...Descartes' Methodic Doubt René Descartes (1596-1650) is an example of a rationalist. According to Descartes, before we can describe the nature of reality (as is done in metaphysics) or say what it means for something to be or exist (which is the focus of ontology), we must first consider what we mean when we say we know what reality, being, or existence is. He suggests that it is pointless to claim that something is real or exists unless we first know how such a claim could be known as a justified true belief. But to say that our beliefs are justified, we have to be able to base them ultimately on a belief that is itself indubitable. Such a belief could then provide a firm foundation on which all subsequent beliefs are grounded and could thus be known as true. This way of thinking about knowledge is called foundationalism. In his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641), Descartes indicates how we are able to guarantee our beliefs about reality by limiting what we believe to what is indubitable or is based on what is indubitable. That involves him in a series of six "meditations" (of which we will focus on only the first two) about the proper method of philosophical reflection and the conclusions that can be drawn from using that method. Throughout these Meditations Descartes insists that (1) we should claim to know only that for which we have justification, (2) we cannot appeal to anything outside of our ideas for such justification, and (3) we judge our ideas using a method...
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...24 April 2010 Philosophy 1010 Assignment 3 Descartes theory of doubt rest on the Latin phrase Cogito Ergo Sum. Translated into English the phrase means “I think, therefore I am”. This theory hinges on what is real and what is false; and mimics the branch of philosophy called Metaphysics. Metaphysics questions the reality of environment as does the method of doubt. Descartes skepticism (method of doubt) is termed methodological, because it presents a process which is used to deduce information to arrive at appropriate conclusions which determines or distinguishes reality from fantasy or a state of confusion. Descartes believed that some outcomes were very clear. He provided an analogy utilizing numbers. With numbers there is a pure outcome once the formula is applied or understood correctly. However, with environment or physical movement it becomes difficult to predict the end result. Therefore, to gain a better understanding of reality, Descartes formulates the theory of doubt and creates a check list of three requirements which must be indubitable fulfilled when applied to the method of doubt. The three requirements are 1) impossibility to doubt – meaning something is absolute 2) independent certainty – a theory which cannot be supported by another and 3) an item which exists so that data can be deduced to confirm existence. “Thinking includes doubting, understanding, denying, willing, refusing, and feeling” all key components in analytic phases of questioning surroundings...
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...O’Connor exemplifies the ideas of certainty and doubt through characters such as Hazel Motes. While the novel shows cases of certainty and doubt in the past, contemporary articles such as “The Certainty of Doubt” by Cullen Murphy expresses how Certainty and Doubt is exemplified in society. Having certainty creates a clear path as it seems that life is easier...
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...Summary of Paper “ What is faith” is the title of my paper. I am going to look into both doubt and faith in our christian lives The lack of faith is not because we don’t believe. It is because we are doubtful of the outcomes. There is a time where we all both baby Christians and mature christian face a area in our lives that we have a lack faith. The outcome is usually looked at the natural aspect of life. We as Christian need to look at what is really our faith. Do we return to the days of doing thing as a normal or can we act on our faith and expect the blessing of God into our live. What does it really mean to be a christian? That is the question at hand. Are we a season christian that looks at doing thing our natural way or do we place our faith and let God be God. It is not just being a christian in word but in acts. What does it mean to be a christian and what is necessary to be a christian is a question that must be ask and answered. This is important because being a christian mean the we believe trust and have faith. The faith as small as a mustard seed but faith in itself is faith. I will look into the opposite of faith which is doubt and where can doubt enter our lives. Is it a turmoil experience or was it cause by fear or confusion. The choices we make all have a result by our actions. What is the result of being a christian with faith or one a christian doubting one faith. The important aspect of this paper is faith and the question comes that mind is it a process...
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...Descartes Exam Questions & Notes (PHIL 1F90) Give a detailed account of Descartes’ systematic doubt or methodic doubt in Meditation I making certain to distinguish between real doubts and hypothetical or metaphysical doubts. Then explain how Descartes dispels each of these doubts during the course of the subsequent Meditations beginning with the cogito in Meditation 2. A methodic or systematic doubt refers to the common sense or naïve realism. So common sense or naïve realism is the belief that all knowledge comes from or through the senses. Naïve realism are things that are exactly as they appear to be and they appear to be exactly the way they are; a teacup for example. It’s possible to doubt naïve realism in that senses are not always truthful. The difference between real and hypothetical or metaphysical doubt is that Real Doubt are doubts we actually have such as those that really do happen; for example, things that happen sometimes, occasionally, or once in a while. Metaphysical Doubt on the other hand are doubts that could happen. It’s like a logical extension of real doubt, logical possibilities for example “let us assume, what if, I will therefore suppose that.” Sometimes is also considered a real doubt for example “Sometimes my senses do deceive me.” It’s important to note that external conditions are not ideal. Descartes discusses the lunatic hypothesis and the dream hypothesis. He says that in a lunatic hypothesis internal conditions are not ideal since a lunatic...
