Introducing Descartes E-Book

Dave Robinson

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Graphic Guides
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 106

Beschreibung

René Descartes is famous as the philosopher who was prepared to doubt everything- even his own physical existence. Most people know that he said 'I think, therefore I am', even if they are not always sure what he really meant by it.   Introducing Descartes explains what Descartes doubted, and why he is usually called the father of modern philosophy. It is a clear and accessible guide to all the puzzling questions he asked about human beings and their place in the world. Dave Robinson and Chris Garratt give a lucid account of Descartes' contributions to modern science, mathematics, and the philosophy of mind- and also reveal why he liked to do all of his serious thinking in bed.

Leseprobe

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP Email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-184831-985-1

Text copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

Illustrations copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights

Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

The Modern Beginner

Early Days and Youth

The Soldier

Descartes’ Three Dreams

The First and Second Dreams

The Third Dream

Descartes Settles in Holland

Scholasticism

The Early Days of Science

What is Science?

Reduction to Mathematics

Descartes the Scientist

Cause

Discourse on The Method

Clear in the Mind

What Is a Clear Idea?

Logical and Causal Necessity

Can You Know Wax?

Rationalists and Empiricists

Brief History of Scepticism

The Pyrrhonists

The Pyrrhonists Arguments

Sextus and Other Sceptics

Cartesian Doubt

How to Doubt Everything

Seeing Isn’t Believing

Dreaming

Rationalists and Reason

The Invisible Demon

Do Our Senses Lie to Us?

Are We Awake or Not?

Invisible Demons?

The Impossibility of a “Private Language”

Back to the Basket

The Last Apple: Cogito ergo Sum

What is the Cogito?

The Cul de Sac of the Cogito

Public Knowledge

The Clear and Distinct Rule

Problems of the Clear and Distinct Rule

The Need for God

The Trademark Argument

The Cartesian Circle

The Ontological Argument

A Series of Leaky Proofs

Making Mistakes

Intellect versus Will

Belief Is Cheap

Belief and Faith

A Good Bet

A Quiet Life in Holland

Meditations on Perception

Bringing in God Again

Mathematical Certainties

Ancient Greek Mathematics

Is the Universe Mathematical?

Descartes the Mathematician

The Rigour of Mathematics

But What is Mathematics?

Mathematical Relativism

Formalists

The Success Story

Mathematical Humans

The Mathematization of Everything

Res Extensa

Res Cogitans

Cartesian Dualism

The Dualist Agrument

Thinking Existence

Problems with Cartesian Dualism

Another Argument

Human Beings and Language

Brains or Minds?

Effects of Brain Damage

Mind-Body Interaction

Seeing and Hearing the World

Perceiving and Imagining

Trialism Explains Sensations

The Philosophy of Mind

Open to Criticism

The Mind and Body Problem

Some Odd Answers

How Did Brains Evolve Minds?

What is Consciousness?

Aspects of Consciousness

Brains not Minds

Behaviourists

Problems with Behaviourism

Physicalist

Problems

Functionalism

Problems

Humans and Computers

Can Computers Understand?

The Principles

Retirement

Descartes and Ethics

Invitation to England?

Invitation to Sweden

All Frenchmen Dance …

Lessons at 5 A.M.

Descartes’ Legacy

The Thinking Individual

The Postmodern Mind

“How do we really think?”

Knowledge and Certainty

The Postmodern Condition

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Index

About the Authors

The Modern Beginner

Everyone agrees that modern philosophy began with Descartes. Why “modern”? Because he insisted on thinking for himself, rather than just accepting what he had been taught. By this method, Descartes believed he could establish the philosophical and mathematical foundations for all of human knowledge – an ambitious quest which eventually turned out to be strangely personal and deeply subjective. Descartes’ philosophy is like a spiritual journey which he invites the reader to join, and which he always promised would produce extraordinary results…

I shall bring to light the true riches of our souls, opening up to each of us the means whereby we can find within ourselves all the knowledge we may need for the conduct of life and the means of using it in order to acquire all the knowledge that the human mind is capable of possessing …

Early Days and Youth

René Descartes was born in 1596 in La Haye, in the Touraine region of France. (The town is now called Descartes!) He was the son of a nobleman, which meant that he never had to work for a living. When he was eight, he was sent to the Jesuit school of La Flèche in Anjou. At this Catholic school he learnt Greek and Latin as well as mathematics and Scholastic philosophy.

