USC Philosophy Descartes Methods Question

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Prompt: What standard must a claim meet before Descartes is willing to affirm it? Does Descartes believe that his own standard for accepting propositions is satisfied by its own requirement for affirmation? Why does Descartes claim that his standard of affirmation is warranted only if God exists? Do either of Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God meet Descartes’ own standards for affirming his claim that God exists?



Readings (all can be found on Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources 2nd ed., attached):

Descartes, Discourse on Method

Meditations: Dedicatory letter, Preface, Synopsis of the Meditations

Descartes, Meditations I-VI

Hobbes and Descartes: Objections and Replies

Arnauld and Descartes, Objections and Replies

Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding

(Additional notes attached)

Requirements:

-at least 5 pages

-double spaced

-cite references as footnotes

-include other philosophers on the topic

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Modern Philosophy An Anthology of Primary Sources Second Edition Modern Philosophy An Anthology of Primary Sources Second Edition Edited by Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins Hackett Publishing Company Indianapolis/Cambridge For David, Daniel, Christa, and Nicholas, who we hope will find this anthology of use someday. Copyright © 2009 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 14 13 12 11 10 09 1234567 For further information, please address Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. P.O. Box 44937 Indianapolis, Indiana 46244-0937 www.hackettpublishing.com Cover design by Abigail Coyle Interior design by Dan Kirklin Composition by Scribe, Inc. Printed at United Book Press, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Modern philosophy : an anthology of primary sources / edited by Roger Ariew and Eric Watkins. — 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-87220-978-7 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-87220-979-4 (cloth) 1. Philosophy, Modern. I. Ariew, Roger. II. Watkins, Eric, 1964— B791.M65 2009 190—dc22 2009003757 PRC ISBN: 978-1-62466-237-9 CONTENTS General Introduction Note to the Second Edition 1. Descartes’ Meditations and Associated Texts Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond, “The Senses Are Inadequate” Bacon, New Organon I, Aphorisms 1–3, 11–31, and 36–46 Galileo, The Assayer, “Corpuscularianism” Descartes, Discourse on Method 1, 2, and 5 Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes, Hobbes, and Arnauld, Objections and Replies II, III, and IV Spinoza, Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, “Prolegomenon” and “Definitions” Leibniz, On Descartes (from the letters to Foucher, to Elisabeth, and to Molanus) Pascal, Pensées, “The Wager” 2. Spinoza’s Ethics and Associated Texts Hobbes, Leviathan, Introduction, 1–5, 34, and 46 Spinoza, From the Letters to Oldenburg and to Meyer (Letters 2, 12, and 32) Spinoza, The Ethics, Parts I, II, and V 3. Leibniz’s Monadology and Associated Texts Malebranche, The Search after Truth, III.2.1–4, 6, 7, VI.2.3, Elucid. 15 Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics Leibniz, From the Letters to Arnauld Leibniz, Primary Truths Leibniz, A New System of Nature Leibniz, Monadology Newton, Principia, “Scholium to Definitions” and “General Scholium,” and Optics, “Query 31” Leibniz, From the Letters to Clarke (Letters 1–4) 4. Locke’s Essay and Associated Texts Boyle, Of the Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding I.1–2, II.1–14, 21–3, 27, III.3, 6, and IV.1–4, 10–1, 15–6 Leibniz, New Essays, Preface 5. Berkeley’s Three Dialogues and Associated Texts Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, Preface, Introduction, Part I sec. 1–33 Berkeley, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous Berkeley, On Motion, 1–6, 26–8, 35–41, 52–3, 66–7, and 71–2 6. Hume’s Enquiry and Associated Texts Bayle, Dictionary, “Pyrrho,” Note B Hume, Treatise On Human Nature Introduction, I.4.5–6 Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Parts 1–5 and 9–12 Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind, Conclusion; and Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, “Of Judgment,” Chapter 2: “Of Common Sense” 7. Kant’s Prolegomena and Critique of Pure Reason Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, abridged GENERAL INTRODUCTION When G. W. Leibniz traveled to Paris in 1672, he found an intellectual environment in great turmoil. Leibniz was trained in Aristotelian (or scholastic) philosophy, which had dominated European thought ever since the thirteenth century when the majority of the Aristotelian corpus was rediscovered and translated from Greek and Arabic into Latin and then made compatible with Christian doctrine (by Thomas Aquinas and others). Until his trip to Paris, Leibniz’s properly philosophical works consisted primarily of a thesis on the scholastic problem of the principle of individuation and the publication of a new edition of an obscure 16th-century philosopher who had attempted to rehabilitate a more authentic Aristotelian philosophy from the “barbarism” of the scholastics. But a philosophical revolution was taking place in mid-17th-century Paris. New scientific and philosophical doctrines had emerged from Galileo Galilei, from René Descartes and his followers, from Francis Bacon, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Hobbes, and countless others. Scholastics had fought back fiercely against the new philosophy and science; they had succeeded in getting Galileo condemned by the Catholic Church in 1633 and in putting Descartes’ works on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1663. Still, the substantial forms and primary matter of the scholastics were giving way to a new mechanistic world of geometrical bodies, corpuscles, or atoms in motion. With this world came novel mathematical tools and scientific methods for dealing with its newly conceived entities. Old problems that seemed to have been resolved within a scholastic framework were raised again with new urgency: what can one say about necessity, contingency, and freedom in a world of atoms governed by laws of motion? The structure of the universe, whether it is finite or infinite, as well as the concepts of space and time, were up for grabs. Other basic philosophical issues were also keenly debated, including the location of the soul, its immortality, God’s purpose in the creation, and his relation to the universe. With such a great intellectual upheaval came the questioning of whether humans even have knowledge at all. Leibniz, of course, became a major contributor to this intellectual movement that defined the modern world. In Paris, he read and copied Descartes’ manuscripts and sought out proponents of the new philosophy, such as Antoine Arnauld and Nicholas Malebranche; his own later work was often precipitated by the correspondence he maintained with them and others such as Pierre Bayle. He traveled to London and met members of the Royal Society (Henry Oldenberg and Robert Boyle, among others, though not Isaac Newton, with whom he later corresponded). On his way back to Lower Saxony, he visited Baruch Spinoza in the Netherlands. Of course Leibniz did not have the opportunity to interact with David Hume and Immanuel Kant; Hume was born just four years prior to Leibniz’s death and Kant almost a decade after that. Yet Leibniz would have been quite interested in both of these figures’ acute, albeit radically divergent reflections on these philosophical developments. For Hume’s empiricist approach led to a certain kind of skepticism, while Kant’s criticism of pure reason did not obviate completely the possibility of substantive knowledge of the world. Historians of philosophy often draw a broad picture of modern European philosophy, depicting two distinct camps: rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz) who emphasize reason at the expense of the senses, and empiricists (John Locke, George Berkeley, and Hume) who emphasize the senses after rejecting innate ideas. This rudimentary picture is often filled out as follows. After calling into doubt seemingly all beliefs (especially those based on the senses), Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, attempts to ground all of our knowledge on innate ideas he discovers and rationally reflects on within himself, beginning with the idea he has of himself as a thinking thing (in the cogito). Accordingly, reason, by coming to a clear and distinct conception of its own ideas, attempts to establish knowledge about the world with the same kind of absolute certainty, precision, and necessity attainable in mathematics. While Spinoza and Leibniz revise and even reject some of Descartes’ fundamental principles, they both accept Descartes’ “rationalist” approach of rejecting sensory ideas as inadequate or confused in favor of innate ideas, which alone can be adequate or clear and distinct to reason. In this way, it is often claimed, Spinoza and Leibniz carry Descartes’ rationalist philosophy to its ultimate, logical conclusion. Locke, by contrast, breaks with the rationalists’ approach by rejecting innate ideas and by claiming instead that the content of all of our mental states or ideas must stem from experience, whether it be from sensation or reflection—a claim that more or less defines empiricism in this context. Locke rejects innate ideas, not only because he cannot find any ideas that enjoy universal assent, but also because he thinks that philosophers often talk about ideas without understanding clearly what meaning they have—an error encouraged by accepting innate ideas, since believing that an idea is innate precludes one from determining its true origin and thus its precise meaning. Since Locke rejects innate ideas, he views the proper task of philosophy as one of analyzing the precise meaning of the ideas we get from sensation and reflection and determining what we can come to know about the world purely on the basis of these ideas. Just as Spinoza and Leibniz follow Descartes’ rationalist assumptions to their logical conclusions, so too, it is often claimed, Berkeley and especially Hume correct the inconsistencies in Locke’s position, thus drawing out the proper consequences of Locke’s empiricist approach. (Often Kant is presented as the culminating figure of modern philosophy with his attempt at synthesizing the rationalist and empiricist traditions, though Kant, too, was in turn successively “corrected” by German Idealists, such as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.) While there is some truth underlying this snapshot of the history of modern philosophy, one can, we think, discern a much more interesting and significant picture of the importance of these philosophies by broadening one’s view beyond the issue of whether one should accept or reject reason (or innate ideas) to include an account of other domains, such as science and religion. Consider first the fact that Descartes accepts, whereas Locke rejects the claim that matter is infinitely divisible. Descartes’ claim that matter is infinitely divisible is based (at least in part) on his view that matter is simply extended substance and that because we have an innate idea of extension, we can see clearly and distinctly that it implies infinite divisibility. In short, Descartes’ position on the infinite divisibility of matter would seem to be based on his doctrine of innate ideas insofar as our idea of extension is an innate idea. Since Locke rejects innate ideas, it is clear that such a justification would, in his eyes, be mistaken. However, concerns about innate ideas can be only part of the story. For even if Locke must reject Descartes’ justification of the claim that matter is infinitely divisible, he need not immediately reject the claim itself (even if he would have to search for a new justification for it). It is clear that Locke is a corpuscularian (at least in part) because Boyle and Newton, that is, two of the most preeminent scientists of his day, presuppose corpuscularian principles in their scientific theories and Locke believes that, at least in principle, philosophy and science ought to be able to tell a single coherent story about the world. The importance of the scientific context is not, however, limited to Locke’s acceptance of corpuscularianism; a similar explanation of the importance of the scientific context of the day could be developed for Locke’s distinction between “primary” and “secondary” qualities as well as for his distinction between nominal and real essences. Locke is not alone in having interests that extend beyond narrow epistemological issues. Consider also Berkeley’s and Hume’s attitudes toward religion. One might think that the question of the meaning of the term God as well as the question of God’s existence would be a straightforward matter for a strict empiricist. What empirical