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...Philosophy." Descartes published many works of mathematics and philosophy throughout his life. In one of his most important works, Meditations on First Philosophy, he added a number of arguments for and against skepticism. Skepticism is the doubt about the truth of something and that absolute knowledge is not possible. Like past famous philosophers before him, Plato and Parmenides, Descartes believed that "evidence from the senses was inadequate to prove the kind of justification required for a claim of knowledge." In the first of Rene Descartes Meditations, he provided arguments for the skeptical position. He realized that, based off his senses, he had accepted many false opinions as true and that everything he afterwards built upon his opinions could only be doubtful and uncertain. In his project, a quest for knowledge, he decided to disregard and discard all beliefs that were based on any evidence which could be doubted and proven as less than certain. He wanted to create a new, firm foundation. He decided to go about this project because he, like other famous philosophers, believed that much of what is believed is based on ones senses. Descartes noticed that his senses had often deceived him and it was prudent to trust completely in what has deceived a person even once. Aside from deceiving senses, Descartes was also reminded that everyone has dreamed and in one's dream, he or she is not aware that they are dreaming and could simply be dreaming that he or she is sensing....
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...certainty, others doubt even the hardest of facts. The best balance between certainty and doubt is to reserve a small amount of doubt for every aspect, which allows for constructive arguments and the betterment of society, as too much certainty in a belief can lead to horrible consequences. When individuals develop absolute certainty in a certain belief, the outcome can be catastrophic. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the residents of Salem are very pious members of the Puritan religion. They are so engrossed by their beliefs that...
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...Reflections Introduction: In this paper I will discuss the ministry calling and doubt, more specifically self-doubt. These topics although they are common to those called to ministry are actually very conflicting. While the call to ministry is given by our Lord, doubt is given by our adversary. All Christians are called to ministry and we all at some point doubt our abilities. This will be discussed in more detail below. The great news is God is our provider and our ability is his ability. When we doubt our spiritual ability we doubt God’s ability. Part One – Ministry Calling: Definition: If we are all called to ministry then it is important for us to understand what a call to ministry means. It can often be difficult to define a call to ministry especially since there are so many different aspects of ministry. Thus, for the purpose of this paper I will define a call to ministry as a manifestation of the divine will that a one should preach the gospel. Biblical Foundation: First, I want to clarify what I meant in the introduction when I said all Christians are called to ministry. The Bible tells us we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 NIV). We are told to go into all the Earth and create disciples (Matthew 28:19-20), and to be great in the kingdom of God, we must serve all (Mark 9:35). However, not all Christians are called to be in a full time ministry, but we all should...
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...II. War and birth control were subjects that were being brought up and questioned in ways that the church had never previously seen. The idea that the church could change and was actually being changed by the events happening during the 1960’s was uncomfortable for some people within the church and caused great strife between leaders. The change that was occurring within and surrounding the Church had many people questioning God, his sovereignty, and even his existence. In John Shanley’s short story, “Doubt: A Parable”, Sister Aloysius begins to question her commitment to the church as well as her faith as her certainty about many things like the evilness of using secular songs in Christmas plays, and the morality of the Church were questioned by other leaders within the church. Sister Aloysius’ certainty about even just little things in life begin to be questioned by others in the church causing her to become very resistant to the change and tries to enforce what she has always known. Sister Aloysius was accustomed to Christian songs being played during Christmas performances and believed that secular songs exposed, “a pagan belief in magic,” (Shanley 29) and should not be allowed in the church. She had understood the lyrics to be heretical, but with the Church progresses not everyone had the same strong feelings towards the secular songs. It is assumed that the tradition of only using Christian song during the pageant had not been challenged and was always just...
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...aiding and guiding us until this day. The certainty that Phelps describes is what allowed the creation of new laws, inventions, and capabilities. Individuals certain in their beliefs such as Copernicus, Christopher Columbus, and the Wright brothers show the importance of certainty and the insignificance of doubt. Agreed by most of the scientist at the time, the Solar system was once thought to be Geocentric, where Earth is the center of the Universe and the Sun and stars orbit it. Yet Copernicus believed differently, Certain in his own beliefs he defied the World of Science by stating the true orientation of the Solar system is Earth orbiting the Sun. Copernicus’s ideas were Doubted and refuted by all, even the Catholic Church, yet he stood certain and unchanged in his beliefs. Copernicus’s discovery led to the change in the beliefs of many, and accomplished the identification of how the Earth moves. Copernicus shows that Just while...
