Descartes’ Epistemology Essay

Cargonfully relieve Descartes cogito and his attempt to fortify his experience bodily structure from the ground up. (Be as succinct as possible.) Does Descartes succeed or live on in that attempt? Justify your answer in full. Descartes Epistemology.This essay attempts to explain Descartes epistemology of his association, his Cogito, ergo Sum purpose (found in the Meditations), and why he utilise it the cogito concept as a foundation when building his structure of knowledge. After explaining the concept I give a brief evaluation of his success in introducing and using this cogito as a foundation. Finally, I provide savvys why I cerebrate Descartes succeeded in his epistemology.The First Meditation began with Descartes deciding to employ foundation scepticism in his quest of acquiring honest knowledge and this channelize him to conclude that he could not be sure of eachthing except that he knew nothing (Descartes, 198412-15). Meaning that Descartes discarded all his knowle dge whether it was knowing that he had fingers, knowing that the physical domain existed, knowledge of his studies etc. he began by acknowledging how everything that constituted his preconceived knowledge could be interrogative worthy. This climax of head was rooted in one factDescartes felt that there was beneficial reason to believe that a higher part could have deceived him into accept that his empirical and a priori knowledge was plausible. Since divinity fudge is a higher power that Descartes believed to be all good and never deceptive, he named his deceiver the diabolical Demon a complete opposite to his wholesome observation of God (Blackburn, 200119). Descartes set up that the Evil Demon pedigree could wipe away any assurance of his prior knowledge except for one his existence (Descartes, 198417).This was a good line of business because it presented a well thought out reason to chief his knowledge. Descartes argued that if an Evil Demon truly existed and is alon e foc employ on deceiving him wherefore this ejects that he Descartes exists If he is deceiving me and let him deceive me as more than as he understructure, he will never bring nigh that I am nothing so long as I think that I am something I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it isconceived in my mind (Blackburn, 200120).It is possible to refute this definition of existence in the formof Do we suppose that a thought thing exists because it has undergo thoughts? According to the Second Meditation Descartes response would be that I am, I exist stands besides for a thing that is doing the idea now and if it were to forego thinking it would cease to exist altogether (Descartes, 198418). In addition it is not the thinking that lead to existence, save the existence lead to the thinking.Descartes was willing to be questioned about his knowledge of the world and to prove that he truly seek the correct answer to any objection that whitethorn be brocaded he overlooked everyt hing he knew and started to build an argument from scratch to roll the knowledge he would later accept as accurate. Thus, Descartes chose the cogito concept as a foundation that he could begin to enlarge his territory of instinct on.From observation it is clear that Descartes only began his Meditations to build a foundation of brain and since he had discarded all his prior knowledge he unavoidable a solid base to begin reconstructing on, hence the cogito concept emanates. Cogito, Ergo Sum is Latin for I think, therefore I am. The cogito argument is as follows 1. An evil demon might be deceiving me into believing that I dont exist. 2. If I believe that I dont exist, then I exist.3. I exist.This argument enjoins that, if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed (Descartes, 198417). This simply blind drunks that anyone doubting his or her declare existence or presence indeed exists because in piece for doubt to dramatise place there has to be someone to do it. A proper understanding of the cogito concept nastys recognizing specifically the classification in which this someone that is existing fits into and whether it is accurate to say that he or she exists.The argument, as Descartes presented, does not give a valid reason for the existence of the corpse or anything else in the physical world, so we cannot accept that bodies exist. Neither does the cogito deem for the existence of other minds as that would entail knowledge of the physical world where other things exist. The cogito concept does however give a valid argument for the existence of the mind or a thinking thing that exists independently of the soundbox.In hisnovel Think, Blackburn explains the cogito concept as a means of sightlyifying the warmness of ones existence as thinking, we accept that thought exists not a self (Blackburn, 200120). I agree with Blackburn because his Descartes concept serves well to prove that we exist as thinking things and even if we were to dis card any a priori or a posteriori knowledge, we can quiet endorse the cogito.The cogito concept stands disregarding of empirical