meaning can one ascribe to the idea of a perfect being endowed with infinite attributes (such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence)? And what empirical evidence does one have for thinking that such a being actually exists? Hume’s account of our idea of God in §1 of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding develops an interesting answer to the former question, and Philo’s forcefully argued position in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion famously expresses one very provocative empiricist response to the latter question (in the negative). Berkeley, by contrast, believes that even if one cannot have an idea of God, one can form a notion of God, and there is no doubt in Berkeley’s mind that one can prove God’s existence. In light of Hume’s powerful arguments, one might suspect that Berkeley, as an Anglican priest, simply could not admit the true consequence of his own empiricist position with respect to God’s existence. (Here we would have an especially clear-cut case of Hume drawing out the logical conclusion of Locke’s original empiricist assumptions.) However, it is crucial to note Hume’s and Berkeley’s different goals and thus different versions of empiricism. Hume is interested exclusively in the laws that govern the relations that exist between ideas in our mind and refuses to speculate on what outside the mind might cause the existence of our sensations. Berkeley, by contrast, is interested primarily in refuting materialists, atheists, and skeptics and, as a part of that project, is very interested in determining what the cause of our sensations could be. Matter, as something inert, cannot be their cause and we must therefore take recourse to a mind (or spirit), which, when supplemented with further argument, turns out to be God. Thus, from a different point of view, it might seem that Berkeley’s empiricism improves upon Hume’s by being able to answer a question that Hume cannot, rather than Hume correcting an inconsistency in Berkeley. The point of these two brief examples is, we hope, clear. These philosophers are important figures in the history of modern philosophy for numerous reasons, reasons that cannot be captured exhaustively in any simple story about a single topic, such as reason versus the senses (or innate ideas versus sensations). Their texts are complex and rich, displaying divergent interests and goals. What makes them great philosophers and their texts significant philosophical works is the novel and sophisticated way in which they articulate their different interests and attempt to render coherent what would appear to be conflicting demands. Where we today share in their goals and interests, it is not impossible that they may help us to see more clearly truths that have been obscured over the centuries, and where we do not, it can be instructive to see how we are different and to consider how we came to be so. It is our hope that this anthology would be able to provide a glimpse of the complex and radical movement of thought from Descartes and his contemporaries to Leibniz and his contemporaries (including Spinoza, Locke, and Berkeley), and ultimately to its culmination in Hume and Kant. For that process, we have tried, as much as possible, to provide whole texts—i.e., Descartes’ Meditations, Leibniz’s Discourse and Monadology, Berkeley’s Dialogues, Hume’s Inquiry, and Kant’s Prolegomena; unfortunately, Spinoza’s Ethics and Locke’s Essay have had to be excerpted. We have attempted to surround these works with additional ones that would assist in understanding the primary sources—for example, selections from Hobbes’ Leviathan and Malebranche’s Search after Truth, or portions of Descartes’ Discourse and the Objections and Replies to his Meditations. Along the way, we have tried to provide alternatives to the “main” texts—for instance, Berkeley’s Principles and Kant’s Critique. Of course, we have had to make many difficult choices; we hope we have supplied most, if not all the desired selections, and have not cast off too many of our readers’ favorites. We believe we have provided enough materials for two semesters’ worth of modern philosophy, so that we think there should be sufficient contents with which to construct a variety of single semester courses. Another goal of ours was to achieve some consistency among texts—especially with Kant, where we were faced with different translations of the same technical vocabulary. With Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz this was accomplished, we hope, by the use of the same translator for the various works of the given philosopher (Donald Cress for Descartes, Samuel Shirley for Spinoza, and Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber for Leibniz). We have also attempted to modernize and Americanize those primary texts originally written in English. We do not believe that students, who are typically given contemporary translations of foreign-language texts, must wade through 17th- or 18th-century English works just because they were originally written in English in the 17th or 18th century. We have replaced archaic words and expressions with their modern equivalents: surface for superficies, up to now or previously for hitherto, admit for own, gladly or inclined to for fain, endow for endue, etc.—not to mention what we have done to whereunto, therein, hark, hath and doth. Perhaps the greatest change has been our endeavor to modernize the punctuation; we have adopted an open style of punctuation. A modernization we did not undertake is the discarding of italics, that is, the use of upper-case words for emphasis, mention, etc. This early modern practice does not seem to be a significant bar to comprehension for twenty-first century students. We also did not attempt to render historical texts into gender-neutral language. Of course, some will inevitably feel that our modernization has been too extensive, while others might have wished that we had made even greater emendations. We hope to have avoided both extremes, bearing in mind the needs of the readers for whom this anthology is intended. We are very grateful to the authors and translators named in the footnotes at the start of each selection for permission to reproduce their materials.1 We would also like to thank Karl Ameriks, Bill Davis, Daniel Garber, Marjorie Grene, Patricia Kitcher, Nelson Lande, Joseph Pitt, Tad Schmaltz, and Kenneth Winkler for their many helpful suggestions concerning what selections to include. Finally, we wish to thank Deborah Wilkes at Hackett Publishing Company, who suggested this project and saw it through to its completion two times over. Note to the Second Edition We have made numerous corrections to our anthology during the last decade. We still hope to have supplied most, if not all, our readers’ desired selections, and not to have cast off too many of their favorites. For this second edition, we have added a few more sources, which we think our readers will find useful. Here are the principal additions: Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond, “The Senses Are Inadequate” Newton, Principia, “General Scholium,” and Optics, “Query 31” Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Parts 1–5 and 9–12 Reid, Inquiry into the Human Mind, Conclusion, and Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, “Of Judgment,” Chapter 2, Of Common Sense We are grateful to all the readers who sent in suggestions and corrections and hope that they will continue to do so. 1. For the primary texts from Descartes through Berkeley, with the exception of Malebranche, footnotes are always the editors’. With Hume and Kant, the age when the use of footnotes becomes common, all footnotes that the editors have inserted are in brackets. 1. DESCARTES’ MEDITATIONS AND ASSOCIATED TEXTS René Descartes was born in 1596 at La Haye, in Touraine, France. He became one of the central intellectual figures of the 17th century, making major contributions to metaphysics, natural philosophy, and mathematics. Descartes was educated at the Jesuit College of La Flèche (in Anjou) from about 1607 to about 1615; he received a Master’s degree in law from Poitier in 1616. The next year he went to the Netherlands and joined the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau; at Breda he made the acquaintance of Isaac Beeckman, who introduced him to a “physico-mathematical” way of doing natural philosophy. When traveling in Germany he had a series of dreams (on 10 November 1619) about the unity of science; his first major philosophical project, the Rules for the Direction of the Mind, which he composed (ca. 1618–28) but did not finish, was devoted to that theme. Instead Descartes turned his thoughts to physical and astronomical topics and worked on The World or Treatise on Light; unfortunately he suppressed the publication of this treatise when he learned of Galileo’s condemnation in 1633. His first printed work was the Discourse on Method (1637) to which he appended the less controversial scientific essays, Dioptrics, Meteors, and Geometry. A few years later he expanded Part Four of the Discourse into Meditations on First Philosophy, which he published with sets of objections and replies (1641). In 1644, Descartes further revised his philosophy into textbook form and disseminated it with his physics as Principles of Philosophy. Although he spent most of his adult life in seclusion in the Netherlands, in 1649 he went to Sweden at the invitation of Queen Christina but did not last the winter, dying in Stockholm in 1650.1 The Meditations is one of the great works of philosophy, a seminal treatise for subsequent philosophers. In its compact form it raises most of the problems that they will need to address skepticism, the existence and nature of the self, the existence of God, the possibility of error, the nature of truth— including the truth of mathematics—the essence and existence of bodies, and so forth. The great Cartesian commentator Martial Gueroult described the Meditations as a diptych, a work of art in two panels. He saw the first three Meditations as the first panel, ruled by the darkness of the principle of universal deception, with a battle being fought against it by the truth of the existence of the self—a mere point of light— a narrow but piercing exception to the principle of doubt, culminating in the defeat of the principle and the victory of the exception. The second panel is then ruled by the blinding light of God’s absolute veracity—that is, the principle of universal truth— and fought against by the existence of error, a narrow point of darkness and seeming exception to that principle, puncturing the light of universal veracity in the same way that the existence of the self punctured the darkness of universal deception. However, here the battle culminates with the victory of the principle, the triumph of light over darkness. Gueroult saw the Cartesian movement as unified in that its perspectives are complementary from beginning to end: to the hypothesis of the evil genius, which plays a role of segregation, elimination, and purification in the first three Meditations, corresponds the dogma of divine veracity, which is a heuristic principle, an organ of reintegration, and a rule of discipline in the last three Meditations. Thus, Gueroult thought of the Meditations as a single block of certainty, in which everything is so arranged that nothing can be taken away without the whole thing dissolving. But beyond the tight composition of the Meditations and its closely woven fabric, one might ask about the purpose of the work, what it was intended to do. Here one can point to the integration of the argument of the Meditations into a larger framework as the foundation of the new sciences. As Descartes said to his close correspondent, Marin Mersenne, “I may tell you, between ourselves, that these six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics. But please do not tell people, for that might make it harder for supporters of Aristotle to approve of them. I hope that readers will gradually get used to my principles, and recognize their truth, before they notice that they destroy the principles of Aristotle” (18 January 1641). The Meditations attempts a complete intellectual revolution: the replacement of Aristotelian philosophy with a new philosophy in order to replace Aristotelian science with a new science. For a 17th-century Aristotelian, a body is matter informed by substantial and accidental forms, and change is explained by the gain or loss of such forms: in mutation by the acquisition of a substantial form, and in what Aristotelians would call true motion (that is, augmentation and diminution, alteration, or local motion) by the successive acquisition of places or of qualitative or quantitative forms. The mechanist program consisted in doing away with qualitative forms and reducing all changes to something mathematically quantifiable: matter in motion. As Descartes said in The World, not only the four qualities called heat, cold, moistness, and dryness, “but also all the others (and even all the forms of inanimate bodies) can be explained without the need of supposing for that purpose anything in their matter other than the motion, size, shape, and arrangement of its parts” (The World, Chapter 5). Accordingly, Descartes does not need substantial forms and does not explain mutation as change of form, whether substantial or accidental. He finds no forms other than the ones he has described quantitatively. For Descartes, the only motion is local motion; hence he states, “The philosophers also suppose several motions that they think can be accomplished without any body changing place…. As for me, I know of none except the one which is easiest to conceive …, the motion by which bodies pass from one place to another” (The World, Chapter 7). One can glimpse the mechanist project in the Discourse on Method, in which an earlier version of the Meditations is embedded together with a method of philosophizing and a few scientific treatises as samples of the method. Thus the context of the Meditations is the same as Francis Bacon’s and Galileo Galilei’s, except that Descartes does not champion induction, and, although he advances the corpuscularian or mechanical philosophy to the extent that he reduces physical objects to matter in motion, he makes it clear that he does not accept the reality of atoms as ultimate indivisible constituents of matter. The Meditations solicited many objections, from those of Thomas Hobbes, Antoine Arnauld, and Pierre Gassendi, published with the work, to subsequent ones from G. W. Leibniz and Blaise Pascal to Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, and the rest. