Posted on 11/04/2002 7:52:21 AM PST by thinktwice
Descartes was a geometrician. He found only in mathematics and geometry the certainty that he required. Therefore, he used the methods of geometry to think about the world. Now, in geometry, one begins with a search for axioms, simple undeniable truths for example, the axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. On the foundations of such self-evident propositions, whole geometrical systems can be built.
Following his geometrical model, Descartes proceeds to doubt everything de onmibus dubitandum. He will suspend belief in the knowledge he learned from childhood, all those things which I allowed myself in youth to be persuaded without having inquired into their truth. Doubt will be his method, a deliberate strategy for proceeding toward certainty. (Descartes is a doubter not by nature, but by necessity. What he really wants is secure understanding so he can stop doubting.)
Descartes finds that he has no trouble doubting the existence of real objects/events our senses too easily deceive us. And we can doubt the existence of a supernatural realm of reality figments and fantasies are too often conjured by our native imaginations. But now his geometrical model pays off: in trying to doubt everything, he discovers something that he cant doubt. What he cant doubt is that he is doubting. Obviously, I exist if I doubt that I exist. My doubt that I exist proves that I exist, for I have to exist to be able to doubt. Therefore I cant doubt that I exist. Hence, there is at least one fact in the universe that is beyond doubt. I am, I exist is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.
Descartes thus becomes the author of the most famous phrase in Western philosophy: Cognito ergo sum, or, in his original French, Je pense, donc je suis. I think, therefore I exist. With roots in St. Augustine, this is certainly one of the catchiest ideas yet created by the human mind.
Political analysis, philosophical discussion, and handy household hints all on one site. That's what keeps me coming back here.
This is correct and well stated, but I'm afraid will be lost on those who have not even progressed to understanding the difference between percepts and concepts. How sad.
Odd, isn't it? What you stated seems so obvious, yet most philosophers, and virtually all theologians are completely incapable of understanding it. No metaphysics and no epistemology can be correct that incorporates this "universal essence" error. It is difficult to believe that this error, so easily and correctly dismissed by Ayn Rand, should be so vehemently defended and embraced by so many who seem otherwise intelligent enough to understand their error. However, there is a reason for it. Care to guess what it is?
Hank
"If men are to be saved, the enemy is reason." -- Ayn Rand
That is essentially correct. The precise answer is that men do not want to know the truth. Here is a longer explanation from some pages I have abondoned. This section was written to answer the question of why men are universally superstitious.
A Secret Loathing
Reality is ruthless. Defy reality, and it will destroy you. Refuse to work, and you will starve. Refuse to learn, and the mistakes you make in you ignorance will kill you.
Reality is demanding. You must conform to the nature of reality all the time, because the moment you let up, it will strike you down. Stop paying attention, just for a few moments, while driving on the highway at 70 miles per hour. Don't bother paying your bills for a month. Forget you insulin injections for a day. Just forget where little Sarah is for a while at the Mall.
Reality is cruel. Disease, death, disaster strike without regard to anyone's position or opinions. The world is full of destruction and misery, though most of it is created by other men. But all of nature is cruel and the entire chain of life is one of death, killing, and being killed.
Reality is unforgiving. You've made a mistake, but the law forgives you, your parents and friends forgive you, you even manage to forgive yourself, but reality never forgives. It may be a forgivable mistake, but the dead animal cannot be made alive again, the pregnant girl cannot be made "unpregnant", (at least she can never have her virginity restored,) you cannot cancel what you have done, never! Have you been unfaithful once, then you will always have been unfaithful once. Did you steal something once, then you can never claim always to have been honest. You do something stupid and loose an arm, leg, or put our your own or someone else's eye. You may never do another thing so foolish, but you will never have the arm, leg, or eye, yours or another's, restored.
While it is true that reality is ruthless, demanding, and unforgiving, cruelty cannot really be attributed to reality, even though all the things listed as cruel are true in nature, the evaluation of them as cruel is a subjective judgement. This characterization of reality is only a partial view, the view of one whose knowledge is primarily irrational and superstitious.
