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Descartes’ Meditations

Descartes’ Meditations. Descartes’ First Meditation. Four bulldozers of doubt: I can’t trust my senses I could be crazy I could be dreaming A malicious demon could be out to fool me. Is there anything you’d stake your life on?. Is anything left standing?. Descartes’ Second Meditation.

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Descartes’ Meditations

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  1. Descartes’ Meditations

  2. Descartes’ First Meditation • Four bulldozers of doubt: • I can’t trust my senses • I could be crazy • I could be dreaming • A malicious demon could be out to fool me. • Is there anything you’d stake your life on?

  3. Is anything left standing?

  4. Descartes’ Second Meditation • Is there anything I can’t doubt? • I can’t doubt that: I doubt. • Try it: I doubt that I doubt. • OK, but then: I doubt that I doubt. • Self-certifying process: Doing it makes it so. • So, “I doubt” is absolutely certain.

  5. Is anything left standing? The bulldozer itself. The bulldozer can’t demolish itself!

  6. Self-affirming statement John Madden: “There isn’t a person in this stadium who’s left yet.”

  7. Self-undermining statement: • Teacher (calling roll): Johnny? • Johnny: I am absent.

  8. Descartes’ Argument • I doubt. •  I think. •  I exist. Cogito Ergo, sum.

  9. Descartes’ Argument Sound argument? • I doubt. •  I think. •  I exist. Is it valid? Doubting is a kind of thinking.

  10. Descartes’ Argument Sound argument? • I doubt. •  I think. Are the premisses all true? “I doubt” is self-certifying.

  11. Descartes’ Argument • I doubt. • I think. •  I exist. Is this argument sound? Is it valid?

  12. Evaluating Descartes’ Argument: • If I am dreaming, or the evil genius is deceiving me--then there is a “me” that is being deceived! • But “I” exist, only as a thinking thing. He hasn’t proven the existence of his body. • Has he proven that you exist, as a thinking thing?

  13. Evaluating Descartes’ Argument: • Only proves his own existence: • “Solipsism” (solus=alone + ipsi=self). • The Problem of “Other Minds”. • You have to prove your own existence. • Who/What else can prove their own existence?

  14. Evaluating Descartes’ Argument: • Are you absolutely certain that he exists? • What kind of proof is that? • Doesn’t a proof have to convince everyone? • A proof has to be objective. • Descartes’ proof is subjective.

  15. Evaluating Descartes’ Argument: • “I doubt” and “I think”: • Where did the “I” come from? • Is it a metaphysical entity or is it just a grammatical convenience?

  16. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg(1742-1799) “We should say ‘it thinks’, just as we say ‘it rains.’ To say ‘I think’ already assumes too much.”

  17. Evaluating Descartes’ Argument: • We know with absolute certainty that there is doubting and thinking. • But do we know with absolute certainty that there is a unified consciousness that is doing the thinking?

  18. Buddhist conception of the self: The notion of a unified self is an illusion.

  19. David Hume: Scottish Philosopher(1711-1776) The self is: “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions.”

  20. Descartes’ Meditations Has Descartes found an absolutely solid foundation to build on? His own existence as a thinking thing.

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