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to state that all of modern philosophy constitutes reactions to and criticisms of Descartes’ Meditations. 1. Descartes’s philosophical works, most of his mathematical and scientific treatises, and much of his correspondence are available in English translation. References to Descartes’ works are to the standard edition by Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Oeuvres de Descartes (2d. ed., Paris: Vrin, 1964-74); references to this edition are abbreviated as AT volume, page. For more on Descartes’s philosophy, see Margaret Wilson, Descartes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978); Edwin M. Curley, Descartes against the Skeptics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978); Martial Gueroult, Descartes’s Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons, trans. R. Ariew (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984–85), 2 vols.; Marjorie Grene, Descartes (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1998); John Cottingham, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Descartes (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). For the relation between Descartes’s philosophy and his physics, see Daniel Garber, Descartes’s Metaphysical Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). To situate Descartes’ philosophy amongst that of his contemporaries, see Roger Ariew, John Cottingham, and Tom Sorell, eds. and trans., Cambridge Texts in Context: Descartes’s Meditations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Michel de Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond (1580–88)1 Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) was a philosopher, essayist, and counselor to the Parlement, and ultimately Mayor, of Bordeaux. In 1569 he published a translation of Raymond Sebond’s Natural Theology, which he had undertaken at the request of Pierre Eyquem de Montaigne, “the best father whoever was.” He published the Apology for Raymond Sebond with the first two books of his Essays in 1580. The Apology puts forward in two major moves the thesis that the only proper attitude for a Christian is squarely based on faith, not reason. First, if it is objected to Sebond that he should not be presenting arguments in support of Christianity, it is conceded that these must always be based on the prior acceptance of revelation; if revelation comes first, reason may have a secondary, merely ancillary place. As it is, Montaigne remarks, our acceptance of religion is merely conventional; we need to turn back to living faith as the true source of our beliefs. Second, if objections are raised to Sebond’s arguments themselves, this objection again supports the priority of faith, since nothing our reason produces is of much use in any case. Montaigne proceeds to undermine any claims people may make to any special knowledge, drawing in part from the tropes of Sextus Empiricus, whom he had recently been reading. Ultimately, a thoroughgoing critique of the “knowledge” gained through our senses undermines any claims we might have to any knowledge whatsoever. All our seeming knowledge arises from our five senses. But, first, how do we know there are not other senses we are lacking? Further, the senses we do have constantly deceive us. There are illusions of sense, false opinions induced by passion, dreams very like waking appearances and vice versa. Our senses, again, differ from those of animals; maybe they have access to reality that we lack. Besides, each person’s sensations differ from his own in other circumstances, as well as from those of other individuals. Ultimately we face the problem of the criterion: if we try to establish some standard of judgment, that standard in turn demands another standard, and so on ad infinitum. Thus we are thrown back to sense, which guarantees nothing about its apparent objects. Only through the grace of God, in humility and obedience, can we escape our unhappy situation.2 [7. The Senses Are Inadequate] This discussion has brought me to the consideration of the senses, in which we find the greatest foundation and proof of our ignorance. Whatever is known is doubtless known by the faculty of the knower. For since judgment comes from the activity of the person judging, it is logical that he performs this act by his own powers and his own will, not through the constraint of another, as would be the case if we knew things by the power of their essence and according to its law. But all knowledge is conveyed to us by the senses: they are our masters: 3 Knowledge begins through them and is resolved into them. After all, we would know no more than a stone if we did not know that there is sound, smell, light, taste, measure, weight, softness, hardness, sharpness, color, smoothness, size, and depth. Here is the platform and principle of the whole structure of our knowledge. He who could push me into contradicting the senses would have me by the throat; he could not push me further back. The senses are the beginning and the end of human knowledge: You will find that the idea of truth is derived first from the senses And that the senses cannot be challenged … What should be thought more certain than sense?4 Let them be credited with as little as possible, they will always have to be granted this: that all our instruction is routed by their means and mediation. Cicero says that Chrysippus, when he wanted to attack the power and virtue of the senses, represented to himself so many arguments to the contrary and such vehement oppositions, that he could not satisfy himself with them. On this Carneades, who supported the opposite side, boasted that he could use the very arms and words of Chrysippus to combat him, and in this connection wrote against him: “O wretched one, your power has destroyed you!” There can be nothing more absurd in our view than to maintain that fire does not heat, that light does not illuminate, that there is no weight or solidity in iron—all of which are things conveyed to us by the senses. Nor is there belief or knowledge in man that can be compared in certainty with this. The first consideration I have on the subject of the senses is that I doubt that man is provided with all the natural senses. I see a number of animals that live a complete and perfect life, some without sight, others without hearing. Who knows if one, two, three, or more other senses are lacking in us also? For if some sense is lacking, our reasoning cannot discover the defect. It is the privilege of the senses to be the extreme limit of our awareness; there is nothing beyond them that can help us discover them, no more than one sense can discover another, 5 They all establish the extreme limit of our abilities, For each sense has its power divided, Each its own force.6 It is impossible to make a man blind by nature understand that he does not see, impossible to make him want sight and regret his lack. For this reason we should not take any confidence from the fact that our soul is contented and satisfied with what we have, given that it has no way of knowing its illness and its imperfection in this, if there is one. It is impossible to say anything to that blind man by reasoning, argument, or analogy that accommodates in his imagination any apprehension of light, color, and vision. There is nothing further that can make the sense evident. As to those who are born blind, whom we find wanting to see, it is not that they understand what they are asking for. They have heard from us that there is something they should say, that there is something for them to desire that we have, but still they do not know what that is, nor do they grasp it from either near or far. I saw a gentleman of good family, born blind, or at least blind from an age such that he did not know what vision is; he understands so little what he lacks, that he uses and employs words proper to vision as we do, and applies them in a way that is entirely his own and idiosyncratic. He was presented with a child to whom he was godfather. Taking it in his arms he said: “Oh, lord! What a lovely child! How beautiful it looks! What a pretty face it has!” He will say like one of us: “This room has a fine view; the weather is good; there is bright sunshine.” There is more: since hunting, tennis, and shooting are our sports, and he has heard this said, he takes a liking to them, and busies himself with them, and believes he has the same part in them that we do; he is annoyed and pleased by them, and yet he knows about them only through the ears. Someone calls out to him, “There’s a hare!” when he is on some plain where he can use his spurs; and again someone says to him “There’s a hare caught,” and there he is, as proud of his prize as he has heard others say they are. He takes a tennis ball in his left hand and hits it with his racket; he shoots with his musket at random, and is satisfied when his people tell him he is too high or at the side. How do we know if the human race makes a similar stupid mistake about some sense, and most of the appearance of things is hidden from us through this defect? How do we know if the difficulties we find in numerous works of nature come from this? And if numerous achievements of animals that exceed our capacity are produced by the power of some sense that we lack? And if by this means some of them have a life more full and complete than ours? We grasp the apple as it were with all our senses; we find in it redness, smoothness, odor and sweetness; beyond that, it may have other virtues, like drying up or shrinking, for which we have no sense to inform us. As to the properties we call occult in a number of things, like the magnet’s ability to attract iron, is it not likely that there are sensitive capacities in nature fit for judging and perceiving them, and that the lack of such capacities produces our ignorance of the true essence of such things? It is perhaps some particular sense that lets cocks know the hour of morning and of midnight, and moves them to crow, and which has led the deer, to the recognition of a certain herb able to cure them. There is no sense that does not have a broad dominion, and that does not produce by its means infinite items of knowledge. If we lacked the understanding of sounds, of harmony, and of the voice, that would bring unimaginable confusion to all the rest of our knowledge. For, besides what is attached to the proper activity of each sense, how many arguments, inferences, and conclusions do we make to other things through the comparison of one sense with another! Let an intelligent man imagine human nature originally produced without sight, and consider how much ignorance and trouble such a defect would bring him, how much darkness and blindness in our soul. From this we will see how much the privation of another such sense would bear on the knowledge of the truth, let alone of two or three, if there is such knowledge in us. We have fashioned a truth through the consultation and concurrence of our five senses; but perhaps it would need the accord of eight or ten senses and their contribution to apprehend the truth certainly and in its essence. The sects that oppose man’s knowledge do so chiefly through the uncertainty and weakness of our senses: for, since our knowledge comes to us through and by means of them, if they fail in the report they give us, if they corrupt and alter what they bring us from outside, if the light that flows into the soul is obscured in its passage, we have nothing else to hold on to. From this extreme difficulty arise all those ideas: that every subject has in itself everything we find in it; that it has nothing of what we think we find in it; and that the sun is no larger than it looks to us, as the Epicureans contend. 