existence, this means he must have the capacity to doubt. If he has the capacity to doubt, this must mean he has physical/mental capacities in general. If a being has physical and mental capacities, then it follows from that that he must exist. To me, this is very sound reasoning not only because it seems so fundamental that we must exist, but also because it is logical that if a person is able to perform certain functions of the mind then said person must exist.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I believe that in proving this Descartes does defeat skepticism, to some extent. Skepticism is the belief that we have no absolutely no knowledge. In proving that we know we exist, Descartes defeats the extreme view of skepticism. The knowledge of our existence is, in fact, is knowledge, and therefore the belief that we have absolutely no knowledge cannot be true.
However, I believe that it was somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory, because he did not entirely defeat skepticism. Although he did prove that it is impossible for us to have absolutely no knowledge, the Cogito argument is not a sound basis for the rest of his ‘knowledge’. The Cogito argument only assures Descartes of one thing; he exists. This is not enough to ensure that everything knows is accurate, because among other things he has yet to rule out the idea of a deceiver and has yet to affirm that he can trust his senses.
Previously, Cory postulated that Descartes's own first two arguments for skepticism still stand, as they remained undisputed by the cogito argument. However, I am not so sure that this is the case. In response to the both arguments, the counterargument can be made that to perceive something incorrectly, whether that incorrect perception is due to a deception of the senses or because the perception occurs in a state of dreaming and is therefore fundamentally flawed, is still to perceive it. And perception requires thinking to interpret that perception. And because because thinking occurs and I must be doing this thinking (because what else could be doing it), by the cogito argument, I must exist. This is further demonstrated when the dream argument is again examined more closely: what if everything I perceive is not only a dream, it is a dream within a dream? In other words, I am dreaming, that I am dreaming, that I am currently sitting in front of my computer writing a blog post; this is not actually the case because it has been run through two consecutive spin-cycles of dreaming, and is therefore far from the reality. But even then, SOMETHING must be perceiving that something is perceiving that I am writing this blog post. Therefore that something must exist, and that something is what I consider to be "I."
ReplyDeleteAs for Cory's concerns of the state of the cogito as a pyrrhic victory, I admit that I share his confusion. I'm not entirely sure what Descartes lost in his disproving skepticism, and I too would like a further explanation on this point.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteIn meditation one, Descartes lays out his cogito argument in order to defeat skepticism, or the belief that we know nothing. He provides three different arguments for skepticism. The first is that we know nothing because we can't trust our senses, as they have deceived us before. The second is that we know nothing because there is the possibility that we are dreaming. The third is that we know nothing because God may be an evil genius, and that everything he does is to deceive me, therefore everything I perceive as true is actually false. In meditation two, Descartes introduces the cogito argument in order to defeat skepticism. The first premise of the cogito argument is that there may be a deceiver who is very powerful and sly. The second premise is that he is always trying to deceive me. The third premise is that if I am being deceived, then I am thinking. The fourth premise is that if I am thinking, I exist. The conclusion of this argument is that I know I exist.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I believe that Descartes is totally correct. Through the act of doubting the deceiver, he is proving that he is thinking. Through proving he is thinking, he can prove the existence of his own mind, and in essence prove that he exists. Through the cogito argument, Descartes can prove two things. First, that he exists, and second, that he is a thinking thing. This is key in refutation of skepticism, as Descartes can now say that we know something. While he may only be able to prove that our minds exist, this gives us the ability to have knowledge, and therefore counters skepticism.
While I do believe that Descartes has successfully countered skepticism, I don't believe that it is a solid foundation for the rest of his knowledge. While not necessarily a pyrrhic victory, it doesn't give way to a breakthrough that should stem from a solid basis of his arguments. Right after Descartes proves that he exists, he states, "Now I will ponder more carefully to see whether perhaps there may be other things belonging to me that up until now I have failed to notice" (19). Descartes sees this as the next step, using the Cogito as the foundation of his beliefs. As a follow up to the Cogito, Descartes provides the reader with a general rule, stating "everything I clearly and distinctly perceive is true". Now in order to prove that this is true, he must prove that God is true. This leads Descartes to the Cartesian Circle, where he states that everything he distinctly and clearly perceives is true if God exists, yet he "proves" God exists by clearly and distinctly perceiving that he exists. Because the conclusion is also a premise, this is a circular argument that proves nothing. While the Cogito successfully defeats skepticism, it does not provide Descartes with a foundation for the rest of his beliefs, as it leads to the Cartesian circle.
