Doubt and Descartes’s Meditations
In his first mediation, philosopher René Descartes attempts to find absolute certainty, that is, to know that our beliefs cannot be doubted, and their justifications cannot be withdrawn. Instead of completing the impossible task of demonstrating that the infinite number of one’s beliefs are false, he proposes a method for the general destruction of our beliefs by undermining the reasons that support them. Descartes states at the beginning, “I should withhold my assent no less carefully from opinions that are not completely certain and indubitable than I would from those that are patently false”. He accepts that for the sake of finding absolute certainty, he has to consider all of his current beliefs as being false.
Descartes goes through the method of doubt in four steps. First, one considers a knowledge claim which is an idea one claims to be true. For example, one could say, “There is a book on the shelf.” Then one would consider the reasons that support this idea. In response to a request for justification, such as, “Well, how do you know there’s a book on the shelf?” one might reply by saying, “Because I can see the book.” Then, one must consider a skeptical hypothesis which would undermine the reason for the knowledge claim if it were true. Because this particular knowledge claim is based on physical senses, the hypothesis could be “the senses can be deceived, perhaps this book is an illusion.” Lastly, one would attempt to reply to the skeptical hypothesis, if their original idea could still be defended.
The next step of the destruction of belief is where Descartes writes through three stages of doubt. First, Descartes notices “that the senses are sometimes deceptive”. Many beliefs are based on and rely on the confirmation of the body’s senses. Sight and sound play a major part of this, as well as the mind’s ability to process information. If someone’s ability to perceive visual information is impaired, then any belief that is based on sight isn’t reliable and could be doubted. However, one can use their other senses as reasoning for the belief as a response to this doubt. For example, if I cannot see the book on the shelf, I may feel it. Descartes highlights this stage with an example of a piece of wax. He shares that he can see and feel a piece of hard wax, but when it is heated up, its properties change. The qualities that made is a hard piece of wax are no longer there. It is now liquid and hot to the touch. Therefore, one cannot assume that it is still wax since it can shift forms and the mind can be deceived. One may know for certain that they are perceiving the piece of wax, but its properties or essence are unknown.
Descartes then presents the dream doubt, proposing that one cannot always tell if they are asleep or awake. It’s possible that one’s senses and mind work together to make dreams appear real while one is still dreaming. This connects back to the idea that things Descartes thought to be true, like colors and senses, are now not reliable. The senses then can no longer be reliable to base beliefs on, one might argue, but Descartes continues with a different response. He says that even while dreaming, the “arithmetic, geometry, and other such disciplines, which treat of nothing but the simplest and most general things and which are indifferent as to whether these things do or do not in fact exist, contain something certain and indubitable”. In this case, any belief within these disciplines, such as 2 + 3 = 5, remains true.
The next stage is called the “evil deceiver” doubt. It is based on the idea that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing demon that can and wants to deceive people about anything and everything. Descartes describes the deceiver as making our senses unreliable, even molding our minds into having a false sense of reality. It’s even possible to be deceived about arithmetic and geometry so that even basic equations are solved incorrectly. Descartes says towards the end of the first meditation that he would have been better off not knowing that he is always being deceived. Blissful ignorance would have been better than knowing his actual, darker reality.
There are two ways one might respond to the skeptical hypothesis: an overcoming method or an undermining one. The overcoming method considers the skeptical hypothesis to be a legitimate possibility. For example, one can say that even if the hypothesis is true, there must be something that is still possible. On the other hand, one can demonstrate that the skeptical hypothesis is false. The undermining method attempts this by showing that the skeptical hypothesis is not even possibility because it cannot invalidate one’s beliefs.
O. K. Bouwsma, an American philosopher, brings forward an undermining response to the evil deceiver doubt. When bringing up the idea of the evil deceiver, Descartes is asking the reader to imagine something that cannot be easily grasped. If the deceiver is supposed to create false illusions of reality, but they’re not really illusions and are indeed reality, then only the illusion is left to be perceived. Adding on to this, once could argue that even if an evil deceiver was creating illusions, people probably wouldn’t navigate the world any differently.
Descartes brings forward an overcoming response, saying that if the skeptical hypothesis is true, there is a bit of knowledge that still remains true: the cogito. Even if every belief is doubted since they could all be an illusion, there’s one thing Descartes knows to be true: “this pronouncement ‘I am, I exist’ is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind”. The fact that one can argue or doubt that they exist proves that they do. They must have a mind that is able to think, process information, and understand. Descartes determines this a belief that cannot be disproven, since without someone existing, they could not think, and vice versa. He essentially ends the second meditation where he started, where he is uncertain about the existence of anything besides thought.
Works Cited
- “Descartes’ Evil Genius.” Philosophical Essays, by O. K. Bouwsma, University of Nebraska Press, 1969, pp. 85–97.