At school, I came to the conclusion that mathematics was the only subject of any real worth – a view I held all of my life.

His health was poor and so he was granted permission to stay in bed every morning until 11 o’clock – a habit he kept to in adult life. Descartes always set aside a few morning hours for concentrated thought and devoted the rest of the day to rest and relaxation.

Shortly after leaving La Flèche, Descartes wrote a book that no longer survives called The Art of Fencing, which gave detailed instructions on the different techniques and strategies necessary to beat your opponent. Descartes was said by some to have been as good a swordsman as he was a philosopher. He would have made an interesting fourth musketeer.

Descartes’ first published work was a small treatise on music.

I enjoyed music as much for its mathematical structures as for its pleasing sounds.

Eventually he went on to study law at the University of Poitiers and, although he qualified as a lawyer, he never practised.

The Soldier

Instead, Descartes decided to travel and see a bit of the world.

I spent my youth travelling, visiting courts and armies, mixing with people of diverse temperaments and ranks.

He was a small man, with a large head, a big nose and a rather feeble voice. Nevertheless, he became a soldier and joined the army of Maurice of Nassau of the Netherlands, and then the German army of Maximilian of Bavaria. The whole of Europe was being torn apart by the conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48). Descartes wasn’t cut out for the military life – he consequently absented himself from war and politics. “I am a spectator rather than an actor in the comedies of life.”

One reason for this was a chance meeting on 10 November 1618 in the town of Breda in Holland. Descartes had seen a placard written in Dutch and so asked a passing stranger to translate it for him. The stranger was Isaac Beeckman, who soon became a close friend.

The notice was about a geometric problem which Descartes solved with remarkable rapidity and ease. Beeckman encouraged me to think about pursuing the life of the mind, rather than the more adventurous but futile life of a soldier.

Descartes’ Three Dreams

On 10 November 1619, Descartes found himself stuck in the small town of Neuburg-on-Danube. He was a rather unenthusiastic soldier of 23 en route to see the coronation of Ferdinand II in Frankfurt. But the Bavarian winter was severe and he had to postpone his journey.

“… the onset of Winter detained me in lodgings where, because there was no conversation to amuse me and happily having no worries or passions to trouble me, I stayed all day shut up alone in a stove-heated room, where I was completely free to commune with myself about my own thoughts.”

The First and Second Dreams

The thoughts that Descartes had in this stove-heated room, surrounded by blizzards, changed the whole of Western philosophy for ever. He had the most extraordinary sequence of vivid dreams.

I dreamt I was caught by a whirlwind which tried to push me over. I sheltered from the storm in a college, where I met an old friend who tried to give me a melon from a foreign country.

When he awoke he spent the next two hours terrified that this strange vision had been put into his mind by some evil demon.

His next dream wasn’t much of an improvement – he heard a huge thunderclap and found himself trapped in a room full of fire and sparks.

The Third Dream

Fortunately, his third dream was quieter. He was looking at several books by the side of his bed. There was an encyclopedia and an anthology of poems …

I knew they were ordering me to devote the rest of my life to science and philosophy, rather than to soldiering.

Descartes had always been interested in mathematics and science, and his last dream told him that there was a way in which all human knowledge could be made into a unified whole. “If we could see how the sciences linked together, we would find them no harder to retain in our minds than the series of numbers.”

He always believed in his dream and he never gave up the quest it had set him. Because of this odd night in a cold and strange town, Descartes became the most important and influential philosopher of his time.

