Philosophy and Knowledge: Rene Descartes Objection and Replies

     This is where the wax argument comes into play. All the properties of the piece of wax that we perceive with the senses change as the wax melts. This is true as well of its primary properties, such as shape, extension and size. Yet the wax remains the same piece of wax as it melts. We know the wax through our mind and judgement, not through our senses or imagination. Therefore, every act of clear and distinct knowledge of corporeal matter also provides even more certain evidence for the existence of Descartes as a thinking thing. Therefore his mind is much clearer and more distinctly know to him than his body. At this

Furthermore, In Meditation II, Descartes sets out to build new knowledge on his recently established foundations. In addition, Descartes conducts a thought experiment using wax to “consider the things which people commonly think they understand most distinctly of all; that is, the bodies which we touch and see” (20). Descartes begins by describing the wax based on its properties, such as its smell, taste, colour, shape, size, hardness and that sound it makes, if you were to “rap it with your knuckles” (20), “in short, it has everything which appears necessary to enable a body” (20). Continuing from there, Descartes proceeds to move the piece of wax closer to the fire and to observe what happens. He describes that the previous properties of

He then tells us his final perspective on how he perceives the wax. “It remains then for me to concede that I do not grasp what this wax is through the imagination; rather, I perceive it through the mind alone.” (Descartes, 22) He ends his argument on how he perceives the wax with telling us that it is not our imagination that grasps all of the perceptions of the wax, but the mind that does it.

Descartes is able to examine ideas and gain knowledge form them. Innate ideas mean they are present at birth, in other words we are implanted with certain ideas at our creation. He often uses ‘innate ideas’ to explain the mind’s original programming. “An infant’s mind is programmed with the rules of logic. Consider as an example the valid rule, modus ponens. Let P and Q stand for variables… the rules states that, if P then Q is true and P is true, then it follows that Q is true. We know that we are programmed with this rule because young children, who have never studied logic and have never entertained the rule, when given an argument in which the variables above are replaced by actual sentences, are able to intuit the validity of the argument.” Descartes believed our minds are programmed with eternal truths, “Whatever comes into existence must have been brought into existence by something else.” He also discovers that the idea of God is only part of his initial programming but also that God, operating through secondary sources such as his parents, is the programmer.

Some have suggested that René Descartes argues that sense perception relies on the mind rather than on the body. Descartes asserts that we can know our mind more readily than we can know our body. In support of this idea he gives the example of a piece of wax which is observed in its solid form and its liquid form. After pointing out the difficulties of relying on the senses of the physical body to understand the nature of the wax he makes this claim: [P]erception ... is neither a seeing, nor a touching, nor an imagining. ... [R]ather it is an inspection on the part of the mind alone (Section 31). 1 This quote is perhaps the most direct statement of the author's thesis on this subject.

In his defense, Descartes argues that our knowledge of the wax depends only on the ideas we conceive in our mind. This creates the difficulty of reaching an agreement on the identity of the wax, and that understanding the body can vary for each individual perception. As it is evident that the substantiality of

Descartes does not put experiences to his philosophy like the other philosophers, Bacon and Hobbes. He believes that we have some innate ideas that self, identity, substance and God are in us as we are born “most part on the truths contained in the mind”. He proposed an observations from the wax. Whatever he heats or cools the wax, it would still remain the same

He finds it plausible that we are all living in a dream and we have never experienced reality. He can no longer give any credence to his senses and finds himself in a place of complete uncertainty. Descartes comes to the conclusion that nothing can be perceived more easily and more evidently than his own mind. He has discovered that even bodies are not accurately perceived by the senses or the faculty of imagination, and are only accurately being perceived by the intellect. He also realizes that they are not distinguished through being touched, smelled, or tasted, but by being understood alone. (An apple is an apple because our mind tells us that it is an apple.) It is the faculty of reason that gives the knowledge and lets the mind know the truths and essences of objects. Descartes assumes that all of us can be decided by our senses, someone can see something far away, and then discover that is not what we thought it was. Or even a oar when is immerse half in water attempt to be bent, but instead is straight. Descartes think that we cannot always be sure of what we sense, and gives the example of himself seated by the fire.

