Descartes Skeptical Argument And Reponses By Bouwsma And Malcolm Essay

Descartes Skeptical Argument and Reponses by Bouwsma and MalcolmIn this essay, I will examine Rene Descartes skeptical competition andresponses by O.K. Bouwsma and Norman Malcolm. I intend to prove that while bothBouwsma and Malcolm make points that refute specific parts of Descartesargument in their criticisms, neither is sufficient in itself to refute thewhole.In order to understand Descartes argument and its sometimes radical ideas,one must corroborate at least a general idea of his motives in chore the argument.The s nonwithstandingteenth century was a time of great scientific progress, and theblossoming scientific community was concerned with setting up a consistent standard to define what constituted science. Their science was based onconjunction and empirical affirmation, ideally without any preconceived notionsto taint the results. Descartes, however, believed that the senses wereunreli equal and that science based exclusively on information gained from the senseswas un certain. He was concerned with finding a point of certainty on which tobase scientific thought. Eventually he settled on mathematics as a basis forscience, because he believed mathematics and geometry to be based on someinherent truths. He believed that it was through mathematics that we were ableto make sense of our world, and that the ability to think mathematically was aninnate ability of all human beings. This theory becomes important in DescartesMeditations because he is forced to exempt where the mathematical ideas that hebelieved we were born with came from. Having discussed Descartes background, Iwill now explain the specifics of his argument.The basis of Descartes entire argument is that the senses heap not betrusted, and his objective is to touch on a point of certainty, one undeniabletruth that fixes our existence. He said it best in his own words, "I will . . .apply myself earnestly and openly to the general destruction of my formeropinions."1 By opinions he m eant all the facts and notions about the worldwhich he had previously held as truths. Any point which had even the slightesthint of doubt was discarded and considered completely false. Descartes decidedthat he would consider all things until he found that either nothing is certain,which is itself a point of certainty, or he reached the one undeniable truth hewas searching for. In order to accom... ...admirable case for the validity of the senses, but uponcareful examination he says genuinely much the same thing as Bouwsma. Namely, thatthe senses are real to us. Bouwsma came to this point by examining the idea ofthe evil genius and the idea of "illusions". Malcolm came to it throughexamining the differences between fact, mental picture and sensory information. Despitethe differences in how they discovered it, they both came to the same conclusion.The point is valid and their reasoning is sound, but it does not prove thatDescartes is wrong.The strength of the skeptical argu ment lies in the fact that it can not becompletely disproved. No one can prove or disprove the existence of an evilgenius, they can only go so far as to say that it does not matter. This isessentially what Bouwsma and Malcolm have done. They tried to prove that theexistence of the evil genius would not make a difference in our lives. For thisreason, I believe that although Bouwsma and Malcolm have made a valid point,they have only touched the surface of Descartes argument. They have succeededin proving that life is not meaningless, but that was not the purpose ofDescartes argument to begin with.