Descartes and Doubt

Descartes and Doubt - of the Things of Which We May Doubt

At every step along the way to metaphysical enlightenment, Rene Descartes responds intelligently and methodically to his own doubts and skepticism, and readers who are patient and keenly alert can learn a lot through Descartes' constant questioning and evaluating. And according to author Michael Williams (Essays on Descartes' Meditations), by doubting each and every step when first encountering it, Descartes clears his mind "of prejudices that would blind him to new truths" (Williams 117). And why should readers accept that his old truths were no longer viable once his new truths had been uncovered - or that our own past beliefs became absolute once we acquired new beliefs through our process of analyzing and probing? The alert reader should realize that any doubts about what Descartes has written will likely mirror the doubts that Descartes himself had during the presentation of his philosophies. And the thesis of this paper is that doubting is a good thing, a healthy thing; accepting too many truths at face value is not a healthy thing.

What is interesting initially about Descartes' Meditation I is how carefully he leads the reader into believing that now, on page 22, he is mature enough to take on the bigger questions. He knows that most of the opinions he once held were only a foundation for what he was about to discover, and now that his mind is clear and free at working at a leisurely pace, he will attack all that he previously believed. And what he previously believed - and was "misled" by - was based from or through his senses. His argument here (p. 22-23) is a very good one, a believable one.

Once deceived by senses, a person should learn never trust the senses again, Descartes asserts. But he warns on pages 23-24 that life is full of opportunities to be deceived, and that many times when dreaming he has believed he was actually awake, much as now, while writing this Meditation, he might well be dreaming he was doing it. His point in making this distinction is that whether dreaming or awake, the objects and images he sees are based on real things that his experiences have led him to store away in the conscious mind. So, there is the conscious world, where one can doubt as to whether or not one is awake or asleep, and there is the world of Astronomy, Medicine and Physics, which are also of "doubtful character." But Descartes makes a good argument on page 25 by pointing out that there can be no doubt at all when it comes to arithmetic and other sciences "of the same class." Two and two will always be four, whether one is dreaming or not, he points out. But believe in God takes him to a different level of credulity, and a whole new set of questions.

This part of Descartes' writing is both entertaining and enlightening, because who among us has not questioned the presence of a Deity? And in order to follow Descartes' logic in questioning the reality of his world, including God, one has to put his or her own mind to the test. Isn't this the real power behind the Meditation I? Isn't it altogether possible that the reason serious readers feel compelled to analyze this philosopher's work because it is in fact a challenge thrown into each reader's own court? Where am I in this system of questioning, doubting, challenging everything that most other people accept at face value?

If a Deity of some form put us here, or if fate put us here, it matters not in the context of questioning one's own skepticism; and whoever or whatever put us here, did so knowing were to be imperfect beings easily deceived, Descartes is saying on page 26-27.

He questions the Deity and questions whether if the Deity is so "supremely good," why does He allow Descartes to be so easily ("occasionally") deceived? Indeed, if there is a "God" then the question will first be, are humans being deceived as to the power of this God, and the second one will be, why does He allow us to be so easily manipulated by our senses? Is this all a big game, a huge joke of some kind? he implies.

Carrying it to the next logical step, he says that all opinions are false until proven otherwise, and perhaps it is not he himself who is responsible for his own deception, but rather it is "some deceitful demon" who is so clever and capable that he can blur the reality of "the sky, the air, the earth" into a dream or illusion.

Meantime, Williams writes that Descartes is the kind of intelligent being who really enjoys peace of mind and clarity; and hence, Williams asserts that Descartes is disturbed by "...his awareness of various problems and puzzles" (Williams 119). Because Descartes is always determined to seek the truth in all matters, his initial state "can quite properly be described as one of doubt or uncertainty."

And this writer agrees with Williams' concerns as he continues; "Doubt is the state in which we want to know the truth but cannot decide where it lies." And yet, rather than produce results that are fulfilling, Descartes' doubt produces "a lively sense that no disputes are ever resolvable," Williams explains, which is very believable and this writer believes that point is probably the main focus of the whole Meditation I. No disputes, no serious questions and doubts, can every be fully explained or resolved.

I think that is one of the most powerful themes of Meditation I; we in the 21st Century especially tend to believe so much of what is presented to us. We want to believe our political leaders, and then when we do we find out they aren't always telling the truth. If we had used the Descartes method of questions and doubting, we would have held off our faithful believing until it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that we could trust that political leader.

The same with our other so-called leaders - in literature, in music, in sports - we too often find out that writers use plagiarism and musicians use lip-sync and sports heroes use steroids. This doesn't happen every time, but it does happen, and we get sucked into the deception because we didn't use the Cartesian approach of being doubtful and questioning.

Meanwhile, Williams (p. 119) wonders why Descartes' failure to bring his "inquiries to a definite conclusion" doesn't "intensify his disquiet." Williams then adds that the very process of acquiring his "distinctive skeptical capacities...eliminates the urge to really know how things are." Another point that Williams makes in his book (p. 120) - which is easy to agree with and adhere to - is that Descartes confronts his own skepticism in a context where "his fundamental motive... [is] the urge to know," not to just be a constant doubter. It isn't the doubts, but the search for what is true, that drives Descartes in Meditation I.