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Paper 2: Descartes’ Cogito
Descartes is a rationalist. He says that before we describe reality or our existence, we
must know what existence and reality are. According to Descartes, it is pointless to claim
something is real without a proper justification. He adds that before we justify something, that
something must be certain and unquestionable. To prove his point, Descartes uses an analogy
that “whether we are walking or sleeping, a square has no more than four sides and two plus
three is five” (Descartes 15). It is impossible to be suspicious about such obvious truths, he says.
Therefore, he argues that our beliefs can be systematically doubted provided that we have not
built a belief system that is indubitable. In order to build that indubitable system, all beliefs,
thoughts, ideas and anything from our senses must be doubted. Because it is through that that we
will construct something lasting and unshakable in the sciences (Descartes 13).
Descartes uses perceptual illusions, a deceiving God and a dream problem to discuss his
method of doubt. Through his philosophy, Descartes is creating a system that would support
unquestionable knowledge. He wanted to remove all doubt from knowledge by doubting what he
learned when he was young. For something to be considered real, it has to be true beyond any
reasonable and possible doubt. Just like, knowing that a triangle cannot have more than three
sides. In order to do this, Descartes is accepting information that can be mathematically proven.
However, Descartes does not suggest that we should doubt everything. He only suggests that for
us to know that some beliefs cannot be doubted, we first have to pretend that everything we
know is dubitable.
Descartes is doubting empiricism as a foundation of epistemology. As he starts the first
meditation, he questions whether what he had accepted as true from childhood onwards was the
actual truth. He then suggests that we ask ourselves what it would mean to know about reality
(Descartes 13). Descartes claim that the first thing we need to do is to determine whether our
beliefs are justified. To do this, we have to trace back our beliefs to know whether they were true
or not. Through this, Descartes says that we will build a firm foundation where all subsequent
beliefs can be grounded. He claims that we cannot know whether what we experience in our
senses is true or not. We are not certain about it. He says that we then have to doubt our senses to
come to the realization of truth. For example, he says that we cannot be sure that our bodies and
experience in the world can be trusted because we might be dreaming the whole thing (Descartes
14). He also says that we cannot be sure that what we know to be true is true because some evil
forces might be deceiving us to believe that they are true. Through these doubts, Descartes is
wondering whether the knowledge we have gained through our senses is real.
According to Descartes, we can establish the existence of the physical world, God and the
mind through prior reasoning. According to him, we can do this through intuition and deduction.
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He believes that the a priori proposition we discover in this way are the only thing we can be
sure that exists. Descartes says that there are evil spirits having the power of a powerful god that
can deceive us into believing things that do not exist. Our prior reasoning may be what the evil
spirit wants us to think that is true. Therefore, Descartes says that a prior knowledge is not a
sufficient guide to knowing what really exists. Instead, he says that the only thing he recognizes
(knows that is real) is that he exists (pure reason). Through this, we learn that prior reasoning
cannot be a reliable foundation of epistemology. To know a reliable foundation of epistemology,
Descartes uses cogito. The first thing that we need to know is that we exist. Descartes notes the
truth that he knows clearly and distinctively. The truth that he is and he exists (Descartes 18). His
identity is not based on sensation. However, Descartes says that we must dispose the evil demon
for us to be certain that we are not deceived when we claim to know something. For us to do this,
we must prove that there is an all-powerful God who cannot allow us to be deceived (15). For if
there is such an all-good God, we are certain that we have knowledge.
Descartes says that we cannot trust our senses to know that God exists because the evil
demon can deceive us into thinking the contrary. Therefore, we can use a proof based on the
cognito, “I am, I exist” (Descartes 18). Through this proposition, Descartes describes the basis of
human epistemology. We have to exist for us to doubt anything. If we didn’t exist, we wouldn’t
doubt what we think we know in the first place. Similarly, we can only know that we are
imperfect if there is a mechanism of testing perfection. Since we are constantly doubting whether
what we know is real or not, it means that we are imperfect. But if we are imperfect then there
must be a perfect being (God) from where our imperfect existence is intelligible. God is perfect
and cannot allow us to be deceived into knowing something when we are mistaken about it. That
is, if there is a God who leads us to know all truth then there cannot exist an evil demon who can
trick us regarding clear and distinct knowledge. Cognito is important because it explains the
existence of epistemology. It is through cognito that we know the reality that surrounds us.
In the six meditations of first philosophy, Descartes explains that the only real knowledge
we can have are those that we understand as the functions of the laws of physics. What we know
to be true in physics is true whether we dream or not. For example, Descartes says “For whether
I am waking or sleeping, two plus three equals five, and a square has no more than four sides;
nor does it seem possible that such obvious truths could be affected by any suspicion that they
are false” (Descartes 15). However, there is no way we can quantify our senses. There is no
mathematical formula or a law of physics that can prove that what we have in our senses is true.
Information that is provided by our senses cannot therefore be a true source of knowledge,
information learned through mathematics is.
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Work cited
Descartes, Rene. (2008). Meditations on First Philosophy: With selections from the objections
and replies. Oxford University Press, Oxford