Descartes Settles in Holland

Between 1619 and 1623, Descartes travelled all over Europe. He claimed that he was almost murdered by some sailors when he was in Friesland, but frightened them off with his sword. In 1623, he visited the shrine of the Virgin at Loretto – to fulfil a vow he’d made after his vivid dreams four years earlier. He then lived in Paris for the next four years. But in 1628 he moved to the Netherlands where he spent the rest of his life. Perhaps he preferred the more tolerant Protestant society of Holland to his own country of France.

I could lead a life as solitary and as withdrawn as if I were in the most remote desert. In what other country could I enjoy such complete freedom?

In 1635 Descartes became a father. He had formed a relationship with his servant Hélène earlier in Amsterdam, and in that year both mother and child came to live with him in his rural retreat near Santpoort. Tragically, his daughter Francine died of scarlet fever when she was only five years old – an event which affected Descartes profoundly. He had no other children.

Few people have sufficiently prepared themselves for all the contingencies of life.

It was whilst in Holland that Descartes eventually wrote his most famous works: Philosophical Essays (1637) (containing the famous Discourse on the Method), Meditations (1641) and the Principles of Philosophy (1644).

Scholasticism

It is important to understand the conditions of philosophy and science that Descartes confronted in his time. When Descartes arrived on the intellectual stage of Europe, the Roman Catholic Church had dominated all intellectual activity for many centuries. Scholars spent their time attempting to integrate the wisdom of ancient classical thinkers like Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) with Christian teaching rather than making any attempt to discover new knowledge.

God has given reason to human beings. So any truths reached by reason must therefore automatically be reconcilable with Christian doctrine. If any contradictions occur, faith takes precedence over reason. Philosophy is the servant of theology.

If any contradictions occur, faith takes precedence over reason. Philosophy is the servant of theology.

This traditional and deeply conservative approach to knowledge is usually known as Scholasticism. Scholastic philosophy was essentially a grand metaphysical system of theology concerned with logical deductions from Christian dogma. Its practitioners, known as “schoolmen”, were academic philosophers and usually clerics. The most influential Scholastic was the Dominican theologian St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) who became an incontrovertible authority on matters of faith and reason.

The central belief of Scholasticism is that all knowledge has already been discovered by authorities like Aristotle – and me! It is a closed system.

The Early Days of Science

Original thought was discouraged and new ideas had to be smuggled in under the guise of commentary on older texts. Because of this profound respect for the past, scholars continued to believe in all of Aristotle’s “science”, no matter how ridiculous or unbelievable it might be. You found out things by looking through old books rather than telescopes. If Aristotle said that toads could live on air, no one thought it worthwhile to have a look to see if it was true or not.

Scholastics accept Aristotle’s unsatisfactorily empty and circular “explanations” for why things behave as they do. According to him, stones fall to the ground because they have a “propensity to fall to the ground”.

Descartes was impatient to discover newer and better ways of getting hold of knowledge and truth.

“Knowledge” in Descartes’ day was a bizarre mixture of fact and imagination, myth and the occult, religious dogma and wild conjecture. Renaissance “science” still included astrology and alchemy and had an obsession with patterns and resemblances. Paracelsus (1493-1541), a Swiss physician who made original and important discoveries in medical treatment, could still think in terms of occult parallels.

Behold the Satyrion root – is it not formed like the male privy parts? Accordingly magic discovered and revealed that it can resolve a man’s virility and passion.

The times in which Descartes lived were strangely both medieval and “modern”, when “science” as a special and unique kind of human activity was being invented.

In 1627, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) produced accurate predictions of the elliptical orbits of the planets. In Protestant England, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was writing a book about the new power and exciting discoveries produced by “scientific” method. “Modern” scientists like Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) were rapidly discovering that a lot of what Aristotle had said was nonsense.

Planets are not perfect spheres and the sun doesn’t move.