PL 201 Discussion 2 Descartes’ Method of Hyperbolic Doubt

Descartes’ Method of Hyperbolic Doubt

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Hyperbolic Doubt

Descartes wishes to set aside all the opinions which he had previously accepted and set out to look for something that lie beyond all doubt. This is because he wants to prove wrong the claims that nothing can be known with surety in order to start by the assumption nothing and by taking nothing for granted. From my point of view, I strongly consider his reason for doing this reasonable because its intention is to come up with a body of knowledge but not to put aside all of his views and opinions but just cast doubts in them that are based on prejudiced belief, in the long run he will be able to stand back so that he can comprehend the truth in it. I greatly consider his epistemological project important because it is really important to conduct our own investigation to the assurance of what we believe by means of doubting everything until we find anything definite (Ariew, 2000).

The Testimony of our Senses

The conclusion drawn by Descartes from the testimony that our senses occasionally mislead us, is not to doubt all our sensory beliefs but to make us understand that under some conditions our senses do mislead us in times of poor perceptual situations (Descartes, 2010). Yes, I agree with this line of thought because our sense are in reality prone to erroneous opinions. This is the reason as to why Descartes makes us question whether these senses of our sensory beliefs are true indicators of what they really represent.

The Dream Argument

Descartes accept as true that there exists no test that one can use to determine whether or not he is dreaming reason being there are no certain clues that differentiate whether one is just dreaming or is totally awake. I think that Descartes reasoning about this is correct since anything that we can experience when we are wide-awake we can also experience it in our dreams, hence giving a test cannot serve as a surety of how authentic the test is to determine whether or not a person is dreaming.

References:

Descartes, R (2010). Meditations of First Philosophy. Cambridge University Press Publishers

Ariew, R (2000). Philosophical Essays and Correspondence. Hackett Publishing Co.