Question

The skeptic argues that if we are sometimes mistaken about our beliefs, then it is logically possible that we are always mistaken and that we therefore do not have knowledge. Explain how Descartes thinks that this argument fails. (minimum of 300 words)

Answer 1

Descartes and the Skeptic Argument:

Descartes begins by understanding knowledge in terms of certainty. He tests his beliefs by doubt to establish certainty. He argued that Doubt is the opposite of certainty. If we can doubt a belief, then it is not certain so it is not knowledge. He argued that he can whatever is clear and distinct and this is not indubitable and infallible, because we can make mistakes, but what is clear and distinct is certain if we are careful. Further he argued that we have the habit of jumping to conclusions, only the prudent can distinguished what is genuinely certain from which merely seems so.

Descartes starts his method of doubt by considering that in the past he has been deceived by his senses like things in the distance looks small,sticks half-submerged in water look bent etc. But such example from unusual perceptual conditions gives us no reason to doubt all perceptions so perception illusions are special cases. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to talk about them as illusions. Perception only ever inform us what the world looks like us.

Descartes is trying to setup the doubts within the rational framework and maintain a claim to rationality for his arguments to proceed. So Descartes invented Meditation. In the First Meditation Descartes argues that our ordinary experience of the world cannot provide the kind of guaranteed foundation on which all other knowledge can be based. The first meditation "What can be called into doubt" opens with the Meditator reflecting the number of falsehood he has believed during his life. Descartes saw his Meditations as providing the metaphysical underpinning of his new physics.

Throughout the Meditation Descartes insists that:

a. We should claim to know only that for which we have justification

b. We cannot appeal to anything outside of our ideas for such justification.

c. We judge our ideas using a method that guarantees that our ideas are correct.

Then Descartes intended 'Dream Argument' to suggests the universal possibility of dreaming that though there is waking experience, the whole life is a dream and there is no waking world.

Descartes was the first to raise the mystifying question of how we can claim to know with certainty anything about the world around us. No one actually lives skepticism and no one actually doubts whether other people really exist but it is very difficult to justify a dismissal of skepticism. Descartes has been marked and motivated by an effort to overcome this problem.