I haven't studied Descartes but why in the first place doubt whether or not one exists? And later Descartes famously writes, "I think therefore I am." I don't think there is an need to question whether or not I exist... it is common sense.
Descarte was a Catholic during the Thirty Years War, a bloody war between
I haven't studied Descartes but why in the first place doubt whether or not one exists? And later Descartes famously writes, "I think therefore I am." I don't think there is an need to question whether or not I exist... it is common sense.
Descartes was an Catholic officer during the Thirties Year War, the bloody conflict between Protestant Germany and European Catholics. Soldiers actually have more down time then you think, he was sitting beside a pot belly stove thinking about what was known as, 'the first philosophy'. Newton would write a book on the same subject called Principia some time later. He expressed no real doubts but the idea was what can I be the most sure of? Formally this is known as epistemology, theories concerning knowledge. This kind of discourse is very common in Philosophy, Plato's simile of the Cave was about the same kind of thing:
As I then desired to give my attention solely to the search after truth, I thought … I ought to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt, in order to ascertain whether after that there remained [anything at all] in my belief that was wholly indubitable. Accordingly, seeing that our senses sometimes deceive us, I was willing to suppose that there existed nothing really such as they presented to us … [T]he very same thoughts (presentations) which we experience when awake may also be experienced when we are asleep, while there is at that time not one of them true, I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am (cogito ergo sum), was so certain and of such evidence that no ground of doubt, however extravagant, could be alleged by the skeptics capable of shaking it. (Descartes: ‘I Think Therefore I Am’, Meditations ch. 7)
The Pope put this one on a list of prohibited books because he didn't make God central, Newton called his philosophy too atheistic but I never thought so. This is during the Scientific Revolution and people were developing new tools, mental and physical. There is a reason we call Algebra 'Cartesian', he was the first to get plane geometry going in a third direction, the Z depth you heard about in math class and probably didn't care about. Newton would be the one who was the first to calculate the Y Squared in motion and Calculus was born.
Why don't you try it, is there anything in your beliefs that is 'wholly indubitable' or beyond all skepticism? Bear in mind, many would say no but most, at least these days would say science or God.
Grace and peace,
Mark