7 that the appearances that present a body as large to a person near to it and smaller to one who is farther away are both true, 8 and, resolutely, that there is no deceit in the senses; that we must lie at their mercy, and seek elsewhere for reasons to excuse the diversity and contradiction we find in them—going so far as to invent any other lie and fancy (they go that far) rather than to accuse the senses. Of all absurdities the most absurd, is to disavow the force and efficacy of the senses: Whatever has been seen at some time is true. And if reason cannot distinguish the cause Why those things that, seen near at hand, were square Are seen round at a distance, still it is better Through lack of argument to err in accounting For the causes of either shape Rather than to allow things clearly seen to elude your grasp, Attack the grounds of belief, and tear up the foundations On which life and existence rest. For not only would all reasoning collapse, But so, straight away, would life itself, Unless we choose to trust the senses, And avoid precipitous places And other things of the kind that are to be shunned.9 As to the error and uncertainty of the operation of the senses, everyone can furnish as many examples as he likes, so commonplace are the faults and deceptions they impose on us. In the echo of a valley, the sound of a trumpet coming from behind us seems to come from in front: 10 If you take a musket ball under the forefinger, with the middle finger lapped around it, you have to push yourself very hard indeed, to admit that there is only one, so strongly do the senses represent them to us as two. For it is frequently seen that our senses are masters of our reasoning, and compel it to receive impressions that it knows and judges to be false. I set aside the sense of touch, which has its operations so close by, so lively and substantial, and which, through the effect of the pain that it brings to the body, so often overturns all those fine Stoic resolutions, and compels to shout at his belly the person who has with all resolution established in his soul the dogma that colic, like every other disease and pain, is an indifferent matter, having no power to lessen in any way the sovereign happiness and felicity in which the sage is housed through his virtue. There is no heart so soft that the sound of our drums and trumpets does not warm it; nor so hard that the sweetness of music does not arouse and tickle it; and no soul so harsh that it does not find itself touched with some reverence in considering that somber vastness of our churches, the diversity of ornaments and order of our ceremonies, and hear the devout sound of our organs, and the solemn and religious harmony of our voices. Even those who enter with distrust feel some shiver in their heart and some dread that makes them question their opinion. For what purpose did those very people who had committed themselves to dying with a certain resolution turn away their face so as not to see the blow they had asked to be given? And why cannot those who for their own health desire and order that they be cut and cauterized endure the sight of the preparations, tools, and operations of the surgeon—given that the sight has no share in the pain? Are not these good examples to verify the authority that the senses have for our reasoning? It is no use knowing that these tresses are borrowed from a page or a lackey, that this rouge came from Spain, and this whitening and polish from the ocean, it still happens that vision forces us to find the subject more loveable and more agreeable, against all reason. For in this there is nothing of its own. We are won over by clothes; our judgments are deceived By gold and jewels; the girl’s least part is her own. Often you seek what you love among so many: Rich love deceives those eyes with its shield.11 How much the poets grant to the power of the senses, when they make Narcissus lost in the love of his shadow: In all that is admired he himself is admirable; Imprudently he desires himself; and he who praises is himself praised, And while seeking is sought; and at the same time he both kindles and burns,12 and Pygmalion’s understanding so troubled by the impression of the sight of his ivory statue, which he loves and treats as if it were alive: He gives kisses, and believes they are returned; He follows and holds and believes the flesh Gives way to his touching fingers And fears a bruise may come to the pressed joints.13 Put a philosopher in a cage of small bars of thin iron suspended at the top of the towers of Notre Dame de Paris, he will see for obvious reasons that it is impossible for him to fall, and yet (unless he is used to the roofer’s trade) he will not be able to keep the vision of that height from frightening and astonishing him. For we have enough trouble reassuring ourselves in the galleries of our steeples if they are made with open work, even though they are built of stone. There are some who cannot even bear the thought of it. Set a plank between those two towers, of a size such as is needed for us to walk on it: there is no philosophical wisdom of such firmness as to give us the courage to walk on it as we would do if it was on the ground. I have often found in our mountains here—although I am one of those who are only moderately afraid of such things—that I could not bear the sight of that infinite depth without horror and trembling of legs and thighs, even though I was more than my length from the edge, and could not have fallen unless I had intended to expose myself to danger. I also noticed there that, whatever the height, if there was some tree in this incline or some rock jutting out to support our view a little and divide it, this alleviates our fear and gives us assurance, as if there were something from which we could get help in falling; but we cannot face sharp and undivided precipices without turning our head away: 14 which is an obvious deception of our sight. That fine philosopher put out his eyes to free his soul from the distractions he received from them, so that he could philosophize with greater freedom. But on this account he would have to have his ears stopped up as well, and in the end deprive himself of all the other senses, that is, of his being and his life. For they all have that power to command our reasoning and our soul. 15 Physicians hold that certain dispositions are agitated to the point of fury by some sounds and instruments. I have seen people who could not bear to hear a bone gnawed under their table without losing patience; and there is hardly a man who is not disturbed by that sharp and piercing noise that files make grating on iron. In the same way some people are moved to anger and hatred at hearing someone chewing near them, or hearing someone speak who has his throat or nose blocked. Of what use was the flautist who coached Gracchus, softening, hardening, and shaping his master’s voice when he was haranguing at Rome, if the movement and quality of the sound did not have the power to affect and alter the judgment of the hearers? Seriously, it’s well to make such a fuss about the firmness of this fine faculty, which submits to being handled and changed by the shifts and alterations of so slight a breeze! The same trick that the senses play on our understanding they in their turn have played on them. Our soul sometimes takes its own revenge: What we see and hear when agitated by anger we do not see as it is: There appear a twin sun and two cities of Thebes.16 The object we love seems to us more beautiful than it is: 17 and uglier the one we dislike. To a man who is bored and affilicted, the light of day seems overcast and cloudy. Our senses are not only altered, but often stupefied by the passions of the soul. How many things do we see that we take no notice of if our mind is otherwise occupied? Even in things plain to see you can notice, If you are not paying attention, it is as if things Were cut off from you all the time, and very far away.18 It seems the soul retreats into itself and smiles at the powers of the senses. And so both the inside and the outside of man are full of weakness and falsehood. If the senses are our first judges, it is not only our own senses that must be called to counsel, for in regard to this faculty animals have as much of a claim as we do, or even more. It is certain that some have more acute hearing than man, others sight, others feeling, others touch and taste. Democritus said that gods and beasts have sensitive faculties much more perfect than man. Our saliva cleans and dries our wounds; it kills the snake: And in these things there is a difference and disagreement So great that what is food to one is to the other biting poison. Often indeed a snake, touched by human saliva, Dies, and puts an end to itself by gnawing its own body.19 What quality do we assign to the saliva? According to us, or according to the snake? By which of the two senses shall we verify the true essence of it that we are seeking? Pliny says that in the Indies there are certain sea-hares that are poison to us and we to them, so that we kill them simply by our touch: which is truly poison, the man or the fish? Which shall we believe, the fish of the man or the man of the fish? Those who have jaundice see all things yellowish and paler than we do: 20 Those who have the disease that physicians call hyposphragma, which is a suffusion of blood under the skin, see everything red and bloody. How do we know if these humors that change in this way the operation of our vision predominate in beasts and for them are ordinary? For we see some whose eyes are yellow like our sufferers from jaundice and others who have eyes that are bloody red; it is probable that to them the color of objects looks different from what it does to us; which of the two judgments will be the true one? For it is not said that the essence of things relates to man alone. Hardness, whiteness, depth, and sharpness pertain to the needs and knowledge of animals as they do to ours; nature has given the use of them to animals as it has to us. When we press on the eye, we perceive the bodies we are looking at as longer and more extended; a number of animals have their eyes pressed down in this way: so this length is presumably the real form of this body, not the one that our eyes give it in their ordinary position. 21 If we have our ears somehow impeded, or the passage for hearing stopped, we receive the sound in an unusual fashion; animals that have their ears hairy, or have only a little hole instead of an ear, consequently do not hear what we hear, and receive the sound differently. At festivals and theaters we see that when a painted sheet of glass of a certain color is set in front of the torches, everything in that place looks to us either green or yellow or violet: 22 It is likely that the eyes of animals, which we see are of a different color, produce for them appearances of bodies corresponding to their eyes. To judge the action of the senses we would first have to be in agreement with the animals, and secondly among ourselves. That is what we decidedly are not; and we enter into debate all the time about the fact that we hear, see, or taste something differently from someone else, and we debate about the diversity of images the senses bring us as much as we do about anything. By the ordinary rule of nature, a child hears and sees differently from a man of thirty years, and he in turn hears and sees differently from a man in his sixties. For some the senses are more obscure and darker, for others more open and sharper. We receive things differently, according to what we are and to how they appear to us. Now, since what appears to us is so uncertain and controversial, it is no longer a miracle if we are told that we can affirm that snow looks white to us, but that to establish if it is such in its essence and in truth is more than we are able to resolve; and, with this beginning shaken, all knowledge of the world must necessarily go to rack and ruin. What about our senses themselves contradicting one another? To the sight a painting seems embossed; when handled it seems fat. Shall we say that musk, which smells good and tastes bad, is agreeable or not? There are herbs and unguents proper for one part of the body, which injure another part; honey is pleasant to the taste, unpleasant to the sight. Take those rings cut out in the form of feathers, called “endless feathers”: no eye can distinguish their size, or defend itself from the illusion that they grow larger on one side and contract on the other, coming to a point, even while they are being rolled around the finger, although when you feel them