Term Paper on "Descartes' Method of Doubt and Its Role in the Meditations"

Term Paper 6 pages (1840 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Descartes' Method of Doubt and Its Role in the Meditations think, therefore I am" (Descartes). That may be the most famous statement in all of philosophy. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is the most concise way of understanding Descartes' method of doubt. According to Descartes, whatever could be doubted was to be rejected (Burnham and Fieser). Therefore, the only things that could be trusted were those things that were clear beyond any doubt. The foundation of Descartes' philosophy was to trust only those things that could be so proven. Then, by removing all things that he could doubt, Descartes was left with the simple fact that he had doubt. That doubt, in and of itself, was sufficient to prove Descartes' existence, giving rise to the beautiful conclusion: "I think, therefore I am" (Descartes).

Furthermore, Descartes uses the presence of doubt to prove the existence of knowledge. Descartes proves that he himself has the basic characteristic of thinking and that his body is distinct from his mind (Burnham and Fieser). By demonstrating that he can think, Descartes shows that knowledge is possible, particularly a mathematically-based scientific knowledge of the material world (Burnham and Fieser).

Descartes uses his method of doubt throughout the Meditations to bring the reader to various philosophical conclusions. Before investigating the content of the Meditations, it is important to look at Descartes' chosen style through the Meditations. He writes in the first person, giving the illusion that the reader is examining Descartes' method of doubt simultaneously with the philosopher. Therefore, when the reader sees the words, "I think, therefore I am" (Descartes), he sees more than Descartes' conclusion about Descartes' own sentience and being, but a bold and sweeping conclusion about the reader's own being.

Furthermore, any investigation of Cartesian philosophy would be incomplete without an understanding of the Descartes' personal religious beliefs. Descartes grew up in a religious era and was himself, a devoutly religious man.

In Descartes' view, the universe was created by God on whose power everything depends. He thought of God as resembling the human mind in that both the mind and God think, but have no physical being. But he believed that God is unlike the human mind in that God is infinite and does not depend on a creator for His existence (Chew).

Therefore, Descartes' philosophical aim was not to prove man's superiority or independence, but to prove the existence of God, the existence of the human mind, the immortality of the mind and soul, and the fact that such immortality depended on the existence of God.

In the first meditation, Descartes introduces the method of doubt. He explains the grounds on which one may doubt all things, especially material objects. Descartes goes on to explain the utility of doubt, by explaining that doubt delivers one from prejudice, and affords the easiest pathway for the mind to withdraw itself from the senses (Descartes). Finally, Descartes explains that the presence of an almost universal doubt is necessary in order to prevent one from doubting a later-discovered truth.

In the second meditation, Descartes proves the existence of the soul, as a separate from the body. Although Descartes expounds upon this idea in other meditations, he uses the second meditation to demonstrate an absolute distinction between mind and body. Descartes demonstrates that one cannot conceive of the body unless as divisible, or of the mind unless as indivisible (Descartes). Furthermore, Descartes advances the theory that the "destruction of the mind does not follow from the corruption of the body." Therefore, Descartes reinforces the belief in a life after death, and the immorality of the soul. Descartes advances the idea that "all things which can exist only in consequence of having been created by God, are in their own nature incorruptible, and can never cease to be, unless God himself, by refusing his concurrence to them, reduce them to nothing." Furthermore, Descartes concludes that the human body is made up of a series of accidents, but that the human mind is pure substance. Descartes proves by showing that the mind itself does not change when a person thinks different thoughts, in contrast to the human body, which changes if a change takes place in any of its parts. By showing the ability of the mind to withstand change without undergoing change itself, Descartes demonstrates that the mind is "in its own nature immortal" (Descartes).

In the third meditation, Descartes argues for the existence of God. However, because Descartes was unwilling to introduce comparisons taken from material objects, in order to remove the reader from the use of the senses, he acknowledges that his argument for the existence of God may be clouded in obscurity (Descartes). One thing he makes clear is that the idea of absolute perfection is both present in the minds of man and in objective reality. Because the idea of absolute perfection is omnipresent, Descartes theorizes that arose from a "cause absolutely perfect" (Descartes), which is God.

In the fourth meditation, Descartes begins to reconstruct the truths that were deconstructed in the first meditation. Remember, in the first meditation, Descartes makes it clear that doubting everything will give rise to the idea of truth, because nothing is taken for granted. After everything is doubted, anything that is established as truth is true only because it has been proven. Therefore, in the fourth meditation, Descartes demonstrates that "all which we clearly and distinctly perceive is true" (Descartes). Furthermore, Descartes' fourth meditation does not address the ideas of good and evil or of sin, but only the concept of truth as it relates to the natural world.

In the fifth meditation, Descartes provides another demonstration for the existence of God. Rather than divorcing the idea of God from the natural world, as he divided the existence of the mind and soul from the body in the second meditation, Descartes uses the natural world to demonstrate the existence of God. In fact, Descartes shows "in what sense it is true that the certitude of geometrical demonstrations themselves is dependent upon the knowledge of God" (Descartes).

Put more precisely, Descartes' proof of God is this: (1) I have an idea of a supremely perfect being; (2) the idea of this being necessarily entails every perfection; (3) existence is a perfection; (4) therefore, the idea of a supremely perfect being entails existence (that is, a supremely perfect being exists) (Burnham and Fieser).

In the sixth meditation, Descartes attempts to demonstrate several things. The first thing Descartes demonstrates is the difference between understanding and imagination. Then, Descartes demonstrates that, although the human mind is separate and distinct from the human body, the two are so closely related that they work as a unit. Descartes then goes on to examine the errors that occur as a result of sensation, and points out the means for avoiding errors. In addition, Descartes lays the groundwork for inferring the existence of material objects. His reasons for doing so are, according to him, not because he believes that the existence of material objects, which proves the existence of the world, and that men are possessed of bodies, has ever been the subject of much doubt, but because it introduces the type of reasoning necessary to prove the existence of God. According to Descartes, if the methods used to prove the existence of material objects do work to remove that doubt, which he believes one should have towards everything until learning truth, and then those methods can also be used to prove the existence of the immaterial, such as the immortality of the soul and the existence of God.

As can be seen by the brief descriptions of the meditations provided above, Descartes uses his concept of doubt to prove truth and eradicate doubt. The similarities between Cartesian philosophy and geometric proofs are not accidental, given that Descartes was also a renowned mathematician, and one of the clearest explanations of the method of doubt may involve the use of mathematical terms. In geometry, one uses a proof to establish certain the existence of certain material facts. Although the material fact may be clear by looking at it, or measuring a certain line or area with the appropriate tool, doing so is not the goal of geometry. Instead, the goal of geometry is to take certain known facts, and, by combining them, come up with the answer one is seeking. Like Cartesian philosophy, geometry strips away what one may observe with the senses and forces one not to make any conclusions unless they are based upon facts, and those reasonable conclusions that can be made upon combining facts.

The method of doubt requires one to engage in the same sort of reasoning. Instead of looking at a chair and concluding that chair's exist, the method of doubt requires one to doubt whether chairs do exist. One strips away layers of assumptions. First, one strips away the assumption that there is anything there. Then the assumption that one's perception of a chair accurately depicts the object that… READ MORE

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