Methodic Doubt of Rene Descartes Essay Example

that is wholly certain or doubt-proof; thus, he “vowed to suspend judgment about everything” in the hope gleaning the aspects of knowledge that are impossible to doubt (Broughton, 2002, p.

1). In the process, Descartes started to throw away the beliefs that come from sense perception, as well the knowledge that come from material things, natural sciences. He even claimed that mathematics – that which operates on precise propositions – can be tainted with doubt since it was possible that a demon can be deceiving him.In the ultimate analysis, Descartes arrived at his infamous “Cogito Ergo Sum” conclusion, saying that “at any moment of thinking, whether doubting or willing,” there can be no doubt that one “exists as a thinking thing” (Lavine, 1982, p. 97).

As a consequence, Descartes believed that subjectivity is the primordial basis for establishing absolute certitude. Appraising Descartes’ Methodical Doubt It is interesting to learn the philosophical tenets of Rene Descartes for many reasons. Firstly, his methodical doubt is unique; it is, essentially, paradoxical – i. e. , doubting for the sake of eliminating all types of dubitable knowledge.At the very least, this makes sense.

True knowledge, one needs to remember, cannot rest on ambiguous or dubitable presuppositions. Secondly, it is interesting to learn Descartes’ philosophy since he has launched an ambitious project to say the least – to arrive at an absolutely indubitable knowledge. Promising as this project may sound however, there are good reasons to claim that one cannot really arrive at an absolutely certain kind of knowledge, without reference to any assumption whatsoever. For instance, people always assume that the sun will shine up in the morning.However dubitable,

it rests on a truthful assumption that the laws of nature, reliable as it were, shall take its course.

Summary In sum, it needs to be mentioned that Descartes has been successful in introducing a new methodology for philosophical inquiry. His epistemic concern lies not in plainly knowing things as in knowing what the truth is. And while one may, on a careful analysis, not arrive at an absolutely certain knowledge, since the human mind is finite and limited, Descartes’ philosophy has nevertheless emphasized that the need to approximate the truth is quite essential for life.