In response to Cory,
I think the significance of the cogito stems from the ability to disprove skepticism, and therefore put it as the basis of foundationalism. If Descartes does not have the cogito, then he is basically accepting that we know nothing, and there is no foundation for the rest of his beliefs. While this foundation does not necessarily work, the Cogito is imperative as at least it allows us to know that we ourselves exist, and have the ability to have knowledge through the proof of our minds.
Descartes begins his Meditations by methodic doubt, a method for skepticism in which you doubt everything. From there, he hopes to apply foundationalism to disprove skepticism or, in other words, find foundational beliefs that he can use to justify the rest of his knowledge. Descartes comes up with the foundational belief that he exists by the Cogito argument:
ReplyDeletePremise 1: I doubt my beliefs only if I might be deceived
Premise 2: If I am deceived, I am thinking
Premise 3: If I am thinking, I exist
Premise 4: If I doubt my beliefs, I exist
Conclusion: I know I exist
In short, I think; therefore I am.
Some counter-arguments have called into question the validity of the Cogito. One objection to the argument is that thoughts do not require a thinker. David Hume argues that because one cannot clearly perceive one's true self, there is no self. There are thus only thoughts floating around, so to speak, that are thought intermittently. There is no self, so these thoughts do not belong to anyone in particular. I disagree with Hume's argument, and his assertion that there is no self--I think thoughts are attached to a certain type of self. It isn't relevant whether or not one can "clearly and distinctly perceive" the self, as Hume argues, because that does not prove or disprove one's existence: for instance, we cannot clearly and distinctly perceive what morality is, but it still exists. Furthermore, thoughts exist in a stream; that is, they appear in the mind together, one after another, and not simply by themselves. Thus, the self must exist, at the very least, as a container for that gathering of thoughts. The Cogito manages to withstand at least Hume's hefty objection.
The Cogito does disprove skepticism--the belief that "I have no knowledge," since "I exist" is a form of knowledge free from doubt, or a foundational belief. Descartes' task then is to take the foundational beliefs that he exists and that he is a thinking thing and use them to justify all his other beliefs. Descartes' victory is a Pyrrhic one because he does not seem to be able to use that belief to justify the rest of his knowledge. Descartes attempts to follow up "I exist" with arguments for God's existence that are unconvincing and do not help justify all knowledge. Descartes gets stuck in the Cartesian circle, which depends on God's existence to prove that everything we clearly and distinctly perceive is true, and which depends on clearly and distinctly perceiving to prove God's existence. He runs into the problem of infallibility and also the ontological argument, which assumes that perceiving God as supreme and perfect makes him exist. His arguments for God's existence and the complications that follow all of them make for an unconvincing next step in Descartes' foundation of knowledge project. Ultimately, Descartes' Cogito conclusion, "I exist" is internally based and therefore, it seems that it cannot help determine any more knowledge about the outside world. For example, the knowledge that I exist would not justify the rest of my knowledge about the world were I to find myself in "the matrix," doubting my knowledge of the world, just as Descartes suggests one must view the world.
I think that Descartes argument for the justification of his existence was successful; however I do not believe that Descartes fully defeated skepticism. He may have proved his existence but he cannot use this to justify his beliefs. The Cogito is very useful if you are looking to prove you own existence however it does not prove that everyone and everything around you exists. One major part of skepticism that the Cogito fails to address is deception. The only way that a person could justify his own beliefs and call them true is if that person had never been deceived in they're entire life and they were always right. The only problem with that is there is no way of knowing when you are being deceived. If you have no way of knowing when you are being deceived and when you are not being deceived then you must assume you are being deceived all the time. If you are being deceived all the time then all of your beliefs are false and therefore you know nothing.
ReplyDeleteBut is it really the end of the world if we don’t know anything for sure? Even then things we think of as factual are, in reality, only ideas and theories that have not yet been proven wrong. Gravity, for example, is something that most people agree on and accept as fact. Though the laws of gravity have never been disproven, they have also never been fully proven. In order for them to become fully proven we would need to test every atom and every star and see if the laws of gravity held true in each case. However trying to test every atom and star is humanly impossible so therefore we can never truly know if gravity is a Universal law and fact. This is also why Descartes quest to find a set of beliefs that do not need justification is impossible because this would entail finding an idea or premise that is true in any and every situation.