2006-10-10 18:42:41 · 6 answers · asked by capricorn855 1 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Our experiences of the physical world can all be doubted. Several modern movies give a pretty entertaining examples of this: The Matrix, Total Recall, The 13th Floor, etc… They are all variations of the philosophical idea of “brains in vats” – our experiences of the physical world could all be delusions. Descartes did not talk about “brains in vats” but his concept of the “evil genius” (a trickster with god-like powers) is essentially the same thing. Keep in mind Descartes is NOT saying that we should actually doubt the physical world in daily life. His method of radical doubt is meant as philosophical exercise to see if he could discover anything that absolutely had to be true, which is how he came up with his famous statement (called the ‘cogito’) “I think, therefore I am” (which is not exactly what he said, but close enough). The idea was to ground all knowledge on some indubitable truth, and this is what he thought he had done. Later philosophers have shown that he was misguided, however, because he thought of the mind as a thinking substance, and the notion of substance can be doubted. The best we can really say is something like “thought is happening” – thus eliminating the idea that there has to be a substantial thinker who does the thinking.
By the way, Descartes’ ultimate goal is NOT to doubt the physical world, but to ground our belief in the physical world on the firmest possible foundation. He thought he gave us good reason to believe in the physical world by proving that God exists and that since God is good, he would not deceive us about the existence of the physical world.
2006-10-11 02:14:58 · answer #1 · answered by eroticohio 5 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Because he thought the source of knowledge resided within the human capacity to reason--and he saw truth as that which the mind had no doubt (kind of a unnecessarily limiting perspective), because he denies the existence of probable or provisional knowledge.
2006-10-11 02:43:07 · answer #2 · answered by retorik75 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I can think of a possible argument.
Any truth that I realize, may be based on various objects including my body, which is one of my own objects helping me realize so many truths. But ultimately, it is for me, not my body, to decide what is truth and what is not. Any truth for me is born only when I decide that it is the truth. Therefore the only source of all my truths is myself, and not my body.
2006-10-11 02:11:39 · answer #3 · answered by small 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The body as a source of truth and essential vitimins . No doubt about it ! Good Luck ! :)
2006-10-11 01:47:26 · answer #4 · answered by tysavage2001 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's been a while since I read it. But if I remember corectly he couldn't be positive that his body was actually there, or just a product of his mind. He couldn't trust that his body was the truth, but he knew his mind was "I think, therefore I am".
2006-10-11 01:58:11 · answer #5 · answered by Molly 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
we dream nd accept the contents of the dream as true once v r awake,d dream is proved to b false..how can v distinguish definitly nd distinctly btwn dream state nd waking state...is a dream false only because it does nt resemble waking state ?
the ? is that which of the 2 is the real world....??????
2006-10-11 02:25:03 · answer #6 · answered by psth 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