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Hello. I've been trying to analyze Descartes' "First Meditation". I cant come up with any counterclaims to his arguments. Please help me. I really need some help ASAP.
So Descartes is arguing that a particular view of how we acquire knowledge is wrong. This view (sometimes called "Empiricism") is the view, that all that we know is based on sense-experience (the testimony of our senses). According to Descartes, empiricism must be wrong because we are justified in doubting whatever we believe based on our senses. Why? Because we often make mistakes about such beliefs based on the senses. We find out later that what we believed was wrong. (Descartes gives several example of how our senses lead us into error) But how can we know anything we are justified in doubting? We cannot. So, since we can justifiably doubt whatever we think we know, when what we think we know is based on sense-evidence, we cannot know what we think we know when what we think we know is based on sense-evidence. Descartes’ first meditation, his main objective is to present three skeptical arguments to bring doubt upon what he considers his basic beliefs. Descartes believes this to be an intricate part of his complete epistemological argument. Descartes begins by saying that he wants to abandon all notions that can be called into doubt. He is intending to find other statements that can not be doubted and which are true under any circumstances. He wants these statements to serve as a basis for our knowledge, which therefore will also be true for ever. In his work, Descartes states that he doesn’t need to examine all the variety of opinions but the foundations on which they are bases. He says that if he will be able to prove that the foundations of these opinions are wrong, therefore the opinions themselves will be wrong as well. He also states that there are no particular signs which would determine whether we are asleep or awake. That lead him to a conclusion that all perceptions, senses, etc, shall be doubted because we can not determine whether we are dreaming or not and therefore say what is real and what isn’t. Furthermore, all perceptions such as mathematics, etc. must also be doubted, motivated by the possible existence of an evil God influencing these in a way to differ from what is true and real. Descartes’ final conclusion in the first meditation is that all perceptions must be doubted and that in turn meant all knowledge must be doubted due to rationalistic principle (Descartes assumed that knowledge may be built up, step by step, from foundation which is true. This “true” foundation would guarantee the eternal nature of the knowledge. This implies that there is some sort of absolute reality). He also notes that even if he can’t know anything for sure, he can at least avoid false knowledge. Descartes also makes the assumption that reason and logic, which he uses, are valid and sufficient tools for attaining knowledge and asserting truth or falsity. However, one shall not confuse common sense with logic for this reason. What would be a counterclaim to his statements? Please help! |