Philosophers have long wondered about how to justify beliefs and hence establish knowledge. Do you start with a method or principle that you use to determine which beliefs are justified OR do you start with examples of justified belief to determine which method or principle confers justification? Descartes chooses the latter option. From his two example of knowledge (i.e. I know I exist and I know I am a thing that thinks) he establishes his rule about clear and distinct perceptions. Is this the right strategy or should he start with a rule or procedure? Is that the right strategy but a problematic implementation? Does he have enough examples of justified belief to establish the rule? Or is either strategy a dead end?
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ReplyDeletePersonally I believe that one as a philosopher should figure out a method or some sort of principle that you will use to justify beliefs. It seems irrational to me to start with what you think is a justified belief without first identifying its principles. Thus I believe one should figure out principles one considers to be ideal for example honesty. Then you take said principle like honesty and evaluate all beliefs to determine which belief is best. For example a conclusion could be made from this that its never okay to lie. I'd rather someone identify the principle then work their way to a conclusion like I have then work backwards. I think Descartes is flawed for immediately making a claim that "he exist" and instead should try to establish rules or procedures that lead up to him knowing he exist. This is entirely personal preference but I'd rather Descartes went from "I know I am a thing" to "I know I exist" and I prefer it this way because it feels more structured to me. I think the optimal strategy is create rules and procedures and stick to them. I think the right strategy also needs to focus on implementation which means once you establish the rules you must stick them no exceptions whatsoever and you should have someone else with you whilst you evaluate the principles. Seeing as all humans make mistakes it seems more logical to work in a pair so you can see eachother's biases in order to identify the best principle to follow. As a whole however I think either strategy is a dead end and will lead to the same conclusions so it really doesn't matter what you pick just seems to be more of personal preference.
ReplyDeletePhilosophy is at its best when precedents are determined before the conclusion. When precedents are created to determine a preexisting conclusion, they often either are not true or do not explain the given conclusion. The reason for this is that when the conclusion is already drawn out, the end goal already exists and thus it is easier to subconsciously stretch the precedents such that they fit an argument even if they do not. The way that Descartes determines his arguments, they are all stacked upon his foundational beliefs. This is a flawed practice for two reasons. First, because all of his future claims are based on his foundational beliefs, if they are dismantled, then all of his arguments thus fall apart alongside the foundational beliefs. This is problematic, especially since his fundamental ideas are not absolutely flawless in the slightest, leaving room for argument. Another reason that this is problematic is that this leads to the cartesian circle. This critique argues that Plato’s precedents are only true if the conclusion is true thus creating an endless cycle. This logic stems from his practice of creating fundamental ideas since because everything is based upon another thought, there is no distinct starting point for some of his logic, thus creating this cycle. However, I do believe that avoiding a circular argument is very challenging since it is hard to find a precedent that is fully independent of any other precedents. Descartes’ foundational beliefs were supposed to fix this problem; however, because they are so up for debate, they do not. For example, one flaw with “I think therefore I am” is that it does not apply to the simulation scenario. In this scenario, we still do exist even if we only exist in regard to the program executing the simulation. However, we cannot be sure that we are thinking since in this simulation, it is possible that we are not given the ability to think and thus all of our thoughts are hard-coded into the simulation, and thus we are not thinking for ourselves. This illustrates that there is a scenario in which we can exist and not think. Because of the way that Descartes structures his arguments, now that we have disproved his foundational belief, none of his other conclusions hold true since they are built on the foundational beliefs.
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