It is this view, though seldom made explicit, that is the motivator for our mysterious factor, the cause of universal superstition. Mankind, generally hates reality, just because mankind does view reality as ruthless, demanding, cruel, and unforgiving. What mankind wishes for is a reality that is pliable, easy-going, kind, and forgiving. At bottom, mankind hates reality, hates the necessity of having to work hard all the time, hates the necessity of having to learn so much, hates never being able to act on whim, or passion, or impulse without consequences, hates knowing they cannot do wrong and get away with it, hates knowing you cannot get something for nothing.
What mankind wants is exemption from consequences and a shortcut to success, wealth, happiness, or whatever else their current whims and fancies convince them they want. Reason does not show them how to have or achieve what they want the way they want it. Reason only enables them to understand the truth that describes reality as it is. They don't want truth, either. The truth just condemns them for their hate of reality. They hate the truth, too.
Here, finally, is the secret, that unrevealed factor, the mystery of why almost all men prefer their superstitions to the truth.
At the heart of all superstitious beliefs, sometimes explicit, but always implicit, is the promise that there is something more than reality, something above reality, something which cancels the requirements of reality, a secret that enables those who know it to rise above mere reality, to defy it and get away with it. Superstition, which is never called superstition, is a magic wand that makes exist what in reality cannot exist, a metaphysical wild card that makes one automatically a winner, the universal "get-out-of-jail-free" card that allows one to escape the consequences of their choices and actions, the flying carpet that defies all of reality to give its owner a free ride to success and happiness.
Men hate reality and the truth and will accept anything that let's them believe they can escape it.
Hank
I think I exist.
I exist.
Exist.
.
A corollary is that those hating reality and truth must also hate existence ... and themselves.
Exactly, and that explains the otherwise inexplicable hysterical defense of the irrational that you will continually encounter on these threads.
There are many Ellsworth Toohey's and Wesley Mooch's these days, but they seldom use those handles. They are more likely to pass themselves off as philosophers or theologians.
Hank
Descarte made the fatal conceit of believing that there is anything to question or anyone to question it. Once he included the word 'I', the folly was complete and passed to us as some odd gospel.
Nevermind that it runs entirely contrary to the true Gospel....
Correctly constructed, it would be:
"Thought exists with no one to think it and nothing to be thought of, therefore God exists."
That's Plato, not Aristotle.
Careful, you're getting close to real truth there.
Oh, cut it out. This is FR, what did you expect?
The name for that is gnosticism. There's another problem. Somewhat of a pendulum swing. It denies the reality that is recognized. This denial has found good ground ever since historicism struck the Continent blind to the flesh and blood of history. You know the history.
Oh, cut it out. This is FR, what did you expect?
Of course, you are right. But I find the same thing everywhere, and readily admit, I no longer expect more. I am not dissappointed when I do not find agreement, but admit, I'm still saddened by the nearly total absence of cogency in the world.
Hank
The name for that is gnosticism.
It could as well apply to most flavors of Christianity or religion in general, for that matter. Dostoevsky said the nihilists proclaimed, "God is dead, everything is allowed." But the nihilist's were wrong. If God is dead, nothing is allowed, and nothing is forgiven, and no one can get away with anything. Christianity says a man can do wrong all his life, and in an instant be forgiven of it all, and be rewarded for it with eternal bliss. Isn't that, the ultimate universal "get-out-of-jail-free" card that allows one to escape the consequences of their choices.
Hank
No, God still is characterized by perfect justice. One might sin all their life and then enter into a relationship with Him on His grounds, but that doesn't mean one's rewards will be as great as those who remained obedient and bore fruit throughout their lives.
Salvation via unlimited atonement for sin by Christ merely shows that the wrong has been paid for so as to alow a relationship with God. Rewards for eternity are still yet to be addressed until after the Great White Throne Judgement and when the books are opened.
There are an infinite number of ways to avoid, obfuscate, and deny the truth. There is only one way to discover and embrace it. All of America's public institutions (e.g. government schools) and most private institutions are engaged in the systematic destruction of that only means to truth, ruthless objective reason.
The PC, multicultural, social/moral relativism movement is nothing more than an all-out nihilistic assault on reason. The last few generations in this country have been intellectually and morally cripled by the modern mind-molesters called educators.
Hank
You can catch it if you separate it from awareness by thinking now of your left big toe.
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