Denying Premise 2 Philosophy Essay Research Paper

Denying Premise 2- Philosophy Essay, Research Paper

The quest to find out who we are, where we came from, where we will go after we die and what, if anything, controls our world has fascinated mankind throughout the centuries. Famous philosophers have devoted their whole lives to developing theories, and yet the closest any have come to success has been to not have their theories disproved. With the knowledge that no theory has been proven to fact, I don t know may be the only true answer to one of civilization s oldest questions.

The idea that we can never know the answers to these and many other questions leads to the theory of Skepticism. This theory maintains that we must doubt every single one of our empirical beliefs, as they are from our perceptions like our material body. We doubt them because they are seen from the lens of our own prejudices. For example, just as our senses can deceive us, or our dreams seem real, our experiences can also deceive us. Therefore, we cannot with certainty say that anything is true, and we have no knowledge and we live in the unknown.

However, Skepticism is contrary to one of the most basic of human instincts: the fear of the unknown. The desire to define the world and make order out of chaos and the refusal to accept I don t know as the answer has motivated both scientists and philosophers. Rene Descartes (1596-1650 was one such man. Though brilliant, and the author of Mediations, feared being skeptical of the external world.

Descartes wanted to disprove the skepticism theory. To do so, he first developed two premises for the skepticism theory, and then rejected it by disproving one premise. The first premise is that of Na ve Empiricism. This premise states that all knowledge rests on our perception, our own experiences, and therefore all our knowledge is true. The second premise is the method of Doubt. Descartes claims knowledge is something that is indubitable. That is, for each body of evidence, only one conclusion can be reached. With those two premises, Descartes derives the sub-conclusion that if we do have unique knowledge, then the evidence of our senses must rule out all other possibilities. In short, truth is derived entirely from the empirical evidence we collect.

However, Descartes also had a third premise which undermined the first two. This premise is that of the Evil Demon. This theory states that even with all our empirical knowledge, that there is still no material world. There can exist a omnipotent supreme being who controls all our experiences, leading us to believe what we do. For example, an Evil Demon makes us think that we have hands and are sitting watching television and laughing with our friends, but in reality all that is false. This Evil Demon set everything up to manipulate us in believing in the material world as we know it today.

What a scary thought: to know that we don t know anything and our entire world might be false. This disturbed Descartes greatly. He tried to develop a way to make the skepticism theory or the premises used to develop the skepticism theory false. He believed that he could negate the Evil Demon possibility by finding something wrong with the logic of the skeptical argument. This can be done either by assuming that the conclusion developed using the Evil Demon theory does not follow its own premises, or by denying one of its premises altogether.

Descartes contemplated on this issue intensely. He decided to reject premise 1, that of Na ve Empiricism. He concludes that basic knowledge does not come from experience and perception, but rather by pure and rational thought. Therefore, the power of reason can be used as the foundation of all knowledge. Furthermore, this theory of rationalism and pure thought disproves the Evil Demon theory and supports a God being that is good and true to us humans.

Descartes starts by saying that he has knowledge of himself. He cannot doubt that he has a mind and he believes he is a thinking thing. He then states that his ideas of God and a supreme being come from God himself. He doesn t believe he can develop these ideas by himself. There must be some outside source that allows him to develop such thoughts. But now Descartes must figure out how this supreme being is a good God and not the Evil Demon. Descartes says that in every case of trickery or deception, some imperfection is to found. God gave us the ability to believe that our ideas of material objects are produced by those same material objects. Material objects do exist and contain all the properties we perceive them do have, because God is good and will not let us have wrong perceptions. Therefore our knowledge of the world must be correct. He denied premise 1 in order to resist his conclusion. He did so because he didn t think he could deny premise 2. He strongly believed that knowledge had to be indubitable and therefore couldn t be denied.

Could the skepticism argument be proven false by denying premise 2. Descartes thought knowledge had to be indubitable and therefore he had chosen to keep premise 2 as true. However, premise 2 can be denied just as easily as premise 1 is denied. There are two ways to deny premise 2. The first way goes back to Socrates question. The second way deals with the definition of knowledge.

Socrates asks the question: What is the difference between knowledge and mere true belief. Socrate