[Descartes]A brief introduction

[GoshisDead]

Nice Introduction, Although I still can't get into Descartes

[dominant_monad]

in that case i can't wait on the second article, I like Descartes, if mainly for his method. I like the idea of locking yourself away and just thinking yourself to the truth of the world. It's a pity that the philosophers and scientists of his time felt they had to include God into their arguments in order to avoid being burnt at the stake. One thing i like about Descartes' Meditations is how he lands on the Cogito as being true before the idea that God must also be true. Kind of turns the established order on its head.

kennethamy: In the simplest answer, Descartes believed that 'clear and distinct' perceptions were of the kind as the Cogito. The Cogito struck him so forcefully that he thought it must be true. He could find no other way to disprove that he was a thinking thing, and therefore this was his first example of a clear and distinct perception. And just as Descartes was able to conceive of the truth of the cogito in a clear and distinct way, so we should be able to discover other truths that appear to us with equal clarity.

To go into it a bit further, these are not sensory perceptions, since he had already proved that these were fallible. To give an example of a clear and distinct perception, he gives the example of the piece of wax. He first describes a piece of wax as hard, soft, cold, white, square, etc. etc. Upon melting the wax, its features change, it turns into liquid, it darkens in colour, is becomes warm, it forms a pool, in fact there is very little in it to liken it to the 'wax' that you start with. But it is still a piece of wax. The -internal- logic required to maintain that this thing is still a piece of wax, despite all of its features changing, is an example of the type of perception that is clear and distinct. It is not sensory perception (which in this case would trick us into naming the wax as something else, since it's sight has changed), but rational thought that discovers the truth of the wax.

The point there is twofold: One, sensory perceptions let us down, and two, there is something about our minds that allows us to know truth even when it is at odds with our senses. He is referring in essence to both deductive reasoning, the inference from something that follows necessarily from some other proposition which is known with certainty, and to intuition, a conception which is so easy and distinct that there can be no room for doubt about what we are understanding. Both of these faculties are disinctly mind-like properties that enable us to understand the truthfulness of things.

Of course in order for these clear and distinct perceptions to be themselves true, they must stem from the Cogito. Descartes does this (not very well):

1. I exist as a thinking thing (The Cogito).
2. I have not always existed, therefore something must have been my creator.
3. There is a creator.
4. This creator must have created everything else, therefore must be omnipotent.
5. This creator had created my thought of the Cogito, which is true, therefore the creator must also be truthful; must be omnibonevolent
6. This creator must have always existed, and must still exist, must be omniscient.
7. Therefore the creator is tri-omni, is God.
8. God exists, and is truthful, and would not trick me into having clear and distinct perceptions that are not true.
9. Therefore clear and distinct perceptions are true.

The poor way he makes his proof should not detract from the overall idea, which inspired the foundation of contintental rationalism.

Examples of clear and distinct perceptions that we would talk about today as true would be the laws of nature, or the laws of mathematics. They could be summarised as being a priori assumptions, they are not based on infallible experience, but are self-evident.