René Descartes The Quest for Certainty Chapter 15 René Descartes The Quest for Certainty

Search for a Method Edmund Husserl and Bertrand Russell were attracted to mathematics as a: Possible model for certain kinds of philosophical inquiry Descartes found the search for the elusive point of departure all important © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Montaigne on Skepticism Men are in agreement about nothing Those who doubt everything also doubt that, and those who deny that we can: Understand anything say that we have not understood that the sky is over our head: And these two views are incomparably the strongest in number © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Montaigne on Skepticism Besides this infinite diversity and division, it is easy to see by the confusion that: Our judgment gives to our own selves: And the uncertainty that each man feels within himself that it has a very insecure seat © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Subjecting The Foundations To Doubt Descartes is allowing fantastic, extremely far-fetched possibilities: He calls them “hyperbolic” at one point: As legitimate reasons to doubt the foundations of his former beliefs © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Subjecting The Foundations To Doubt The main reasons he gives to doubt the reliability of sense experience as a: Source of information about the external world is the possibility that all of these experiences: Might be occurring within an elaborate dream © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

René Descartes: Meditations First Meditation—Concerning Things That Can Be Doubted Second Meditation—Of the Nature of the Human Mind And That It Is More Easily Known Than the Body Third Meditation—Of God: That He Exists © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

René Descartes: Meditations Descartes subjects to doubt the two foundations of his former beliefs: Sense experience and intellectual intuition Exploring various possible bases for subjecting these foundations to doubt © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cogito Ergo Sum If we are to achieve certainty: We must be able to establish something that cannot be doubted In the process of attempting to discover an indubitable truth on which he could: Base his rebuilding of philosophy, Descartes never appeals to the senses © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cogito Ergo Sum Descartes’ standard for proof is rational and deductive God As The Guarantor Of Certainty What it is about the belief in his existence as a thinking thing that makes it certain Proof for God’s existence © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.