Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes (1600s)
Considered father of modern philosophy & father of modern science (anticipates a lot of scientific method)
French, Catholic, Christian
Given best Jesuit education in Europe & from a wealthy family
After he graduates, his family expects him to become a politician, lawyer, scholar, etc. but, he becomes a mercenary soldier in the ‘30 Years War’ (bloodiest war in Europe – fought between Protestants vs. Catholics)
1. They were fighting over when exactly the wafer turned into the body of Christ during communion
He was at every battle, but never fought. He was at every signing but always on the sidelines so people believe that Descartes was a spy for the Vatican.
After 30 Years War, he settles in the Netherlands (Dutch Protestant)  He moves far away from France because he wants to avoid the Spanish Inquisition. They are the branch of the Catholic Church responsible for censorship and punishment/conversion of pagans. If you were a Muslim/Jew, they would torture you until you converted to Catholicism. Censorship made sure no books were published that disagreed with the Catholic doctrine.
The Spanish Inquisition was interested in enforcing Thomism: 3 doctrines ‘canonized’ by the Catholic Church  To canonize, they take a piece of work, like Aristotle, and make it equal to the Scripture/Bible so that you cannot disagree with it.
3 things you cannot disagree with according to the Church (through canonization):
1. Ptolemy’s Astronomy (Ancient Egyptian astronomer 1500 BCE)  At this time, this is a 3000 year old idea
Idea is geocentrism – Earth is center of universe and all other planets go around it; Catholic Church also used Bible to justify this with the story that God made the sun stand still. The opposite is helio-centrism which Descartes suggests.
Galileo (Italy) lived during Descartes life and was one of the first people to take a telescope and turn it to the Heavens finding out that the Sun is standing still and the Earth was moving around. He published a book with his scientific findings and the Spanish Inquisition read it and he was put on the knees and recanted his statements and said he was wrong. All of his books were burned and no copies exist. He was lucky he didn’t get burned at the stake, but he was placed on house arrest for the rest of his life.
2. Galen’s Medicine (Roman surgeon – 1500 years old)
Idea that all sickness and disease is caused by an imbalance of bodily humors like bile: The cures were the big problem. If you have an imbalance of bodily humors, they would hang you upside down; blood - letting was the #1 way to supposedly cure the imbalance of bodily humors – They would bleed you until you passed out. Superstition, demon possession blamed for sickness and disease. There was a big belief of fairies and dwarfs also caused sickness. Witchcraft – Sp. Inq had a book to make a woman confess to being a witch.
Why would people believe in colorful bile? – because dissection/surgery of human bodies was illegal for theological reasons (not for scientific reasons)  There was a belief that you would need your body for final judgment according to Catholic Church. The burned heretics to ashes to ensure that they didn’t have a body so they couldn’t get resurrected.
3. Aristotle’s Biology (500 BCE – At this time, a 2000 year old doctrine)
4 basic elements according to Aristotle: Water, Fire, Earth, Air: #4 is significant in western history (4 Gospels because there were 4 elements in the universe; 4 points of the compass;
Expected to believe on faith and not allowed to disagree with according to the Church
Which of these are false?  ALL OF THEM
Descartes discovers on his own, single handedly finds out that they are false!
He was a philosopher and Mathematician and figured out they were all false using math. Mathematically, he found out the geocentricism is wrong  He wrote a book called ‘Le Monde’ in which he explains it; he never published it. It was published after his death and hung around till about 1850 and then it was lost.
He also founded in his spare time:
1. Optics (glasses)
2. Modern Geometry
3. Exponents 22
4. Wrote Methods & Meditations
Descartes dissected human bodies and cats in his laboratory at night  found that Galen’s Medicine and Aristotle’s Biology were both false
“Everything I was taught growing up turned out to be wrong”
He goes under the radar and then drops the bomb (builds a stealth bomber)
The book is called, “The Discourse on Method”
• He offers 4 Methodological Rules for Certainty – How can we be certain about anything?
1. “…never to accept anything is true that I did not plainly know to be such; avoid hasty judgment and prejudice, to include nothing more in my judgments than what presented itself to my mind so distinctly and so clearly that I did not have occasion to doubt it.”
• Don’t take anybody’s word for it It is a direct attack upon tradition. We do tradition because people before us did it. He says Thomism is a tradition.
• Avoid hasty judgment avoid tradition
• According to Descartes Certainty means the absence of doubt; Basically, if you can doubt it, you can’t be certain of it. [looking for capital T truth]
• If you are certain, you can’t doubt it!
2. “to divide each of the difficulties, I would examine into as many parts as possible and as was required to better resolve them”
• Dissection was illegal, but he couldn’t say to come out and start dissect
• Divide means dissect he says you should dissect to have a better understanding
• We must do this with human bodies and ideas break them down into small party
• Example: only way to find out there is no dwarf inside the body
3. “to conduct my thought in an orderly fashion by commencing with those objects that are simplest and easiest to know, in order to ascend little by little, as if by degrees to the knowledge of the most composite thing”
• Commencing or beginning with objects that are simple. Start with simple ideas/objects to understand more complex
• Ex: know 2+2=4 to get to E=mc2
4. “everywhere to make enumerations ( ) so complete as to be assured of having omitted nothing”
• Enumerations is a fancy word for list
• He can’t just come out and said Ptolemy, Galen, and Aristotle were wrong so he writes these Spanish Inquisition approved and mass published it and goes to all Catholic Universities and overnight becomes the most popular philosophers.
• It would be less than a hundred years after this that Thomism is de-canonized. beginning of the end of the middle ages and Spanish Inquisiton.
• “Discourse on Method becomes foundation of Scientific Method and also to be the basis for the attack against religion.
Meditations takes these methods and applies it to our fundamental idea
He is looking for one thing that he cannot doubt & he only finds one thing.


