Desartes
French philosopher Rene Desartes's Meditation One: Concerning Those Things that Can Be Called into Doubt is a method of determining which beliefs are certain and which are doubtful. Descartes applied illusion argument, dreaming argument, and evil genius argument. In this paper, I will discuss how method of doubt supposed to work in general with examples and also why does Descartes adopts this particular method. Furthermore, I will add how method of doubt enables Descartes to achieve his goals and how he uses this particular method to accomplish his goals. Descartes' method of doubt is practically about sorting out our beliefs and keeping the only absolute beliefs, which cannot possibly be false. "...Because undermining the foundations will cause whatever has been built upon them to fall down of its own accord--I will at once attack those principles which supported everything that I once believed." Descartes is saying that because of the weak foundations the built will fall on its own sooner or later therefore, he will "at once" attack his principles. I have perfect example to use here. My Dad usually tells us what is the reason behind Pakistan's failure. When in 1947, Pakistan separated from India there were no rules made and if t
here were they were not strictly enforced consequently now Pakistan is falling apart. Now Pakistani people are doing whatever they please to even though government is trying hard to discipline. Since people are so employed making their own rules and breaking them nothing seem to work. The purpose of my example is that when we start anything we must have strong foundations, which must be secure and mighty powerful so it will build up strongly. And if foundation is weak eventually it will collapse. (p. 214) 2 In dream argument Descartes argue which casts doubt on the truth on our intellectual beliefs. For instance we normally think that world is in a particular way, on the basis of our perceptions of the world. So, I know it's raining because I have perceptual belief that it's raining. "How often has my evening slumber persuaded me of such a customary things as these: that I am here, clothed in my dressing gown, seated at the fireplace, when in fact I am lying undressed between the blanket." In this sentence Descartes is trying to explain that many time we dream and what we dream seem very real. According to Descartes structure of the reasoning goes like this: (A) It looks to me that it's raining (B) So, I know that it's raining The dream argument casts doubt on the transition from A to B assuming that we cannot know what we can doubt. (A) It looks to me that it's raining (C) If I am dreaming then while it will look to me that it's raining when it's not really raining. So, I cannot be certain that it's raining because it could be just a dream. (p. 215) The second argument Descartes used is evil genius existence. Descartes used propositions of math
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Approximate Word count = 1116
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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