Philosophy 101 Unit 1

Reminders: 

1) Post Two is due next week, so start thinking about something to post on! 20 comments are due the week after that. 

2) Read Haugeland, “Semantic Engines” in the course packet for Tuesday (and be ready for a quiz!)

3) Screening tonight at 6 in the main lounge.

4) There is a talk tomorrow in Greg Hall rm 213, at 3pm entitled “KANT’S PARALOGISMS OF PURE REASON”. Should be fun, and you’ll get extra credit for showing up. 

Here are some prompts for this week’s R&L thread. Post by Tuesday before class for credit. 

• Descartes gives two proofs of God’s existence. Are they valid? Are they sound? (Dont answer unless you know what those terms mean!)
• Descartes’ proofs of God are both ‘ontological proofs’. Are there better proofs for the existence (or non-existence) of God? Are any such proofs convincing? Why or why not?
• Expand on any of the debate topics this afternoon. Feel free to stray from Descartes’ text as far as you like. I am especially interested in hearing more discussion on the relationship between the mind and the body. 
• Descartes’ grand conclusion in the Meditations is his thinking subject- the cogito. If nothing else in Descartes interests you, it is hard to deny that this very compelling conclusion. But we know that Descartes still has problems. How else might Descartes have solved his skeptical challenge from this foundation?
• Post anything you’d like on Waking Life. Just about all the segments in the film can be found on Youtube, if you need a refresher. 

Well in class we have been talking consistently about the Evil Genius, a being similar to the power of God, and especially the power to disrupt one’s own thoughts is pretty impressive. So if God is all powerful, why not God? Think about it. Protestant religions believe in God’s omnipotence so much that some of them believe that they actually have no control over their lives, and that every decision made by them is actually made by God. This theory of predestination has a lot of backing behind it if it uses the theories of Descartes’ Evil Genius. Unfortunately, from here is where my argument gets really skeptical on an epic scale, but try to follow along. In meditation three, Descartes tries to use God to escape the black hole created by his Evil Genius theorem. Descartes concludes that the idea of God is innate, and this leads to the only possible cause of the idea of God is God, meaning God exists.

Now let’s go back to our theory of predestination. If God exists, he would inherently control all our thoughts and actions, also what we would perceive. To me, this is starting to sound a little similar to the Evil Genius. Descartes was a catholic and theorized a benevolent God that would not mess with his senses and Descartes believed in this. My inner skeptic tells me to tell you right here that the Evil Genius could have been telling Descartes to say God was benevolent to perpetuate his reputation. This struggle is one of the founding reasons behind the Protestant Reformation. (I really don’t have a belief in one side or the other in the predestination vs. free will arguments, for the record) Descartes, being a catholic, could have seen this “Evil Genius” idea as a rip on Protestant groups like the Calvinists, as he personally didn’t believe in this idea. Now God could easily be telling each side what they want to hear, meaning that obviously the Calvinists are right, but leaving no way to prove it as well, he IS God after all.

This leads me back to the original point. The Evil Genius could possibly be God. He is deceptive in his ways similar to that of God, in that he can deceive your senses and even your own thoughts. People believe they can talk to God, so why not a two way street? This is simply because people don’t want to hear that their god is deceiving them. I don’t blame them in the least, but the whole omnipotence and all-powerful thing does kind of give me a bad taste in my mouth about what exactly God can do, if there is a god after all. According to our various religious texts, God can flood the world and randomly set bushes ablaze and have them talk to you. I’m pretty sure God can mess with your thoughts as well.

I may not personally agree with Descartes’ assertion that the only existence it is possible to validate is one’s own, but I understand the logic he uses. The methodological doubt is something I can follow. When the man branches off and the idea arises that animals can only been very complex automata, it is a somewhat logical progression. The fact that it is rational for other human beings to have thought, and therefore be able to validate their own existence by virtue of their thought, makes a whole lot of sense as well. However, following the absolutely integral notion that the only sure thing Descartes has, the one single Archimedean Point he can find, is that every bit of information he takes in with his senses could possibly be falsified by the Grand Deceiver, the Evil Genius, the malevolent parallel of a benevolent God. I mean, these assessments follow sound logic as far as I see it, but Descartes does not seem to be so inconsistent as to move forward conditionally with his philosophy. Even with a deceiver that is far less powerful than God it would be plausible for a man to make an error in judgment leading to false conclusions about what around him is an automaton and what around him is a thinking thing, able to confirm its own existence. I just see the whole exercise as one of futility after the entire progression of doubt, casting down senses and experience and even rational thought. Methodological doubt invalidates the surety of experience in the moment; I say that if each moment is doubtable, then the summation thereof has to be doubtable as well. Just like integration of a function over a continuous interval, the most miniscule of parts come together to form the whole. This whole is of the same nature as each of the parts. Hence, a bank of experience drawn from an infinite number of doubtable moments is necessarily doubtable. Descartes’ logic is shaky enough in my mind to begin with, and his own abandonment of his methodology casts considerable doubt on the whole system itself.

