Don't Walk Away, Renê
i.
In his First Meditation, Descartes sets about to reject, provisionally, anything about which he can entertain any doubt, so as to discover whether there is anything certain that could serve as a foundation for other knowledge. He does this by assuming for the sake of argument that everything he is experiencing is an illusion; that in reality he is not seated by a fire surrounded by familiar objects; that, furthermore, he does not even have a body with sense organs, limbs, and so on; even that there is no sky or earth to support and contain other things; and that there is, in general, not even such a thing as an extended body that takes up space and has a shape, such as could be the rudiment of the composite physical structures we encounter in actual experience, including our own bodies. Not only can we doubt particular objects and situations, since one can be as certain of their existence in dreams as in waking life, yet discover upon waking that none of it is true; but, says Descartes, we can also doubt general, mathematical truths, since I can be deceived in the midst of thinking about numbers in general as easily as I can in the midst of perceiving a particular thing.
I am very much in sympathy with Descartes on the desirability of getting to the bottom of things, if such a thing is possible, because, as he says, so many errors derive from any one false assumption that starting out with a set of prejudices about the world dooms any investigation of it from the outset. It is plausible, at least, that retreating from all the positions we have taken up about the world and ourselves to an impregnable stronghold of certain truth(s) would tell us where we stand with respect to knowledge.
I remark that Descartes' erasure of all that can be doubted is accomplished in two strokes, the first clearing away all knowledge of particular things, the second all abstract knowledge of the possibility of existing things. In the first case, it is the senses that fall under suspicion; in the second, thinking itself. But can we not then also be deceived about the argument that contains these assertions as premises?
If I can be deceived each time I add two and three, can I not also be deceived each time I think that some particular combination of premises necessitates a particular conclusion?
This is good stuff. What do you take to be the conclusion of Meditation 1?
ReplyDeleteEverything he formerly believed to be true about himself and the world is open to doubt.
DeletePretty much. However, we must take away a few lessons that come to inform Husserl later on. I want you to pay attention to the reasons behind universal doubt. The reason behind universal doubt is to ground beliefs on a firm foundation. Husserl will borrow this sentiment very heavily. He too will want a form of apodictic evidence that is absolute unassailable, and in Descartes' words "absolutely certain." Another point to keep in mind about Meditation 1, and this is more on Descartes' front, the search for certainty is motivated by the empiricists. The empiricists claimed that the fundamental principle of all knowledge is derived from experience, sense experience to be exact. The analogy could be drawn that the empiricists are like the proponents of what Husserl will later call the natural attitude--for now just keep that point in the back of your mind. So when Descartes wants to doubt radically all of his knowledge, he is doing so because the fundamental idea of the empiricists claim that all knowledge comes from sensory experience. He finds this very dubious, and takes up the challenge to defend religious doctrines (namely the existence of God and the soul as identified in the Synopsis) against the idea that all knowledge is derived from sensory experience. This is the motivation for the universalist doubt. Now, given I've said all that I want to about Meditation 1. Onto Meditation 2. Unless you want to raise any other points concerned with the text...
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