Chapters 2 and 3 of Descartes: A Very Short Introduction are extremely short. I’d like to focus on a quote from chapter 3 in this discussion:
“it would be unreasonable for an individual… to plan to reform the body of the sciences of the established order of teaching them in the schools.” “On the other hand, it could well make sense for an individual to raze and rebuild his own particular house, and, by the same token, there might be something to be said for reforming ones’s own learning- rejecting everything doubtful in ones’s acquired beliefs- while leaving the body of the sciences and the established order of teaching them intact.”
Descartes is justifying why it is ok to think for yourself and discover on your own. Question the norm, do not just blindly follow the herd. By asking your own questions and seeking your own knowledge, you are simply rebuilding your own reality, not trying to change everyone else’s. But understand, being told what you know does not make it a truth. Truths must be infallibly provable. Mathematics therefore becomes the only true, provable property to confirm knowledge. This is at least my understanding. Thoughts?
I very much agree with Descartes. Everyone decides what the truth is based on popular social beliefs and what they're told by others, but most do not think for themselves. Finding ones own viewpoints and perception of reality is very important to living a happy and meaningful life. The only difficulty is that those who think for themselves often end up criticized for their personal beliefs, and it scares them away from thinking for themselves. It is very important to overcome this. My philosophy is that we should all think for ourselves, but consider all other opinions until they are proven false.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Descartes (like a good denizen of the Enlightenment) models an approach that rejects appeals to authority and tradition while affirming the individual inquirer's responsibility to deploy his/her own rational faculties. But I'd hesitate to call that approach "rebuilding your own reality," a formulation that flirts with one of Descarte's bogeys, solipsism. He's trying to rebuild OUR reality, in a fashion he challenges each of us to replicate for ourselves.
ReplyDeleteBut, can we truly doubt everything so hyperbolically as he suggests? Or was C.S. Peirce right to say a doubt that is not "real and living" is not a suitable engine for philosophy?