StarryNight

For such a small peice of knowledge (the cogito) , to be so highly valued, surely reflects badly on what we are capable of as human beings.
[had to shorten message due to repeated bugs]

Antiplastic

I disagree. I'm not even sure the cogito is a piece of knowledge at all.

kennethamy

I think you really have to know why Descartes believed it was valuable. Let me list a few of his reasons:

1. It stopped the methodical doubt, and it showed that we could know something for certain. Thus, it showed the falsity of skepticism.
2. It showed that empiricism was false, since in the First Meditation, Descartes argues that reliance on sense knowledge must lead to skepticism, since it is possible to doubt whatever is based on sense knowledge. So, empiricism leads to skepticism. However, the cogito shows that there is something we can know, and therefore, since empiricism implies skepticism; but skepticism is false, therefore, empiricism is false.
3. The Cogito is foundational in two ways:

A. It is the foundation of a new "edifice of knowledge" for it forms what Descartes called "the Archimedian point" of a firm foundation. It is the absolutely certain premise upon which the rest of knowledge can be built. And as Descartes pointed out, the building can be only as firm as its foundation. (Archimedies was the Greek who discovered the principle of the lever, and who said, "Give me a place on which to stand, and I will move the world".).

B. Every statement that follows from an absolutely certain premise (foundation) using deductive methods, "inherits" that absolute certainty.
Therefore, Descartes can be absolutely certain, for example, that God exists, since (he claims) that he can deduce the existence of God from the cogito. And he can also deduce that he, Descartes, is a mind or soul, and not a body. And, therefore, it is possible for his mind (soul) to exist without his body. So it is possible for him to survive death. And at the end of the Meditations, Descartes finally deduces that there is an external material world independent of his senses.

So, don't sell the cogito short. Please.

Hamlet

I don't find it to be all that valuable. I do find it very interesting. I do think, however, that I would change it to cogitas ergo est. That is, it thinks therefore it is. For what can he know of I.

Anyway, it seems you are saying that if we can only know that there is something thinking, then we can barely know anything. I would agree with that, but nobody really believes that that is all we can know. I don't know. :huh:

kennethamy

Never mind what I say, since I did not say anything. I was expositing, not espousing what Descartes seems to have argued, And, as I pointed out, to say that Descartes argued that if we can only know that there is something thinking, then we can barely know anything, is to say the exact opposite of what Descartes argued. But, what Descartes argued is that if we can know that we exist (not merely that we are thinking) then we can know everything else worth knowing: e.g . that we are souls, that we can survive death; that God exists; and that there is an external world independent of our senses. Now, supposing that Descartes is right about that, I am a little taken aback that you don't think that such knowledge (if we have it) is valuable. In fact, more than a little surprised. I wonder what sort of knowledge you would find valuable.

Hamlet

Well, I was actually talking to the OP. I should have indicated that more clearly. I thought he was implying that the cogito is highly valued because it is almost all we can know, and that that is a little depressing. I agree, but don't believe that it is actually the case.

Hugh Nose

Descartes dug himself into an epistemic pit from which he could not extricate himself. And this excavation is a function of terribly flawed reasoning/assumptions.

His primary contribution to epistemology-- a demonstration of the consequences of a "representationalist theory of perception". Those who are unaware of the flawed reasoning/assumptions (and they are many) remain in the Cartesian pit.

Hugh Nose

kennethamy

Well, there is that, of course, but there was also his dualism, and, most especially his views on knowledge and certainty, in particular his argument in the First Meditation that empiricism implies skepticism (in which, by the way, and paradoxically enough, he agrees with the arch-anti-Cartesian, Hume, and, for much the same flawed reasons).

However, I think that Descartes is one of the greatest philosophers on the principle that only the greatest philosophers make the greatest mistakes, for it is by understanding these mistakes, that we learn the most from them. Most, if not all, philosophical truths are commonsense truths, and it is those philosophers who deny, and ingeniously argue against those commonsense truth, who can teach us what is wrong with such arguments, and make us more confident that those commonsense truths are, indeed, truths.

By the way, returning to the OP, where is this supposed bit about tragedy of the human condition? Descartes did (they say) catch cold because Princess Elizabeth whom he was teaching philosophy gave him a cold room, and perished in bad condition, but that is, probably, not what the OP was alluding to.

StarryNight

Firstly, thankyou for your responses. I have read Descartes, and as well as appreciating the Archmedean aspect of his breakthrough, also very much enjoyed his style of philosophising and literary imagination and flare. Meditations was an excellent read.

