Friday, October 5, 2012
When the Walls Come Tumbling Down
Descartes realizes that some of the beliefs he thought were true
turned out to be false. In the pursuit of knowledge he seeks to tear
down his previous beliefs and build them up again upon a firm
foundation. In other words, he is engaged in a foundational project,
searching for a class of beliefs that themselves are not in need of
justification in order to justify his other beliefs. But is this quest a
misguided one? Do such beliefs exist? If not, does that mean that
knowledge is impossible? Or is there some other way to justify our
beliefs?
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In Descartes’ First Meditation, he attempts to decipher what is real and what isn’t by breaking down his simplest thoughts and beliefs. He uses methodic doubt to reason that if anything can be doubted at all, then it must not be considered true and cannot be used in his argument. Descartes’ use of foundationalism brings him to the issue what needs justification and what doesn’t.
ReplyDeleteHe believes that everything a human knows is learned from their senses. But what if the human senses lead us to the wrong conclusions because they are built off of falsities? Descartes considers the idea of God being an evil deceiver. Because he is a deceiver, he can cause all of a person’s senses and ideas to be false without the individual even knowing to doubt them. Therefore, anything derived from the senses cannot be proven as true because God is mighty enough to overpower a person’s knowledge and cause them to believe something false. The thoughts would be stemmed off of false foundations. Anything that is built off of another belief is unreliable because it is determined from an individual’s personal experiences, which are impossible to prove as true.
Because he must only consider the solid aspects of life, Descartes must eliminate “physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other disciplines that are dependent upon the consideration of composite things”(11) and regard the truth as “arithmetic, geometry, and other such disciplines, which treat of nothing but the most simplest and most general things”(11). I don’t agree with this concept of foundationalism because of Descartes’ belief in an evil deceiver. If God is as omniscient and powerful as he is described, then he could have access to all of an individual’s beliefs without them even being aware of it. God could easily have an impact on arithmetic and geometries in a human mind. A human can believe that they know 2+2=4 because of the way they were taught to think of 2 and 4, but that is derived from the knowledge that the evil deceiver has provided them with and in reality it can mean something different. It is a possibility that God doesn’t only have access to our senses, but to the general and common knowledge that lives in our minds as well. God, who is supposed to be good and holy, could easily be a deceiver that shields humans from truth and reality.
At first, I believed that in order to learn what is true, a person must first eliminate all traces of God from their beliefs. They can’t just believe that 2+2=4, but they must rather discover this themselves. Each theorem and explanation that seems to be common knowledge needs to be rediscovered to avoid any falsities presented by God. This is slightly different than skepticism because the individual has the knowledge that they exist and that their prior beliefs are contaminated with the deceiver’s influence. In the end, in order to get to the core of his beliefs and free himself of deception, I thought Descartes would have to prove each aspect of common knowledge and each theorem in order to ensure that has the knowledge behind each belief. However, I then realized that because of the deceiver’s dominant influence over the senses and the mind, it would be impossible for Descartes to free himself from his initial perception of 2+2=4 because that concept will always stick as long as the existence of deceiver is possible, whether Descartes will calls for it or not. If the deceiver could control his senses and place those thoughts into Descartes’ head, then he can easily block true knowledge from him too. As long as the existence of an evil deceiver is unproven, it is impossible to determine anything as concretely true.
Descartes attempt to start a foundation project is a noble one with excellent intentions. A quest to determine a set of beliefs that never need justification and are inherently true is one, I think, we would all love to believe in. However, there are some major flaws in Descartes thinking that leads me to believe the search for truth may have hit a permanent dead end.
ReplyDeleteAfter much contemplation, I have concluded that there is no such thing as a class of beliefs that need no justification. Even the simplest bits of knowledge one might claim to believe could be false, and they would never know it. I could, for instance, make the statement that black is always the opposite of white. According to Descartes, if the senses perceive black to be the opposite of white at all times, it must be true. But what if God was a deceiver and simply wanted us to believe that? What if our senses are lying to us and my perception of colour is not actually correct? In believing that God is a deceiver, it is impossible to remove all doubt from a belief, but if one believes God is not a deceiver, then some beliefs need no justification. In other words, the foundation of foundationalism is faith, and there is always fallibility in blind faith. Descartes faith is what makes the plausibility in a foundational project questionable. There is no way you can justify your beliefs without relying on other beliefs, which may in turn rely on other beliefs…it’s a Cartesian circle that, I believe, is impossible to break out of without the use of blind faith.