they seem to you equal in size and entirely similar. Is it our senses that lend the subject these different conditions, while the subjects nevertheless have only one? That is what we see in the bread we eat; it is only bread, but our use makes of it bones, blood, flesh, hair, and nails: 23 The moisture sucked up by the root of a tree becomes trunk, leaf, and fruit; and the air, though itself but one, is made by the application of a trumpet into a thousand different sorts of sounds. Is it, I say, our senses that fashion these subjects into so many different qualities, or do they have them in themselves? And given this doubt, what can we determine of their true essence? Further, when the accidents of illness, of day-dreaming, or of sleep make things appear to us differently from the way they appear to the healthy, the wise, and those who are awake, is it not likely that our normal condition and our natural humors also have something to give a being to things relating to their condition, and to accommodate them to themselves, as our disordered humors do? And is not our health just as capable of giving them their appearance as illness is? Now since our condition accommodates things to itself and transforms them according to itself, we no longer know what things are in truth; for nothing comes to us except as falsified and altered by our senses. Where the compass, the square, and the rule are crooked, all the proportions derived from them, and all buildings erected by their measure are also necessarily defective and failing. The uncertainty of our senses makes uncertain all that they produce: Again, as in a building, if the first rule is astray And the square is wrong and falls out of the straight lines And the level sags a bit anywhere, The whole structure will necessarily be made faulty and crooked, All awry, bulging, leaning forward or backward, Out of harmony, so that some parts already seem to want to fall, Or do fall, all betrayed by the first wrong measurements; Just so must your reasoning about things be mistaken and false, Which all springs from false senses.24 For the rest, who can be fit to judge of these differences? As we say of debates about religion, that we need a judge who is not attached to one or the other side, exempt from choice or affection, which is not possible among Christians, so it is likewise in this case. For if he is old, he cannot judge of the feeling of old age, being himself a party to the debate; the same if he is young, the same if healthy, the same if ill, sleeping, and waking. It would take someone exempt from all these qualities so that, without preoccupation in his judgment, he would judge of these propositions as indifferent to him; and for this reason we would need a judge who never was. To judge appearances that we receive from subjects, we would need a judicatory instrument; to verify that instrument, we would need demonstration; to verify the demonstration, an instrument; here we are going round a circle. Since the senses cannot stop our dispute, being themselves full of uncertainty, it must be up to reason; no reason can be established without another reason: here we are regressing to infinity. Our imagination does not apply itself to foreign objects, but is formed through the mediation of the senses; and the senses do not understand a foreign object, but only their own passions; and thus what we imagine and what appears to us are not from the object, but only from the passion and suffering of the senses, which passion and which object are different things; thus he who judges by appearances judges by something other than the object. And if you say that the passions of the senses convey to the soul by resemblance the quality of the foreign objects, how can the soul and the understanding assure themselves of this resemblance, since they have in themselves no commerce with the foreign objects? Just as someone who did not know Socrates could not say that his portrait resembles him. Now if nevertheless someone wanted to judge by appearances, if by all of them, that is impossible, for they interfere with one another by their contrarieties and discrepancies, as we see by experience. Will it be the case that certain chosen appearances govern the others? That choice would have to be verified by another choice, the second by a third, and so this will never be accomplished. [8. Changing Man Cannot Know Changing or Unchanging Things] Finally, there is no constant existence, neither of our being nor of that of objects. Both we and our judgment and all things mortal go on flowing and rolling endlessly. Thus nothing can be established for certain of the one or the other, both the judging and the judged being in a constant state of change and motion. We have no communication with being, since all human nature is always in the middle between being born and dying, giving only an obscure appearance and shadow of itself, and an uncertain and weak opinion of itself.25 And if by chance you fix your thought on wanting to grasp your being, that is no more nor less than if you wanted to take hold of water, for the more you squeeze and press what is by nature flowing everywhere, the more you lose what you wanted to seize and take hold of. Thus, since all things are subject to passing from one change to another, reason, seeking a real subsistence there, finds itself disappointed, not being able to apprehend anything subsistent and permanent, since everything is either coming into being and is not yet at all, or beginning to die before it is born. Plato said that bodies never had existence, but only birth, Pythagoras said that all matter is flowing and labile; the Stoics, that there is no present time, and that what we call present is only the joining and coupling together of the future and the past; Heraclitus, that no man has ever entered twice into the same river; and that no mortal substance can be found twice in the same state, for, through the suddenness and quickness of change, as soon as it dissipates, so soon does it reassemble; it comes and then it goes—in such a way that what begins to be born never arrives at the perfection of being, inasmuch as birth is never completed, and never stops as being at its end, but, from the seed is always changing and being altered from one thing to another. Thus from human seed there is made in the mother’s womb a fruit without form, then a formed infant, then, leaving the womb, a sucking infant. Then it becomes a boy; next a youth, then a mature man, then a man, and finally a decrepit aged man: so that age and subsequent generation always go on destroying and spoiling what went before: 26 And then we stupidly fear one kind of death, while we have already passed and are passing so many others. For not only, as Heraclitus said, is the death of fire the generation of air, and the death of air the generation of water, but we can see this even more plainly in ourselves. The flowering of the prime of life passes when old age arrives, and youth is finished in the flowering of the mature man, childhood in youth, and the first period dies in childhood, and yesterday dies in today, and today will die in tomorrow; and there is nothing that stays and is always one. For if it is thus, if we always remain the same and one, how is it that we enjoy now one thing and now another? How is it that we love and hate, praise and condemn contrary things? How do we have different affections, no longer retaining the same sentiment within the same thought? For it is not likely that we would take on different passions without changing; and what suffers change does not remain one and the same, and if it is not one and the same, then it also is not. But, as to being a complete being, that also changes being simply, constantly becoming another from another. And consequently the senses deceive us and lie to us by nature, taking what appears for what is, for lack of knowing what it is that is. But what is it, then, that truly is? What is eternal, that is, what has never been born, will never have an end; time never brings it any change. For time is a mobile thing, which appears as in shadow, with matter always running and flowing, without ever remaining stable or permanent. Anything to which the words before and after, has been and will be, is applied shows on the face of it that it is not a thing that is. For it would be great stupidity and a very obvious falsehood to say that that thing is which is not yet in being or has already ceased to be. As to the words present, instant, now, by which it seems we chiefly support and found our awareness of time, when reason discovers it, it destroys everything on the spot, for it immediately splits and divides it into future and past, as if it wanted necessarily to see it cut in two. The same thing happens to the nature that is being measured as to the time that measures it. For there is nothing there either that remains, or that is subsistent, but all things there are are born, or being born, or dying. Thus it would be a sin to say of God, who alone is, that he was or will be. For these are terms of variation, passage, or vicissitude concerning things that cannot last or remain in being. Hence we must conclude that only God is, not in the least according to some measure of time, but according to an immutable and immobile eternity, not measured by time, nor subject to any variation, before which nothing is, nor will be afterward, nor newer or more recent, but one really real being, who with one single now fills always; and there is nothing that is truly real but him alone, without one’s being able to say: He has been, or he will be without beginning and without end. To this so religious conclusion of a pagan, I wish only to join this testimony of the same kind, as the end of this long and tedious discourse, which would afford me matter without end: “Oh, what a vile and abject thing,” he says, “is man, if he does not raise himself above humanity!”27 There you have a good word and a useful desire, but similarly absurd. For to make the hilt bigger than the hand, the armful bigger than the arm, and to hope to stride further than our legs can reach, is impossible and monstrous. Nor can man raise himself above himself and humanity, for he cannot see but with his eyes nor grasp except with his grip. He will raise himself if God extraordinarily gives him his hand; he will raise himself, abandoning and renouncing his own means, and letting himself be lifted and sustained by purely celestial ones. 1. Translated from the French by R. Ariew and M. Grene in Michel de Montaigne, Apology for Raymond Sebond (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003). 2. There are three main strata to the text of the Essays, and thus to the Apology (Essays II. 12). These are usually referred to as A, B, and C: the text as published before 1588, that is, from the editions of 1580 and 1582; materials Montaigne added in the edition of 1588 (indicated by < >); and those he added after 1588 (indicated by >), as represented in the posthumous edition of 1595. For more on Montaigne, see Donald Frame, Montaigne: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, 1965); M. A. Screech, Montaigne and Melancholy (London: Duckworth, 1983); Richard H. Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Ann Hartle, Michel de Montaigne: Accidental Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 3. Lucretius, De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), V, 103. 4. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 478, 482. 5. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 487-89. 6. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 490-91. 7. Lucretius, De rerum natura, V, 577. 8. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 380, 387. 9. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 500-11. 10. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 397-98, 389-390, 420-21. 11. Ovid, The Cure of Love, I, 343-46. 12. Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, 424-26. 13. Ovid, Metamorphoses, X, 256-58. 14. Livy, Histories, XLVII, vi. 15. Cicero, De divinatione, I, xxxvii. 16. Virgil, Aeneid, IV, 470. 17. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 1152-53. 18. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 808-11. 19. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 638-41. 20. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 330. 21. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 451, 453. 22. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 73-8. 23. Lucretius, De rerum natura, III, 702-3. 24. Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 414-21. 25. What follows, to the penultimate paragraph of the Apology, is Montaigne’s paraphrase of Amyot’s translation of Plutarch, Que signifiait ce mot: í 26. Lucretius, De rerum natura, V, 826-29. 