Why tragedy? Well, when I hear Descartes mentioned, often it is the cogito, and not what follows from it, that is exalted. I recall talking to a fairly liberal Muslim philosopher a year or so ago, and he began his reflections by insisting we must first be sure of the foundational existence of the self. A theosophist, also engaged in the debate, very much appreciated his stance. To me, this seems to be a Cartesian inheritance. This seems typical of what people often remember Descartes for (though I admit I don't really have heaps of evidence for that, yet, I recall Heigdegger liked it, and if one were to ask a layman, probably the cogito would be known about, but not the theology that followed from it).

Back to the tragedy. Well, it seems to me that for someone to applaud the cogito, which in itself is such a minute and perhaps obvious piece of knowledge (to the non-philosopher anyway), to me reflects pitifully on the human condition. It's not that if that's all we can know, then that's sad (which would be the case), it's rather that someone was firstly in such a sceptical predicament, epistemically and metaphysically unsure, that the cogito was recognised and formulated as something both safe and valuable.

If generations are going to applaud someone for imagining they were merely dreaming, or being tricked by some god-like spectre, it seems a littel sad, and a not only reflection on our susceptibility to error, but of an apetite which gived a little credence (or time and respect anyway) to such fantasies.

Secondly, the cogito, I'll say it again, is a tiny piece of knowledge. For millions of philosophers (yes, often lay philosophers) to get all worked up about it, and place it on a pedastal, surely say something shameful about what we can expect of ourselves and our contemporaries in terms of our appreciation of the world.

I'll give this a little context. In the Koran there is a surah called "the reality", in which various fantastically based claims are made about the world, yet many people - in fact billions - believe it to be an accurate and inspired portrayal. To move from there to Descartes would in no small respect be an improvement.

kennethamy

I don't really think I understand what you are driving at. It seems to be that to appeal to the sentiments of Muslim philosopher, or a theosiphist, for any kind of intelligent insight into Descartes is...well, it isn't something I would do.
Nor would I appeal to those whose only knowledge of Descartes was that he said, "I think, therefore I am". What I cannot understand is why you, or anyone would care what a Muslim philosopher, or theosiphist would think about Descartes, or those you call "lay philosophers" either.

Everyone firmly believes that he exists. But that is not the point. What is the point is whether such a belief can be established as knowledge, and, it it can, what would follow from that. That is the subject of the Meditations. When Descartes philosophized, Western philosophy was still dominated by medieval philosophy, in particular the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The theory of knowledge of that philosophy was empiricism, in the sense that it was held that all knowledge was based either directly, or indirectly, on the senses. Including our knowledge that God exists. And that to reject the knowledge of our senses was a kind of sin because sense knowledge was the only kind of knowledge afforded to human beings by God. Human beings did not have "angelic knowledge" which God and His angels had (for they had no senses). So to claim to have knowledge independently of our senses, and to derogate sense-knowledge, was a variation on the sin of pride. It is to arrogate to human beings the avenue to knowledge or reality which was the sole possession of God and His angels.

In his letter to the theologians and philosophers at the Sorbonne in Paris, which is Descartes' preface to the Meditations Descartes, very delicately explains that all that follows is an attempt to establish with certainty the truths of religion, in particular that God exists, and the immortality of the human soul. Bruno had been burned at the stake for heresy a very short time before. Descartes had to walk on eggs. For Descartes, in the Meditations argues that sense knowledge cannot afford knowledge worthy of the name of "knowledge" since the senses can lead only to skepticism, and if it is true that there is only knowledge based on the senses, (if , in other words, empiricism as a philosophy of knowledge is true) then we really have no knowledge, but only belief. And we don't know that there is a God, and that our souls are immortal. He argues this in the First Meditation, he argues, that is, that if empiricism is true, then we can know nothing. But, in the Second Meditation Descartes claims that empiricism is false. And his reason is, The Cogito. For. The Cogito is the prime example of knowledge which is not sense-knowledge. Each of us knows for certain that he exists by way of the Cogito, and this knowledge is not perceptual, nor is it an inference from anything we have perceived.

So, Descartes argues:

1. Empiricism implies skepticism (there is no knowledge).
2. But, skepticism is false (The Cogito)

Therefore, 3. Empiricism is false.

And, with that conclusion in hand, Descartes establishes Rationalism (the theory of knowledge that knowledge is to be gained by the intellect, what Kant two centuries later called, "pure reason").

And then, Descartes proceeds to argue, in the rest of the Meditations that founded on the absolutely certain truth (established by reason and not by the senses, for certainty cannot be established by the senses) of the Cogito, "the Archemedian Point", the foundation stone, pure reason can establish the truths of religion.

That is what is going on in the Meditations, and that is why the Cogito is so important, and is not a small piece of knowledge. Descartes, in fact, claims, that before him, it was not a piece of knowledge at all. It was just a strong opinion.