Epistemology: Descartes

I don't know how I managed to avoid this guy until now.  René Descartes is one of the most important NOT Plato in philosophy... dabbling in quite a lot of stuff.  And look at that impressive beard/moustache.  It's impressive.  Ugghhhh I'm so tired I really don't want to do this one, but I really need to.  He's so important...

Descartes was a relatively early philosopher, from around the time of Galileo and Newton.  He had a very distinct way of thinking, and it is called the method of doubts.  This means that if your problem is too vague, you will never know the answer, so you should break it down into smaller chunks.

So his thinking pretty much irritated the french, so he fled to the Dutch Republic (Netherlands & Belgium) where he came up with his pretty clever phrase that is OFTEN attributed (wrongly) to Socrates.  Cogito ergo sum translates roughly to "I think, therefore I am."  This sentence would mean that if he believes he exists, he does.  This is actually true throughout philosophy, in many different branches.  Art is art if someone thinks it is.  This is the best politician if you think he is.  God is good if you think He is.

So why did this mean so much?  Descartes couldn't trust anything.  His sense data can be misleading, he could be real, but he might not be! and other people might not be real, either.  The only thing he can ever truly know for certain is that he's thinking, and since he thinks, he must be real.  He can't be thinking about if he existed or not if he didn't actually exist.  This is more ontology than epistemology, but Descartes is a pretty swell guy, so I thought I'd include this little bit where it ought to go.  Right with René Descartes.

*Fun fact!  Descartes came up with this clever maxim while meditating inside of a stove in the Netherlands.  It was too bloody cold outside.*

How is the stove relevant besides being very amusing?  Well, my dears, odd venues for meditating were not unusual for Descartes, who believed very strongly that truth could only be found through examination of the self.  He attempted to unlock this self by exposing it to different climates.

One of these peculiar instances of Descartes' genius was while he wore his PJs in front of a fireplace.  He stared at his hand and thought of the revolutionary, ground-changing mind-boggling revelation; "This is my hand."  How was this incorrect?  He knew that it was true, but was it?  Descartes determined that one can never know if they are dreaming or not.  Even killing yourself would fail, since you'd never actually know if you succeeded... :\

Along the same line as knowing if you are dreaming or not, Descartes also determined that there was no way to know if god was actually an evil genius.  This evil demon arose when Descartes tried to math his way out of dreamland... and failed.  He had no way to know if the evil genius was real or not, since he had no way of knowing if the laws of math were true or not.  Many darns to you, Descartes, for making my math tests even harder!!

And he keeps thinking (probably not in front of the fire... that would get toasty) and eventually comes up with his cogito ergo sum.  That was actually pretty brief.  I'm done for the day!  YAY!