Blog Prompt 13

Descartes is on a search for knowledge and in order for him to attain this knowledge he believes he needs to forget everything he thinks to be right and true. “It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since constructed on this basis; and from that time I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences. (Descartes)” He has to almost go through a rebirth in order to objectively observe. He is very skeptical about the truth and explores this idea by looking at how people dream. “But in thinking over this I remind myself that on many occasions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions, and in dwelling carefully on this reflection I see so manifestly that there are no certain indications by which we may clearly distinguish wakefulness from sleep that I am lost in astonishment. (Descartes)”When having a dream you are experiencing things that are in fact real but because it is a dream, you are able to understand how that dream is fictional. However these dreams are no different from a person who hallucinates and this finding stopped Descartes in his tracks because he now has a hard time making the distinction between what is actually true. To that person their hallucinations are very much a reality which is why to them they hold power. Descartes argues that our senses can not always be trusted and this increases his skepticism towards what is reality and what isn’t. He continues to doubt his beliefs in search of finding out what is the truth but in this search he becomes further pushed away from what he once believed to be reality. By the end of the reading Descartes has pretty much thrown out everything he has once believed and concludes that he cannot gain any knowledge. An all knowing God is seen as a deceptive being in his eyes because He creates deceiving thoughts. Descartes feels like the best thing that can be done is to object to the fact that he has a head, hands, arms ,legs, senses, and etc because this is the “false reality” he has been fed since he was young. “I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things; I shall remain obstinately attached to this idea, and if by this means it is not in my power to arrive at the knowledge of any truth, I may at least do what is in my power [i.e. suspend my judgment], and with firm purpose avoid giving credence to any false thing, or being imposed upon by this arch deceiver, however powerful and deceptive he may be. (Descartes)” It is interesting that he went on this search for knowledge and recanted everything he knew to be true. Overall I do disagree with his view towards God and reality but in some way I understand why he feels the way he does.