display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
17 ideas
24021 | The method starts with clear intuitions, followed by a process of deduction [Descartes] |
Full Idea: If the method shows clearly how we must use intuition to avoid mistaking the false for the true, and how deduction must operate to lead us to the knowledge of all things, it will be complete in my opinion. | |
From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 04) | |
A reaction: A perfect statement of his foundationalist view. It needs a clear and distinct basis, and the steps of building must be strictly logical. Of course, most of our knowledge relies on induction, rather than deduction. |
3606 | I was searching for reliable rock under the shifting sand [Descartes] |
Full Idea: My whole plan had for its aim simply to give me assurance, and the rejection of shifting ground and sand in order to find rock or clay. | |
From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.29) | |
A reaction: I take this to be characteristic of an age when religion is being quietly rocked by the revival of ancient scepticism. If he'd settled for fallibilism, our civilization would have gone differently. |
2247 | To achieve good science we must rebuild from the foundations [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.17) | |
A reaction: This sentence is the beginning of the Enlightenment. The project of proving absolutely everything, and in a foundational way, is now met with much scepticism. I will never abandon the project! |
2255 | Only one certainty is needed for progress (like a lever's fulcrum) [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Archimedes sought but one firm and immovable point in order to move the entire earth. Just so, great things are to be hoped for if I succeed in finding just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §2.24) | |
A reaction: The classic foundationalist difficulty is that you may find something totally certain, but is it a fulcrum? Or is it just minimal, boring and useless? |
5004 | We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes] |
Full Idea: It is on the Principles, or first causes, that the knowledge of other things depends, so the Principles can be known without these last, but the other things cannot reciprocally be known without the Principles. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
A reaction: A particularly strong assertion of foundationalism, as it says that not only must the foundations exist, but also we must actually know them. This sounds false, as elementary knowledge then seems to require far too much sophistication. |
2251 | Even if my body and objects are imaginary, there may be simpler things which are true [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Perhaps even though general things like eyes could be imaginary, still one must admit that certain other things that are even more simple and universal are true. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.20) |
6347 | Descartes can't begin again, because sceptics doubt cognitive processes as well as beliefs [Pollock/Cruz on Descartes] |
Full Idea: Descartes' strategy of starting over will not work, because the skeptic is not just questioning our beliefs, he is also questioning the cognitive processes by which we arrive at our beliefs, and if we start all over again we use the same processes. | |
From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1) by J Pollock / J Cruz - Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) | |
A reaction: Scepticism comes in degrees, so there is not one strategy employed by sceptics. It is certainly true, though, that nothing can resist extreme scepticism. The most extreme view is to refuse to accept the meaningfulness of all belief language. |
2249 | It is prudent never to trust your senses if they have deceived you even once [Descartes] |
Full Idea: The senses are sometimes deceptive, and it is a mark of prudence never to place our complete trust in those who have deceived us even once. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.18) |
2296 | If pain is felt in a lost limb, I cannot be certain that a felt pain exists in my real limbs [Descartes] |
Full Idea: I have heard it said by people whose arm or leg has been amputated that they still sensed pain in the lost limb. Thus it does not seem certain that one of my bodily members causes me pain, even though I sense pain in it. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §6.77) |
3621 | Only judgement decides which of our senses are reliable [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Sense alone does not suffice to correct visual error: we also need a degree of reason to tell us that we should believe the judgement based on touch rather than vision. Since we don't have this power in infancy, it must be attributed to the intellect. | |
From: René Descartes (Reply to Sixth Objections [1641], 439) |
3620 | We correct sense errors with other senses, not intellect [Mersenne on Descartes] |
Full Idea: Owing to refraction a stick which is in fact straight appears bent in water. What corrects the error? The intellect? Not at all; it is the sense of touch. | |
From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.18) by Marin Mersenne - Objections to 'Meditations' (Sixth) 418 |
3619 | The senses can only report, so perception errors are in the judgment [Gassendi on Descartes] |
Full Idea: Although there is deception or falsity, it is not to be found in the senses; for the sense are quite passive and report only appearances, which must appear the way they do owing to their causes. The error or falsity is in the judgement or the mind. | |
From: comment on René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.18) by Pierre Gassendi - Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) 332 |
2254 | To achieve full scepticism, I imagine a devil who deceives me about the external world and my own body and senses [Descartes] |
Full Idea: I will suppose an evil genius, supremely powerful and clever, who has directed his entire effort at deceiving me. I will regard all external things as devilish hoaxes, and myself as not possessed of a body or senses, but falsely believing these things. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.22) |
2253 | God may have created nothing, but made his creation appear to me as it does now [Descartes] |
Full Idea: How do I know that God did not bring it about that there is no earth or heavens, no extension, shape, size or place, and yet that all these things appear to me precisely as they do now? | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §1.21) |
2305 | Waking actions are joined by memory to all our other actions, unlike actions of which we dream [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Dreams are never joined by the memory with all the actions of life, as is the case with those actions that occur when one is awake. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §6.89) |
3604 | When rebuilding a house, one needs alternative lodgings [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Before beginning to rebuild the house in which one lives…. one must also provide oneself with some other accommodation in which to be lodge conveniently while the work is going on. | |
From: René Descartes (A Discourse on Method [1637], §3.22) |
2294 | I can only sense an object if it is present, and can't fail to sense it when it is [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Perceptions come upon me without my consent, to the extent that, wish as I may, I could not sense any object unless it was present to a sense organ, nor could I fail to sense it when it was present. | |
From: René Descartes (Meditations [1641], §6.75) |