Every people has their own particular conclusion, In regards to what Descartes says that all the tactile characteristics of the wax steadily change is something that I don't concur with. Many people don't perceive what wax really is. in case someone was capable to see wax before it is condensed and they would have the ability to touch it and notice the scent of the wax they would not have the ability to stop considering the sentiment it. I was to a great degree perplexed when I first read this question and expected to examine it a few circumstances to really understand that some individual trusts things we see to a little bit at a time change, apparently irrelevant points of interest, for instance, wax. How we see things and totally

He discusses about how everything he perceives is based on his “sensor data”, or the information that obtained through the five senses (touch, smell, sight, taste, and hearing). Although, he describes that the senses can also be deceived. For example, the initiation of an image when we experience mirages, or seeing hallucinations after taking meditation. Ideally, he argues that the simple 5 senses are not reliable as well. He then moves to the idea of God and religion, and that there is an evil deceiver or demon that is responsible for his deceived senses. He justifies that God is good, and there’s no way God would allow that to happen. In his second mediation, he explains the nature of the human mind and how it is better than the body. Descartes states that it’s impossible to doubt that God exists because it would mean the doubt your own existence. He then clarifies that he is a “thinking” thing, which then becomes his only valid statements as the previous statements were contradicting each other. In other words, I think, therefore I am. Descartes then approaches the physical aspects of beings, and talks about how wax, when cold, has all of its properties, and when it’s next to a fire becomes a puddle, but it’s still wax. He then takes that same idea and says that this could happen to the body as well. He comes to the conclusion that no matter what has occurred to the body, physically, it is still taking up space in the world. The only thing he can only rely on is

Renee Descartes, as a Rationalist viewed knowledge as something that we achieve through reason. Descartes begins his theory of knowledge by assuming that nothing exists. By doing this he would have to trust nothing. Not his senses, not anything that he has thought. As a Rationalist he sought to eliminate all doubt and anything else that wasn 't completely credible. Because he found that his senses were not one hundred percent reliable, as he found they sometimes deceived him, he did not trust them. Descartes believed that in order to obtain knowledge, there must be a rational method for obtaining it, and that the use of the senses, or any personal experience was not a reliable source. Finally, in Meditations on First Philosophy he concludes that he is a thinking thing: “I think, therefore I am”. He knows that this is true because he thinks, and to disprove that would require thinking and since he

With the emergence of the scientific revolution in the 17th century, views of society and nature were transformed throughout Europe. There were great developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry. The world and its views were changing, and with that change, came a new change in thought, a new change in philosophy. Apart from ancient Greek philosophy, which was centered on finding order in a vast variety of things by searching for a fundamental amalgamating principle, Descartes sought to establish order via some fundamental division. Descartes understands and expresses that what we know about our mind is more definite than what we know about the world outside our mind. Descartes’

Descartes’s theory of knowledge is essentially based in skepticism. He argued that in order to understand the world, first a person has to completely suspend their judgements of the world around them. This is the impression that the world makes on their mind. In this way, the physical world is not what leads to knowledge. Instead, the mind finds rationally seeks knowledge. The question is, essentially, “should we believe beyond the evidence?” (Kessler, 2013, p. 332). In this way, the ideas are rooted in the nature of doubt. This is an inherent nature of the mind, which is the result of the nature of man as made by God. In this way, the mind is guided by god towards knowledge in its infallible ability to reason about reality. In this way, the mind’s reasoning ability, even in the absence of physical reality, can ultimately lead to knowledge. I don’t fully agree with Descartes’ proposition that only the mind can produce certain knowledge and that our senses are constantly under the attack and being deceive by some evil deceiver. In order to go against Descartes propositions concerning about doubt I will use Locke to oppose it.

Firstly, Descartes deals with the issue of empiricism- the theory that our knowledge is derived from our sensory experiences. Since we know from everyday errors that our senses have the ability to deceive us fairly often so making our perceptions to be something that it is not. For example, there are lots of examples of optical illusions and the fact that the train tracks may appear to converge from a distance. Consequently, we ought to

In Descartes' wax example, he takes a piece of wax from the honeycomb in it's solid form. He observes that there are certain things, which are apparent towards the senses. The taste of the honey, its temperature (cold), the size, the colour, and when you tap it, it makes a sound. Yet, if we place the wax near heat, or a fire, the features and qualities change. No longer is the shape the same. It has become hot, and when you tap it there is no sound. This is the wax in its liquid form. So is the wax we see now, the same wax we saw before these changes?