Question

Summarize and briefly explain Descartes’ epistemological project— What is he hoping to accomplish?

Answer 1

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with knowledge and justification.René Descartes (1596–1650) is regarded as the father of modern philosophy. His notable contributions are made to mathematics and physics. Here, we are focusing on his philosophical contributions in the theory of knowledge. Especially, the focus is on the epistemological project of Descartes' famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy.After its completion the work was circulated to other philosophers for their comments and criticisms. Descartes responded with detailed replies that provide a rich source of further information about the original work. He indeed published the first edition (1641) of the Meditations together with six sets of objections and replies, adding a seventh set with the second edition (1642).Descartes remembered for the above achievements as well as he also contributed to academic knowledge. One of such contributions was the “Discourse on the method of rightly conducting one’s reason, and seeking truth in the sciences (1637), commonly known as the Discourse on method” (p. 159). After examining the truth, he was thinking that his existence was so firm and sure that being a religious philosopher, he was incompetent of shaking it, he decided to accept it as the first principle of the philosophy he was looking for.

A rationalist epistemology claims that knowledge may be possible only if it is based on self-evident and absolutely certain principles. Such principles are not learned through experience but they are implicit in the very notion of reasoning itself. Sense experience didn't provides the certainty needed to guarantee that what we claim to know is true. So like mathematicians, we have to depend on reason itself as the basis for determining whether our opinions are justified true beliefs .

To identify an ultimate principle of truth on which all other knowledge are based, Descartes develops a method that increases our confidence in what we have been taught, what our senses tell us, what we "think" is obvious , regard to everything we know. In order to determine whether there is anything we know with certainty, he says that we first have to doubt everything we know. Such a radical doubt might not seem reasonable, and Descartes certainly does not mean that we should doubt everything. What he suggests is that, in order to see that if there is some belief that cannot be doubted, we should temporarily pretend that everything we know is questionable.

So Descartes concludes that I know one thing clearly and distinctly, that I exist because I think: "Cogito ergo sum," I think, therefore I exist. From this starting point I can begin to note other truths that I know clearly and distinctly, such as the principle of identity (A is A) and the notion that things in the world are "substances." Since identity and substance are ideas that are not based on sensation, they must be innate (that is, they must be implicit in the very act of thinking itself). Even sensible things (e.g., a block of wax) are knowable not based on sense experience but intellectually, insofar as we know them to be the same things even though their sensible appearances might change dramatically.