27. Seneca, Quaestiones Naturales, I, Preface. Francis Bacon, New Organon, Book I (1620)1 Francis Bacon was born in London in 1561; he was a successful lawyer, politician, and essayist. Bacon entered parliament in 1584 and held various administrative political and judicial offices; he rose to Lord Chancellor, was knighted, became Lord Verulam and ultimately Viscount St. Albans. His political career ended in 1621 when he confessed to bribery. He died in London in 1626. His philosophical views, in particular The Advancement of Learning (1605) and Novum Organum2 (1620), were enormously influential on later 17th-century thought, especially with scientific institutions such as the Royal Society. From his earliest days at Trinity College, Cambridge, Bacon was preoccupied with a philosophy and scientific method that would entail a decisive break with the past. He came to believe that the traditional process of deduction from supposedly self-evident principles had produced little new scientific knowledge; it either gave back what we already knew or else it led us astray by giving illusory support to our confusions. What was needed was a confrontation with various obstacles to knowledge, with various idols, that is, false appearances. Also needed was the systematic understanding and control of nature based on an empirical method. The axioms of Bacon’s philosophy would be statements of natural causes and laws derived by induction from scientific observation and experiment.3 Aphorisms concerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Kingdom of Man 1. Man, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature; beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything. 2. Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions. 3. Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known, the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which is in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule. [ … ] 11. As the sciences we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic we now have help us in finding out new sciences. 12. The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search for truth. So it does more harm than good. 13. The syllogism is not applied to the first principles of science, and is applied in vain to intermediate axioms, being no match for the subtlety of nature. It commands assent therefore to the proposition, but does not take hold of the thing. 14. The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore, if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and too hastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction. 15. There is no soundness in our notions, whether logical or physical. Substance, quality, passion, essence itself are not sound notions; much less are heavy, light, dense, rare, moist, dry, generation, corruption, attraction, repulsion, element, matter, form, and the like. But all are fantastical and ill defined. 16. Our notions of less general species, as man, dog, dove, and of the intermediate perceptions of the sense, as hot, cold, black, white, do not materially mislead us; yet even these are sometimes confused by the flux and alteration of matter and the mixing of one thing with another. All the others which men have adopted up to now are but wanderings, not being abstracted and formed from things by proper methods. 17. Nor is there less willfulness and wandering in the construction of axioms than in the formation of notions, not excepting even those very principles which are obtained by common induction, but much more in the axioms and lower propositions educed by the syllogism. 18. The discoveries which have been made in the sciences up to now are such as lie close to vulgar notions, scarcely beneath the surface. In order to penetrate into the inner and further recesses of nature, it is necessary that both notions and axioms be derived from things by a more sure and guarded way, and that a method of intellectual operation be introduced altogether better and more certain. 19. There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one files from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms, and from these principles, the truth of which it takes for settled and immovable, proceeds to judgment and to the discovery of middle axioms. And this way is now in fashion. The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried. 20. The understanding left to itself takes the same course (namely the former) which it takes in accordance with logical order. For the mind longs to spring up to positions of higher generality, that it may find rest there, and so after a little while wearies of experiment. But this evil is increased by logic, because of the order and solemnity of its disputations. 21. The understanding left to itself, in a sober, patient, and grave mind, especially if it is not hindered by received doctrines, tries a little that other way, which is the right one, but with little progress; for the understanding, unless directed and assisted, is a thing unequal, and quite unfit to contend with the obscurity of things. 22. Both ways set out from the senses and particulars, and rest in the lightest generalities, but the difference between them is infinite. For the one just glances at experiment and particulars in passing, the other dwells duly and orderly among them. The one, again, begins at once by establishing certain abstract and useless generalities, the other rises by gradual steps to that which is prior and better known in the order of nature. 23. There is a great difference between the idols of the human mind and the ideas of the divine, that is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the worlds of creation as they are found in nature. 24. It cannot be that axioms established by argumentation should avail for the discovery of new works, for the subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of argument. But axioms duly and orderly formed from particulars easily discover the way to new particulars, and thus render sciences active. 25. The axioms now in use, having been suggested by a scanty and manipular experience and a few particulars of most general occurrence, are made for the most part just large enough to fit and take these in; and therefore it is no wonder if they do not lead to new particulars. And if some opposite instance, not observed or not known before, chances to come in the way, the axiom is rescued and preserved by some frivolous distinction; whereas the truer course would be to correct the axiom itself. 26. The conclusions of human reasoning as ordinarily applied in matters of nature, I call for the sake of distinction anticipations of nature (as something rash or premature). That reason which is elicited from facts by a just and methodical process, I call interpretation of nature. 27. Anticipations are a sufficiently firm ground for consent; for even if men went mad all after the same fashion, they might agree with one another well enough. 28. For the winning of assent, indeed, anticipations are far more powerful than interpretations, because being collected from a few instances, and those for the most part of familiar occurrence, they straightway touch the understanding and fill the imagination; whereas interpretations, on the other hand, being gathered here and there from very various and widely dispersed facts, cannot suddenly strike the understanding; and therefore they must necessarily, in respect of the opinions of the time, seem harsh and out of tune, much as the mysteries of faith do. 29. In sciences founded on opinions and dogmas, the use of anticipations and logic is good; for in them the object is to command assent to the propositions, not to master the thing. 30. Though all the wits of all the ages should meet together and combine and transmit their labors, yet great progress will never be made in science by means of anticipations; for radical errors in the first concoction of the mind are not to be cured by the excellence of subsequent functions and remedies. 31. It is idle to expect any great advancement in science from the superinducing and engrafting of new things upon old. We must begin anew from the very foundations, unless we would revolve forever in a circle with mean and contemptible progress. [ … ] 36. One method of discovery alone remains to us, which is simply this: We must lead men to the particulars themselves, and their series and order, while men on their side must force themselves for a while to lay their notions by and begin to familiarize themselves with facts. 37. The doctrine of those who have denied certainty could be attained at all has some agreement with my way of proceeding at the first setting out, but they end in being infinitely separated and opposed. For the holders of that doctrine assert simply that nothing can be known. I also assert that not much can be known in nature by the way which is now in use. But then they go on to destroy the authority of the senses and understanding; whereas I proceed to devise and supply helps for the same. 38. The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root in there, not only so beset men’s minds that truth can hardly find entrance, but even after entrance is obtained, they will again, in the very instauration of the sciences, meet and trouble us, unless men being forewarned of the danger fortify themselves as far as may be against their assaults. 39. There are four classes of idols that beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I have assigned names, calling the first class idols of the tribe; the second, idols of the cave; the third, idols of the market place; the fourth, idols of the theater. 40. The formation of ideas and axioms by induction is without doubt the proper remedy to be applied for the keeping off and clearing away of idols. To point them out, however, is of great use; for the doctrine of idols is to the interpretation of nature what the doctrine of the refutation of sophisms is to common logic. 41. The idols of the tribe have their foundation in human nature itself, and in the tribe or race of men. For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions both of the sense and of the mind are according to the measure of the individual, and not according to the measure of the universe. And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it. 42. The idols of the cave are the idols of the individual man. For every one (besides the errors common to human nature in general) has a cave or den of his own, which refracts and discolors the light of nature, owing either to his own proper and peculiar nature; or to his education and conversation with others; or to the reading of books and the authority of those whom he esteems and admires; or to the differences of impressions, accordingly as they take place in a mind preoccupied and predisposed or in a mind indifferent and settled; or the like. So that the spirit of man (according as it is meted out to different individuals) is in fact a thing variable and full of perturbation, and governed as it were by chance. Whence it was well observed by Heraclitus that men look for sciences in their own lesser worlds, and not in the greater or common world. 43. There are also idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call idols of the market place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations, with what in some things learned men are accustomed to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies. 44. Lastly, there are idols which have immigrated into men’s minds from the various dogmas of philosophies, and also from wrong laws of demonstration. These I call idols of the theater, because in my judgment all the received systems are but so many stage plays, representing worlds of their own creation after an unreal and scenic fashion. Nor is it only of the systems now in vogue or only of the ancient sects and philosophies that I speak; for many more plays of the same kind may yet be composed and in like artificial manner set forth, seeing that the most widely different errors have causes which are for the most part alike. Neither again do I mean this only of entire systems, but also of many principles and axioms in science which by tradition, credulity, and negligence have come to be received. But of these several kinds of idols I must speak more largely and exactly, that the understanding may be duly cautioned. 45. The human understanding is of its own nature prone to suppose the existence of more order and regularity in the world than it finds. And though there may be things in nature which are singular and unmatched, yet it devises for them parallels and conjugate relatives which do not exist. Hence the fiction that all the celestial bodies move in perfect circles, spirals, and dragons being (except in name) utterly rejected. Hence too the element of fire with its own orb is brought in to make up the square with the other three which the sense perceives. Hence also the ratio of the density of the so-called elements is arbitrarily fixed at ten to one. And so on of the other dreams. And these fancies affect not only dogmas, but also simple notions. 