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...Descartes notices that over the course of his life, he has from time to time accepted false beliefs and the falsity of these beliefs have influenced other beliefs. Thus, Descartes aim in his first meditation is to find out if what we know is truly correct (Blackburn, 1999:15). Once we have figured out what beliefs are beyond any possible doubt, it is suggested that we can use reason to deduce the rest of what is knowable (Pardi, 2011). There are three conditions when one can say they know something is true (Pardi, 2011). Firstly, you believe in something, secondly, it is in fact true and lastly you are justified in believing a statement is true. Of course it is possible that there are no complete unshakeable truths, it is also possible that we might discover that our prejudices cannot be detached or that the beliefs we think are our grounds for all our other beliefs are not really ultimate at all. For this reason, it is why rationalist say that knowledge comes from within, the only beliefs we can really know are those that we access through introspection. In contrast, Descartes does not comply with the idea that there is universal knowledge. He states that in order to determine whether there is anything we can know with certainty, we first have to doubt everything we think we know (Chapman, 2014; slide 3). Such an extreme method may not seem reasonable, however, Descartes does not...
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...new foundation. Descartes considered his mind to be the most knowledgeable of his beliefs, and sought to infer an external world including matter from such introspection. Descartes contrasts with probable cognition, and regards arithmetic and geometry as a paradigm. In the first mediation after entertaining the dream and the powerful deceiving god hypotheses, Descartes adopts the strict policy of regarding all his ordinary opinions as they were false. The justification of this is that he points out that although most of his previous beliefs are in need of a solid foundation, they are highly possible. He doubts his out thoughts and skeptical those hypotheses are needed to counteract what he feels and thinks of how he views the world, and feels that he can never get out of the habit of assenting to these opinions unless he can in fact claim them to be what they are that is highly probable opinions. His opinions which he feels in a sense that they are doubtful, it is still much more reasonable to believe than to deny. Descartes raises some really good possibilities that even the most trustworthy of our faculties might deceive us at some point in time; we can ignore that even after a dream which concerns our knowledge by means of the senses of the existence. The mentioning of a real conclusion that might come from physics, astronomy, medicine,...
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...may be false. So he set out to tear down all his beliefs and to reconstruct them to scratch. For this, he needs significant agreements which basically cannot doubt. He needs the basic conventions for the foundation so that he could start building a new structure. For those meetings, he began questioning everything he can. However, it does not mean that everything he doubts was false. His technique was just to ensure conventions he chooses were correct without any doubt. This technique of challenging everything is...
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...and then you find they are extended things. So each occupies a unique portion of space. One of his argument for dualism is the argument for the soul. This argument states that you can doubt your your body, because of the dream argument, but you cannot doubt your mind. He had 2 arguments for skepticism: the dream argument, which involves sensory beliefs, and the evil genius argument, which are reasons based beliefs, specifically claiming that a God is powerful enough to deceive you. Descartes recalls that sometimes he has had perceptual experiences while dreaming that are exactly like those he has had while awake. Reflecting on this, Descartes concludes that “there are never any sure signs by means of which being awake can be distinguished from being asleep.” This leads him to doubt almost everything that he believes on the basis of sense perception, including his belief that he now has hands. The dream argument tells us that sensory are not trustworthy bc what makes you think rn that you are sititng at a classroom? Well, music, etc. But if you are dreaming and feeling these sensation but not actually in a room that shows you that sensory experiences are not reliable. The second argument is the evil genius arguement a God powerful enough to deceive us, which is very similar to the dream argument. What tells us that 2+2=4. That aha...
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...Tremaine Jenkins Reflection Paper 1 Theology 104 Due: Monday, February 10, 2014 LOVE (Luv) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1Cor 13:4-8) Introduction: Most people define love as a type of feeling. We "fall in love," or two people meet and it is "love at first sight." The world's definition of the word love is all about self. If two people are attracted to each other they must be nice to one another to get attention, and for the affection to be returned. The world's love is based on receiving from one another not giving. The world does not just give love to others when it is not beneficial to them. People tend to feel that if you are not pleasing me then I have no love to give to you. For people that are not Christians love is something that has to be earned by making someone else feel good. Powerful emotions accompany love, but it is the commitment of the will that shows true biblical love is steadfast and does not change. “The human personality is primarily comprised of three aspects---the intellect, the emotion, and the will.” (Praxis, 77) Emotions may change, but the commitment to love in a biblical way endures all and is the hallmark of a disciple of Christ...
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