March 21, 2011
What 4 qualities should a perfect being possess?
• Caring Care about needs of others; selfless, compassionate
• Tolerant Because each being is different and unique: Patient, forgiving, respectful
• Wise have the knowledge to survive; be fair and just; logical
• Have Integrity

Descartes method is doubt He wants to doubt his way to certainty
- He wants to doubt everything that can be doubted and whatever is left, he can be certain of
- From this certainty, he will build more certainty. It’s like laying a foundation of certainty. He will ascend little by little to the knowledge of the most composite thing: the existence of God (the perfect being)
- What can I doubt according to Descartes?
o What can we doubt?
1. Science Ultimately untrustworthy, and it can be and has been wrong (Galileo’s physics) – It changes and is a self-correcting thing. (scientists are fallible and can make mistakes so we can doubt it)
2. Religion untrustworthy for the same reasons; it can be wrong, and is based on people (priests) and people are fallible and make mistakes so we cannot trust religion
3. Tradition We cannot trust tradition because it’s something we do just because somebody before us did it; Descartes would say you weren’t there when that first tradition started so it is untrustworthy
4. Five Senses He doesn’t believe you can trust your five senses because they can deceive you so they are doubtful; Ex: mirage get closer to it, and water isn’t there and geocentrism if you are outside, it appears that the sun is moving and we are still, but it isn’t; it was through math and science that we discovered geocentrism was false
5. Descartes says you can doubt waking consciousness; you don’t know if you are even awake
o Question: He says we can doubt everything but one single thing:
1. Answer: That I am doubting The only thing we can be certain of is that we are doubting
o Question: What is doing the doubting?
1. Answer: A thinking thing something thinking is doing the doubting
2. “I think, therefore, I am” (1st stone)
3. He believes he has proven that he exists (Cogito argument) Cogito ergo sum = I think, therefore, I am This point concludes that he exists
4. When he says “I”, he means soul.
o Question: What exists?
1. Answer: A soul apart from the body Someone must be doing the thinking apart from the body because the five senses is part of the body; there is something reasoning apart from the body without the five senses so there must be a thinking thing apart from the body hence the immaterial soul
2. Proven the existence of the soul
3. Mind, Body, Dualism idea that soul is separate and apart from the body, but still working in conjuction
4. Rational soul is 2nd stone

Descarte’s Proof for the Existence of God

P1: I have an idea of a perfect being
P2: I am capable of doubt
P3: Something capable of doubt (a human) cannot be perfect
• Perfect Being = perfect knowledge (to know all things that are logically possible to know)
P4: Something perfect, even an idea, cannot originate from something imperfect
• The nature of being perfect is being uncreated

/Conclusion: Something perfect must have given me this idea (which is also to say that God exists)

- The idea of a perfect being is evidence of a perfect being.
- There are Perfect and Imperfect Ideas
o Perfect Idea  It must be that way (Perfect Being isn’t like a unicorn that can have different shades of pink for example…we say a perfect being is all-knowing, and that cannot change, therefore, it must be that way). (2+2=4)
1. Is Zeus a perfect idea? No
2. Perfect Ideas don’t originate from imagination and they don’t originate from sense experience – Zeus is the product of imagination
o Imperfect Idea
1. Unicorn Everyone had a different idea of a unicorn in their minds
- It is logically impossible for a Perfect Being to create something perfect because perfection can’t be created
- From what we’ve said, does the P1-P4 seem solid?
- If there is a perfect being, there is only one…why? Because it must be that way. Otherwise, they would be limited by each other.

Critique:
There is a flaw in this argument…clue: whenever a philosopher gives an argument, they smuggle in ideas into a premise. And, that idea makes the argument work. Which idea/concept does he smuggle in?
• When he says “I” in “I think, therefore, I am”, he means soul…the immaterial soul, that is.
• He smuggles concept of soul, but he doesn’t prove soul as apart from the body in the premises so if you don’t believe in the soul, the premises topples like a house of cards
• For Descartes, “I” means immaterial soul
• In Premise 1, Descartes assumes the existence of the soul, apart from the body, which has the idea of a perfect being
• Descartes believes that he has proven the soul
• If you do believe in the existence of a soul, then it works
• Therefore, Certainty of God is the TOP STONE

Descartes lived a life of luxury, but by time of 40, his money ran out. Princess Christina inherited Sweden. She was a hunter, swordfighter, and she wants Descartes has her court philosopher. He doesn’t get on the ship she sends because it is cold, so she is pissed that just books came back on the boat. 6 months later, he shows up, but Christina is a fickle woman, but now, she is interested in the Roman poets. She wants her philosophy lessons at dawn while she rode early in the cold morning. This is not something Descartes likes, but he does it anyways. 1 week of riding horses with her, he catches pneumonia, second week, he dies. She kicks his body into a pauper’s grave and France is pissed. France brought the skull back along with his fingers.