46. The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all other things to support and agree with it. And though there is a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet it either neglects and despises these, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who, when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods; “Yes,” he asked again, “but where are the pictures of those who were drowned after their vows?” And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like, in which men, having a delight in such vanities, notice the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happens much more often, neglect and pass them by. But this mischief insinuates itself with much more subtlety into philosophy and the sciences, in which the first conclusion colors and brings into conformity with itself all that come after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives, whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. Indeed, in the establishment of any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two. 1. From Works, ed. J. M. Robertson (London: Routledge, 1905), English, modified. 2. That is, New Organon, or new scientific method, contrasting with Aristotle’s logical and methodological works, known collectively as the Organon. 3. For more about Bacon, see Antonio Perez-Ramos, Francis Bacon’s Idea of Science and the Maker’s Knowledge Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) or Markku Peltonen, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Bacon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Galileo Galilei, The Assayer (1623), “Corpuscularianism”1 Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa in 1564. He studied at the University of Pisa, became lecturer in mathematics there in 1592, and then lectured at the University of Padua from 1592 to 1610. In 1610, he constructed a telescope and made observations of the moon and the satellites of Jupiter, describing his findings in Sidereal Messenger (1610). Due to the great popularity of that work, he moved to Florence as “Chief Philosopher and Mathematician” to the court of the Cosimo of Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1610–42). In 1615, he was denounced by the Inquisition for his support of Copernican astronomy (or heliocentrism) and went to Rome to defend it, but it was condemned by the Church in 1616. Years later, in 1633, he was summoned to Rome, forced to retract his views, and placed under permanent house arrest at Arcetri (near Florence). He died there in 1642. Galileo realized that a successful defense of Copernican astronomy, as suggested by his Sidereal Messenger and Letters on Sunspots (1613) and discussed in his Dialogues concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), would require a new physics, together with an altered philosophy and theology. He sketched some aspects of the new physics in Discourse on the Two New Sciences (1638) and argued for a change in relations between theology and science in the Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina on the Use of Biblical Quotations in Matters of Science (1615); in The Assayer (1623), Galileo advanced corpuscularian perspectives in the methodology of science and sketched some philosophical views about causality, perception, and ontology.2 However interesting and well-fashioned is the corpuscularian section of The Assayer—especially coming from so important a figure in the history of science—it should be noted that there were very many disparate sources for corpuscularian ideas in the early seventeenth century.3 In accordance with the promise which I made to Your Excellency, I shall certainly state my ideas concerning the proposition “Motion is the cause of heat,” explaining in what way it appears to me to be true. But first it will be necessary for me to say a few words concerning that which we call “heat,” for I strongly suspect that the commonly held conception of the matter is very far from the truth, inasmuch as heat is generally believed to be a true accident, affection, or quality which actually resides in the material which we feel to be heated. Now, whenever I conceive of any material or corporeal substance, I am necessarily constrained to conceive of that substance as bounded and as possessing this or that shape, as large or small in relationship to some other body, as in this or that place during this or that time, as in motion or at rest, as in contact or not in contact with some other body, as being one, many, or few—and by no stretch of imagination can I conceive of any corporeal body apart from these conditions. But I do not at all feel myself compelled to conceive of bodies as necessarily conjoined with such further conditions as being red or white, bitter or sweet, having sound or being mute, or possessing a pleasant or unpleasant fragrance. On the contrary, were they not escorted by our physical senses, perhaps neither reason nor understanding would ever, by themselves, arrive at such notions. I think, therefore, that these tastes, odors, colors, etc., so far as their objective existence is concerned, are nothing but mere names for something which resides exclusively in our sensitive body (corposensitivo), so that if the perceiving creatures were removed, all of these qualities would be annihilated and abolished from existence. But just because we have given special names to these qualities, different from the names we have given to the primary and real properties, we are tempted into believing that the former really and truly exist as well as the latter. An example, I believe, will clearly explain my concept. Suppose I pass my hand, first over a marble statue, then over a living man. So far as the hand, considered in itself, is concerned, it will act in an identical way upon each of these objects; that is, the primary qualities of motion and contact will similarly affect the two objects, and we would use identical language to describe this in each case. But the living body, which I subject to this experiment, will feel itself affected in various ways, depending upon the part of the body I happen to touch; for example, should it be touched on the sole of the foot or the kneecap, or under the armpit, it will feel, in addition to simple contact, a further affection to which we have given a special name: we call it “tickling.” This latter affection is altogether our own, and is not at all a property of the hand itself. And it seems to me that he would be gravely in error who would assert that the hand, in addition to movement and contact, intrinsically possesses another and different faculty which we might call the “tickling faculty,” as though tickling were a resident property of the hand per se. Again, a piece of paper or a feather, when gently rubbed over any part of our body whatsoever, will in itself act everywhere in an identical way; it will, namely, move and contact. But we, should we be touched between the eyes, on the tip of the nose, or under the nostrils, will feel an almost intolerable titillation—while if touched in other places, we will scarcely feel anything at all. Now this titillation is completely ours and not the feather’s, so that if the living, sensing body were removed, nothing would remain of the titillation but an empty name. And I believe that many other qualities, such as taste, odor, color, and so on, often predicated of natural bodies, have a similar and no greater existence than this. A solid body and, so to speak, one that is sufficiently heavy, when moved and applied against any part of my body whatsoever, will produce in me the sensation which we call “touch.” Although this sense is to be found in every part of the body, it appears principally to reside in the palm of the hand, and even more so in the fingertips, with which we can feel the most minute differences of roughness, texture, and softness and hardness—differences which the other parts of the body are less capable of distinguishing. Some among these tactile sensations are more pleasing than others, depending upon the differences of configuration of tangible bodies; that is to say, in accordance with whether they are smooth or irregular, sharp or dull, flexible or rigid. And the sense of touch, being more material than the other senses and being produced by the mass of the material itself, seems to correspond to the element of earth. Since certain material bodies are continually resolving themselves into tiny particles, some of the particles, because they are heavier than air, will descend; and some of them, because they are lighter than air, will ascend. From this, perhaps, two further senses are born, for certain of the particles penetrate two parts of our body which are effectively more sensitive than the skin, which is incapable of feeling the incursion of materials which are too fine, subtle, or flexible. The descending particles are received by the upper surface of the tongue, and penetrating, they blend with its substance and moisture. Thus our tastes are caused, pleasant or harsh in accordance with variations in the contact of diversely shaped particles, and depending upon whether they are few or many, and whether they have high or low velocity. Other particles ascend, and entering the nostrils they penetrate the various nodes (mammilule) which are the instruments of smell; and these particles, in like manner through contact and motion, produce savoriness or unsavoriness —again depending upon whether the particles have this or that shape, high or low velocity, and whether they are many or few. It is remarkable how providently the tongue and nasal passages are situated and disposed, the former stretched beneath to receive the ingression of descending particles, and the latter so arranged as to receive those which ascend. The arrangement whereby the sense of taste is excited in us is perhaps analogous to the way in which fluids descend through the air, and the stimulation of the sense of smell may be compared to the manner in which flames ascend in it. There remains the element of air, which corresponds to the sense of sound. Sounds come to us indiscriminately, from above and below and from either side, since we are so constituted as to be equally disposed to every direction of the air’s movement; and the ear is so situated as to accommodate itself in the highest possible degree to any position in space. Sounds, then, are produced in us and felt when (without any special quality of harmoniousness or dissonance) there is a rapid vibration of air, forming minutely small waves, which move certain cartilages of a certain drum which is in our ear. The various external ways in which this wave-motion of the air is produced are manifold, but can in large part be reduced to the vibrating of bodies which strike the air and form the waves which spread out with great velocity. High frequencies give rise to high tones; low frequencies give rise to low tones, but I cannot believe that there exists in external bodies anything, other than their size, shape, or motion (slow or rapid), which could excite in us our tastes, sounds, and odors. And indeed I should judge that, if ears, tongues, and noses be taken away, the number, shape, and motion of bodies would remain, but not their tastes, sounds, and odors. The latter, external to the living creature, I believe to be nothing but mere names, just as (a few lines back) I asserted tickling and titillation to be, if the armpit or the sensitive skin inside the nose were removed. As to the comparison between the four senses which we have mentioned and the four elements, I believe that the sense of sight, most excellent and noble of all the senses, is like light itself. It stands to the others in the same measure of comparative excellence as the finite stands to the infinite, the gradual to the instantaneous, the divisible to the indivisible, the darkness to the light. Of this sense, and all that pertains to it, I can pretend to understand but little; yet a great deal of time would not suffice for me to set forth even this little bit that I know, or (to put it more exactly) for me to sketch it out on paper. Therefore I shall ponder it in silence. I return to my first proposition, having now shown how some affections, often reputed to be indwelling properties of some external body, have really no existence save in us, and apart from us are mere names. I confess myself to be very much inclined to believe that heat, too, is of this sort, and that those materials which produce and make felt in us the sense of heat and to which we give the general name “fire” consist of a multitude of tiny particles of such and such a shape, and having such and such a velocity. These, when they encounter our body, penetrate it by means of their extreme subtlety; and it is their contact, felt by us in their passage through our substance, which is the affection we call “heat.” It will be pleasantly warm or unpleasantly hot depending upon the number and the velocity (greater or lesser) of these pricking, penetrating particles—pleasant if by their penetration our nec...
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Outline: Philosophical Question on Descartes
I.