Descarte used a piece of wax as an example of what is failing our senses. Or how they can decieve us. He says “Perhaps the wax was what i now think it is: namely that the wax itself never really was the sweetness of the honey, nor the fragrance of the flowers…but instead was a body that a short time ago minfested itself to me in these ways and now does so in other ways.” But what more are we than that wax? we take on what is around us, the culture, the language, the sights, sounds, and smells. Each one of us has been molded, shaped, and contorted by the society we live, or have lived in. So how impossible is the task that Descarte attempted to take on? How can we just let go of every thing that has created us. We are nothing more than a compilation of others thoughts and opinions. Even if you claim to “not follow the crowd” you still have allowed them to manipulate your being. It is impossible for us to be like the wax in the way that, just being completely melted and losing all that was put into us. Now we may attempt to ignore, or forget our past, but noone can argue that their past experiences have shaped us to be what we are. The only thing we have that we can actually manipulate at all is the present. But what decisions can we make that can later be remade? What beliefs can we stand on now that we can’t later doubt? The idea that the only thing we can truly stand on is the fact that we ourselves can verify solely our very own existance is terrifying. There is nothing that you can build off that. I am existing because I think I am? Its hard for me to comprehend the fact that my very soul could be just a figment of my imagination. The only thing that can keep me at peace is the fact that I can stand solidly on my faith. Be it wrong faith or right faith, I refuse to question. If that makes me a lesser person so be it, but it makes me a being with something to look forward to. Regardless if what I’m looking towards is a giant mirage, I’m still able to base it on a solid belief on something that matters to me. If for a second anyone believes that their faith is above mine, or below mine, they are correct. For its not the object that we base our faith on, its the notion that there is something to base it on, be it God, or Buddah, or your kitchen sink for all I care. Its something that means you have that choice. Which making that choice is what makes us human. Even if we are being decieved.

-Elena Solomon-

Galileo lived from 1564 to 1642; Rene Descartes lived from 1596 to 1650. Descartes existed at the same time as Galileo; he challenged Aristotle and the Church at the same time as Galileo; he introduced radically unique thought at the same time as Galileo – thought, from both men, that would form the basis for the modern worldview of today. Yet Descartes finished his life with a pension from the French King, a request to teach the Swedish Queen Christina, and he died in general high esteem (1)*, whereas Galileo ended his years subjected to house arrest under suspect of heresy (2). Descartes managed to maintain a good name by using euphemisms for the term “God” in his works and prefaced his works, such as Meditations on First Philosophy, with letters addressed directly to men of the Church that defined his purpose, or at least a sweetened version of his purpose in order to remain clean in their eyes.

Such a letter can be found on the very first page of the aforementioned book, addressed “To those Most Wise and Distinguished Men, the Dean and Doctors of the Faculty of Sacred Theology of Paris.” Descartes is, in essence, sucking up. The letter details Descartes’ purpose in publishing his Meditations, throughout which he intersperses arguments of: ‘ “…we must believe in God’s existence because it is taught in the Holy Scriptures…” (3) but for those who don’t believe, I have written these thoughts,’ or “…one may infer from Sacred Scripture that the knowledge of him…is so utterly easy [to achieve] that those without this knowledge are blameworthy…” (3) and then he proceeds to actually quote from the Bible. He does this to turn those who might be his persecutors, the esteemed men of the Sacred Theology to whom he addresses his letter, into his supporters. Once they realize Descartes’ purpose is to “refute [non-believers’] arguments and to use all [Christian philosophers’] powers to demonstrate the truth” (4), with emphasis on truth, they can read through his work without the need to condemn him like they did Galileo – as Descartes wrote it in the name of God.

Descartes’ use of the word ‘truth’ in the above statement, and not some other word, such as ‘gospel’ or ‘scripture,’ reveals his other key method of escaping the heretic label: euphemisms. By using ‘truth’ Descartes further cloaks his upcoming challenges of God, for he ‘proves’ his belief that worshiping God is the only way. Whether he actually believes the latter is subject for debate; while it probably holds true, he may have just been covering his tracks. At key points in his work – for example in Meditation Two, when he breaks down all normal semblances of cognition and outright challenges God – Descartes substitutes the title God with “evil genius” (5), effectively nullifying his challenge (because he does not, in fact, challenge the will of the Almighty God, but rather some Evil Genius – or so he desires the men of the Sacred Theology of Paris to believe). Thus Descartes effectively escapes condemnation, unlike Galileo, who outright declares the Church at fault, or so the Church believes he does.

While Descartes seems the wiser of the two men, since both he and Galileo play the same game yet end with opposite fates, Descartes does have one advantage over Galileo: Galileo goes first. Descartes realizes the danger in publishing his philosophy only after hearing of Galileo’s infamous trial and conviction; he thereafter ceases plans for Treatise on the World, his novel worth four years of work, and instead puts out Discourse on Method and many other works besides (1). Descartes depends on Galileo for his own survival, and consequently today seems the wiser, but in actuality merely went second in the intellectual advancement known as the Scientific Revolution.

1. “René Descartes.” Wikipedia. 9 Sept. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rene_descartes#biography>.

2. “Galileo Galilei.” Wikipedia. 9 Sept. 2008 <http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo#Life>.

3. Descarte, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Company, 1993. 1.

4. Descarte, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Company, 1993. 2.

5. Descarte, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy. 3rd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Company, 1993. 16.

*I know Wikipedia is not a great source to cite, but this is not a formal paper and I only used it for common knowledge –well, “common” knowledge. Information that can be found in many places – that I happened to get from this website, and I had to cite something. Also, the information posted on Wikipedia is regulated by scholars to maintain high accuracy levels.