Whether knowledge is possible to obtain depends entirely upon what you consider to be ‘true’ knowledge. There could be different levels of knowledge and knowing. If you believe in foundational beliefs like Descartes, then there is the possibility of obtaining a certain level of knowledge. If your understanding of knowledge is governed by a certain set of foundational beliefs, then what you believe you know is real and true knowledge in our realm; that is to say, if we’re all being deceived in the same way, then it does not matter if our beliefs are technically false. It simply means we are all wrong, but if the standard of truth can be determined based on a mass understanding of a concept, then we are correct. This is a much more optimistic approach, though it is one that I believe to be a lackadaisical approach to a serious subject. If one does not believe in a foundational approach, the outlook is much less positive. As glum as it may sound, because we do not know whether there is such thing as a deceiver, humans will never know if the acquisition of the ultimate ‘real’ knowledge is possible.
While I believe that Bella has made a compelling argument as to why Foundationalism as a practice might be flawed, I think that she is selling Descartes short on the matter of his supposedly indubitable beliefs. Bella is challenging the viability of foundationalism on the grounds of the general principal that Descartes posits after he has established his single most important foundational belief which is expressly the Cogito Argument. Bella claims that, according to Descartes' logic, "if the senses [of an individual] perceive black to be the opposite of white at all times, it must be true." Bella argues that such a conclusion cannot be proven true or, at least, cannot be assumed true based on the general principal that Descartes supposedly proved to be true. I completely agree with Bella on this point. Even if Descartes' principal, which is that one can assume to be true any notion that one perceives clearly and distinctly through the faculty of reason, were true, it would be unphilosopher-like to simply assume that black is the opposite of white without presenting a proof. And, as it turns out, Descartes' principal probably isn't true because he ultimately uses circular reasoning to justify the premises behind his general rule with his general rule. No doubt, his general rule has issues. Before he arrived at the general rule, however, Descartes did provide one awfully compelling argument for a foundational belief. Before Bella or anyone else can go around denouncing Foundationalism, we must thoroughly disprove the Cogito argument.
DeleteNow, It seems to me that Bella argues that the Cogito argument cannot be proven indubitable because there is always the possibility that an almighty deceiver is putting wacko notions in our heads that lead us to incorrect conclusions. While this scenario is certainly a possibility, I think that the Cogito Argument is altogether inseparable from the existence of logic, and, logic being a prerequisite for knowledge, is inseparable from knowledge. After much deliberation, I find nothing objectionable about the premises or logical progression of the Cogito Argument. It is true that I doubt my beliefs because I very well might be deceived or misled in some regard. Regardless of whether my thoughts and beliefs are altogether wrong, my mind is no doubt entertaining those thoughts and beliefs. Because there are thoughts being contemplated that I am privy to, be they "my" thoughts or just thoughts, I am thinking. Because "I am thinking," there must certainly be an "I". Therefore I am, I exist. Even if everything I think I know I actually don't, there is an "I." There is some mind, something at least, that is privy to all these thoughts. I can connect thoughts together so I am inclined to call them my thoughts. If nothing else, there is thought and thinker. This I believe is indubitable.
(continued...)
Despite the apparent infallibility of the Cogito according to the rules of logic, one might still argue that an almighty deceiver might have the power to make logic meaningless and therefore make the Cogito false. Maybe, something has the power to make logic illogical (which would be an illogical contradiction ... but, because illogic is the new logic, it would really be a logical contradiction or illogical non-contradiction... but if contradictions are now logical, they are really illogical... but everything I just said follows a logical path and therefore must be regarded as illogical so I didn't establish anything... or maybe I did, because what I just said was logical before logic became illogic). Who am I kidding, we need logic. If there is one foundational belief that we cannot discard, it is that logic is logical. If logic was illogical, I wouldn't matter one iota in establishing real Knowledge because knowledge is true, justified belief and justification follows the rules of logic.
DeleteLong story short, Descartes' Cogito argument is legitimate knowledge unless there is some aspect of the argument that is illogical that all of us are missing. Therefore, because we have established something to be unconditionally true, Foundationalism must be a legitimate way of establishing knowledge. Despite all that, the general rule that Descartes establishes is very likely false as it led directly into an illogical circular argument. After Descartes gave us the Cogito, he obviously made a wrong turn on the path to knowledge.