knowledge because it suggests the existence of thought without actually linking it to the body (which constitutes a sort of empirical way of acquiring knowledge through the minds). In addition, it can be accepted without any a priori knowledge since Descartes only introduced it after concluding that he knew nothing, and could only accept knowledge of his feature existence as vindicated.To assess Descartes choice of foundation I will raise some questions that implore an explanation regarding the cogito concept. Firstly, if we only exist when thinking and the Evil Demon is able to manipulate our knowledge of everything else, why are our thoughts not susceptible to his deception? In my perspective, the Evil Demon has the competency to deceive us to a certain point, that point is our existence, and we have conventional that our existence leads to thinking .Descartes supposed that the Evil Demon may have influenced our thoughts but the thought he Evil Demon could not alter is the thought of us thinking. For warning, if I were to throw a plastic ball into a recycle store and it were melted and reshaped into a mug, although the state of the ball may have changed it is still plastic and even if we discard its previous state its present state shows that it is indeed existing and I cannot convince the plastic that it never existed just because it is in a different state.This example explains how our definition of existence may have changed but the fact remains that we exist hence we think. My example is another way of stating Descartes wax example(Descartes,198420-21), which according to Blackburn, he Descartes uses to confirm that with the cogito we can solidify that our thoughts exist regardless of them being immaterial, various and not laboured to a physical body (Blackburn, 200121).A second question could be, if we know(or supposedl y accept) that we are being deceived by the Evil Demon wouldnt that mean that we were aware of when we were not being deceived by him and so before we established our foundation(using the cogito concept), we had already accepted some knowledge which lead to the foundation? I thinkDescartes would respond by saying that the fact that we can think of the Evil Demon and accept that he is deceiving us means that we already established the cogito before moving on to think of the actual thinker of a deceiver, again we see that any thinking means something existed to do it(the thinking).This response seems to present some equivocation but unfortunately I think that any of Descartes responses may shift the burden of proof to the mortal who raised the question. His argument, as I would render it, may be that the question is going in circles and only raises doubt of his Descartes means of acquiring knowledge and not actually any objection to the cogito. This last response seems to confidenc e Descartes success in establishing that the cogito is a concept that gives us the best authorization start to gaining any knowledge.Even the knowledge of an Evil Demon would mean we have to start by accepting that we exist (cogito) in order to prove any of our knowledge as untrustworthy.A third and closing question is, what form of knowledge is the cogito and what other knowledge can we build on this foundation? The cogito is a form of a priori knowledge because we do not need to prove its validity by explaining anything or draft copy on a previous experience to prove it. Descartes further used the cogito when acquiring the knowledge of Cartesian Dualism, which is his next step of building knowledge that is rooted in the cogito.Descartes said that Cartesian Dualism is justified by the cogito because we only have knowledge of an existing thinking entity that has no body, hence the body and the mind should be viewed as separate and neither one has the faculty to influence the oth er (Descartes, 198421). I think the cogito concept provokes a sense of identity that each of our thinking may contain and this identity entails that as much as the Evil Demon may try to take away our knowledge we still have that little something, as thinking beings, that can only be explained as an existence. This entity of our existence is immaterial, yes, but it leads us into thinking and thinking is our starting point of gaining new knowledge.Therefore Descartes succeeded in his epistemology by choosing Cogito, Ergo Sum as a base for his future day knowledge. Once the cogito is accepted Descartes can acquire new knowledge. In conclusion Descartes processes of building a knowledge structure foundation was fruitful and in conclusion leads to a successful epistemology.BibliographyBlackburn, S. 1999. Think A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy. immature York Oxford University Press. Descartes, R. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Vol. II, Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch (Translators).UK Cambridge University Press. Lerm, J. 2013. Descartes Second Meditation The Cogito Argument Lecture Slides. 1 . J. Lerm Rebulding Begins put forward slide 2 2 . Lerm The Cogito Argument lecture slide 7