Rene Descartes is a rationalist who is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy.

Standards to be Met
I.
II.

Several standards require to get met before Descartes affirms anything.
Descartes on the dreaming argument also notes that it is impossible to tell the difference
between dreaming and when in a waking state while one is dreaming.

What Does Descartes Believe?
I.

Descartes started with setting a standard that our beliefs have to pass if they count as
genuine knowledge.

II.

Descartes believes that it is difficult to distinguish between the truth and falsity of any
scenario.

Why does Descartes claim that his standard of affirmation is warranted only if God exists?
I.
II.

Descartes has assured truth in the proposition that mathematical truths are certain.
Then is human beings can prove that God exists, then they can distinctly believe their
reasons.

Do Descartes Arguments of God Meet his Standards of Affirmation?
I.

Descartes's argument about the existence of God meets his standards of affirmation because
he starts by understanding the small things.

II.

Indeed, Descartes does consider his standards when arguing about the existence of God.

Conclusion

I.

Descartes, in his mediation, has indulged human beings in thinking and reevaluating the
knowledge that they possess.


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Philosophical Question on Descartes

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Philosophical Question on Descartes
Rene Descartes is a rationalist who is regarded as the founder of modern philosophy.
Modern philosophy is founded in the modern era and is mostly associated with modernity. Several
assumptions are common to it that is used to distinguish it from the earlier form of philosophy.
The main aim of Descartes was to assist human beings in mastering and possessing nature and
seeing it from a different point of view. He has helped to offer the understanding of many things
like the world, among other areas. He has also had several meditations concerning the existence
of God, which will get discussed below.
Standards to be Met
Several standards require to get met before Descartes affirms anything. According to him,
before we start describing the nature of reality and its meaning, we must understand what they
mean when they say what existence is. It becomes pointless when we claim that something exists,
yet there are no true justifications to the existence of the item or object (Wretzel, 2010). Therefore,
Descartes claims that before we say that our beliefs are justified, they have to be based on a belief
that in itself cannot be doubted. A belief that cannot get doubted can offer a firm foundation where
all the other subsequent beliefs are grounded and known as true. It is possible that the beliefs we
think are the ultimate foundation for all we stand for are not the ultimate reality. Through
meditation, individuals can challenge the beliefs that have been held for so long, and self-critique
will take a real effort.
Descartes on the dreaming argument also notes that it is impossible to tell the difference
between dreaming and when in a waking state while one is dreaming. Usually, when in a dream
state, it feels like everything happening is so real until the moment when one wakes up.

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Additionally, Descartes also claims that there are no conclusive indications that can get used to
telling the difference between sleep and waking life. Therefore, it is almost impossible to convince
him that even in waking life, he is not sleeping, and everything taking place results from the
subconscious mind. However, Descartes continues to claim that even if the objects present in our
waking life were imaginary, there is no way to confirm that there are still more simple or universal
concepts that are true and existent (Wretzel, 2010). For example, mathematics seems to be more
certain than astronomy because people are certain of the answers. Even if we are still dreaming in
a waking state, we cannot suspect the certainty of mathematical truths.
What Does Descartes Believe?
Descartes started with setting a standard that our beliefs have to pass if they count as
genuine knowledge. He additionally argued that what we believe in cannot be the basis for the
truth or confirmation of certainty. Descartes did not rest with his conclusion that he will only accept
propositions that satisfy his own requirement for affirmation. According to Descartes, to know
that's something exists, one has to know the various scenarios that are incompatible with the basis
of the knowledge being false, which is difficult for one to know (Wretzel, 2010). For example,
suppose an individual believes that there is a mango tree outside their window because they can
simply see the tree. Based on the first assumption, one must first confirm that they are not dreaming
and are already in a waking state to confirm that they indeed see a mango tree outside the window.
Therefore, seeing a tree outside the window cannot be the only basis of the individual’s knowledge
or truth.
Descartes believes that it is difficult to distinguish between the truth and falsity of any
scenario. If the individual cannot tell whether they are seeing a mango tree or are dreaming, then

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as human beings, we cannot claim that we for sure know that something is a hundred percent truth.
Descartes is indeed in doubt of everything that he thinks he knows as he cannot for sure tell whether
it is certainly true. He also believes that it becomes conceived in mind every time he says he is
because he exists (Wretzel, 2010). Therefore, the existence of human beings comes from the fact
that they think, which cannot be distinguished from their attributes as beings. Therefore, human
beings are who they are because it is their nature to think. Descartes believes that the idea of self
is in our most innate idea, which is the idea of God. The philosopher believes that our awareness
of who we are is inborn.
Why does Descartes claim that his standard of affirmation is warranted only if God exists?
Descartes has assured truth in the proposition that mathematical truths are certain. The only
doubt that exists in mathematical truths is because of the Evil Demon possibility that is a system
existing to deceive humans. The p...


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