In Meditation 1, Descartes abandons his previous beliefs and goes on a quest for knowledge. Descartes develops a foundational belief and attempts to prove everything else based off of that initial belief. He uses methodic doubt to determine what is true and what is not. Methodic doubt is a method where if there is any doubt in a belief then the belief must be considered false. While this is an admirable challenge that Descartes pursues, it is very dangerous and risky. If he fails to find anything that can be successfully justified, he will have proven that we know nothing. Descartes will need to find beliefs that do not need to be justified (his foundation) in order to justify his other beliefs. I believe that Descartes does a great job developing a foundational belief, the cogito argument. He plans on using this belief to justify all of his other beliefs. From the Cogito, he claims "And thus I now seem able to posit as a general rule that everything I very clearly and distinctly perceive is true" (19). While he uses his foundational belief to justify all other things, I believe that he fails to overcome the obstacle of God. Descartes uses a circular argument, the Cartesian Circle, to prove the existence of God. In order to prove that God exists, he believes that everything that is perceived to be true is true and in order to prove that everything that is perceived to be true is true, he assumes that God is non-deceiving. I believe that his inability to successfully prove the existence of God makes his general rule invalid. Because I believe that it is impossible for Descartes to prove the existence of God without using a circular argument, I believe that beyond the fact the we exist, knowledge is unachievable. We will never know if God is an evil-genius or if his is not. In conclusion, I do not think that Descartes quest was misguided, but I think it was halted by his inability to prove the existence of a good God and therefore a failure.
ReplyDeleteDescartes project to find a set of beliefs that themselves do not need justification is a very noble project; however, in my opinion no such beliefs exist. The Cogito argument, for example, one that many believe to be completely true is not necessarily justified. It makes a lot of sense to think that because one has thoughts they must exist, because that is how we define life. But what really are thoughts? Science tells us they are interpretations of electrical signals by neurons in our brains. Could thoughts merely be preset programs uploaded into our minds before birth, possibly by and evil god or overseer? Just as God could have tricked us into thinking that our perceptions are real, he could have tricked us into believing that we have thought. How does one interpret thought, how is it perceived? Could it not be the exact same way one gains sensory data. Does thought exist without the senses?
ReplyDeleteSuppose we are able to create Artificial Intelligence that thinks for itself, would this artificial intelligence then exist as long as it could recognize that its own cognitive functions? Would this A.I. be considered living, would it exist? If these robots were made from machines who do not have thoughts this raises a completely new question. Can something that does not exist(according purely to the Cogito) create something that does?
This is one of the most important questions when dealing with the origin of life, as well as the existence of anything at all. If God exists, who created God? Something cannot merely appear out of nothing.
True knowledge is unattainable when the idea of an evil god is introduced. Even the most basic and seemingly infallible arguments have to be thrown away. Even without this evil god, we still cannot really prove anything, only state that there has been no such situation or idea able to disprove it. As I have said before in class and in other blog posts, I am not worried about having no knowledge. I don't think there is a way to concretely justify our beliefs. We can however do the best we can to not force our unjustified beliefs on anyone. I think that science provides humanity with the closest set of beliefs to the truth. Science is merely a foundation of beliefs which have not been disproven, not to say they are true, but we have no immediate reason not to trust these crucial ideas.
Descartes quest to find a set of beliefs that do not require justification is an impossible one. How can we justify any of our beliefs if we have no true knowledge? We can say that we think and therefore our minds exist but that doesn't necessarily mean that "everything I clearly and distinctly perceive is true." There are so many examples and phenomena that occur in the human brain every day that prove that we can be deceived and that we can't trust everything we perceive; even the most clear and precise things can trick our minds. Descartes best explains this when he explains his "dream argument". The argument explains that when we are dreaming the dream realm seems real to us at the time we are dreaming. So then it must be true that when we are dreaming we cannot tell what reality is and what is not. Thus if we cannot tell what is reality and what is not then we cannot know anything for sure. This is why Descartes cannot possibly make a concrete set of beliefs that are always true and do not require justification because there is a possibility that they will be wrong.
ReplyDeleteIn this case Descartes has no other choice other than to accept skepticism for what it is and accept the fact that human beings will never truly know anything about the world around them. It’s foolish to try to make up rules for life its self that are always true and always will be true and that don’t require justification. The fact that beliefs are justified defines the beliefs as beliefs. You can't blindly accept an idea as true without first testing it and questioning it thoroughly or else the idea would be illegitimate. The only way such beliefs would exist is if some higher all knowing all powerful being existed and gave us a set of such beliefs but right now we don't know for sure if such a being even exists. But why do we have to have absolute truth? In reality as long as we have a set of beliefs that are true in most situations and have been highly justified and supported then they work don’t they? All science has ever given us is a series of theories and ideas that have been tested thoroughly and seem to work and fit with the rules and laws of the physical world. These ideas may or may not be true in reality but as long as they work in most cases there's no reason not to use and trust these ideas.