MM#305--Philosophy 101--Descartes

Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now here's your host, David Kaiser.

Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute. Roughly about a year ago we started a Philosophy 101 series and we did it with a fantastic four volume series of books called Socrates Children by the great Peter Krief, and so last year we nailed down some of what Mr Krief what he calls the Big Nine. Those would be the philosophers of Socrates, aristotle, plato, aquinas which we did a two-parter on and Augustine. So far we've covered five of those of the Big Nine and I'll put links in the show notes for those Mojo Minutes. But today, today we're going to kick back off our Philosophy 101 series for this year, because we will be covering the remaining four of the Big Nine, and the remaining four are Descartes, hume, kant and Hegel. And I thought it's best that we start this process the week of Christian Lent, which will be beginning tomorrow after this recording Wednesday, as Wednesday will be tomorrow once you're listening to this Because philosophy does impact theology, and Christian Lent is the imitation of Jesus Christ fasting in the wilderness before he began his public ministry, and while we don't have a don't necessarily need to go out into the wilderness to fully imitate our Lord, we can go on intellectual and a spiritual retreat of sorts to help us clean up our lives and to get things back in their proper order. Certainly, repentance is a good practice during Lent and is highly encouraged, but also getting our priorities and our lives correct again if they happen to be out of sorts. That good housekeeping and house cleaning is another way to ensure we worship our Creator as proper, as is proper for the creature to do, and we are the creatures and that's the first humble submission. We need to understand in philosophical terms that we are the creature, not the Creator, and that virtue of humility always comes in, as we've seen in many of these mojo minutes over and over again. It's possibly the greatest virtue you can even acquire. It helps you out in all facets of life. So with that administrative housekeeping out of the way, let us turn to our subject for today and with humility, let us learn from Socrates' Children by Peter Krief, as we cover now number six. Philosopher of the big nine, rené Descartes. Go on to the book. René Descartes lived from 1596 to 1650. Descartes' discourse on method, written in 1637, changed the philosophical landscape. It made more of a difference to how philosophy was done than any other book ever written, except perhaps Plato's dialogues. Every major philosopher for the next 200 years, except Pascal, followed Descartes in attempting to apply some aspects of the scientific method to philosophy, though they all produced different philosophical systems than Descartes. Descartes' revolution was similar to that of Socrates. Both changed the meaning of reason itself by tightening it, so to speak, and Socrates was the first person in history who clearly understood and practiced the art of deductive reasoning. While Descartes was the first to deliberately apply to philosophy the new scientific method, perhaps he was the second. Bacon had done this too before Descartes, but where Bacon emphasized the empirical and the inductive aspect of the scientific method, descartes emphasized the mathematical and deductive aspect of it. Why did Descartes try to do philosophy by a new method? Because he noticed two things that every one of the sciences had progressed remarkably in his age and that philosophy had not. He asked the simple question why? What made the difference? And his answer was the scientific method. That was the common factor in the progress of all the sciences, yet no one had applied it to philosophy. He then asked what is or what was in this new method that gave it the power to progress to a point where disagreements were actually settled conclusively for the first time in history, and he answered the method of mathematics. He wrote in this. I took especially great pleasure in mathematics because of the certainty in the evidence of its arguments, but I did not yet notice its true usefulness and, thinking that it seemed useful only to the mathematical arts, I was astonished that, because its foundations were so solid and firm, no one had built anything more noble upon them. On the other hand, I had compared the writings of the ancient pagans who discussed morals to very proud, magnificent palaces that are built on nothing but sand and mud. They place virtues on a high plateau and make them appear to be valued more than anything else in the world, but they do not sufficiently instruct us about how to know them. If we can imagine a great palace on a foundation of sand next to the little shed on a foundation of rock, we can see why Descartes wanted to rebuild that old palace on a new foundation. After all, descartes' buildings quote unquote, ie his essential conclusions that God and the world, mind and matter, soul and body all exist, are quite traditional, but his method of proving them, the new foundation, is radically new. Socrates II was also both traditional and radical. In the same way, descartes' revolution can best be defined by comparing Plato's dividing line. In the Republic, plato distinguishes four levels of reason and thus of education First, seeing second hand images of real things. Second, the first hand sense perception of the real things. Third, the logical and mathematical reasoning. And number four, the intellectual intuition, wisdom or understanding of the eternal forms. And then, finally, the scientific method essentially emits number one and number four For opposite reasons, because number one is too low and number four is too high. It combines number two, the observation of the empirical data, with number three, the exact reasoning. And Descartes' method demands mathematical exactness, what he calls clear and distinct ideas, like numbers. His ideal is a universal mathematical science. So we can see René Descartes was strongly influenced by the scientific method, by the progress of the Renaissance and why philosophy had not progressed as far as it should when he looked out at other fields of study. Now let's learn a little bit about Descartes' life. It's probably not possible to decide whether Descartes' attempt to do philosophy by the method of science can work until we see how he does it. But even if his attempt to prove can be somewhat confusing and a failure, the attempt was inevitable Because philosophy was in a sorry state in 1637, divided between number one verbal quibbles in partisan battles among unoriginal late medieval scholastics who used highly technical language and multiplied abstract verbal distractions and distinctions. And number two by Flaky Nature Mystics and Occultists like Perichalesis. And number three by Smart but cynical skeptics like Montague. Other science had made more progress in the previous 200 years than in the previous 2000,. But not philosophy. Why? Descartes' answer seemed obvious. The scientific method was the fuel that sent all the other rockets and sciences up. Why not use it for philosophy too? Now a little bit about Descartes' life. Descartes was the man to do just that. He was the man to send that rocket ship that all the other scientists have used. He was the man to use that for philosophy. He was one of the most intelligent men who had ever lived. He thought of himself primarily as a scientist rather than a philosopher. He personally knew all the great scientists of his day, many of whom congregated around the Circle of Friends in Paris, of which Descartes was the center. He made essential contributions in geometry. He actually invented analytic geometry, optics, astronomy, physiology and other sciences. He was the last of the universal geniuses before the age of specialization. He summarized in his intellectual biography briefly and charmingly, in the discourse on method that he was trained in the best Jesuit schools in the world, interacting with all the great minds of his age. He sought certainty rather than probability or arguments from fittedness or from authority. And he found certainty nowhere except in mathematics. He wondered why this exact reasoning had been confined to quantity, the number alone, and not applied to the great questions of philosophy such as knowledge, the nature of knowledge, truth, human nature, god and the soul. One day, returning from the battlefields of the Thirty Years' War, which terribly traumatized Europe and tarnished the religions that caused it, while snowbound in a little heated room, he conceived the essential idea for a whole new philosophy, which was number one, to come from his own individual mind rather than relying on the great philosophers of the past, number two, to begin with his own experience. And number three, to use only logical reasoning in the scientific method. This was the beginning of the career of the most famous philosopher in the world. The end came when the Queen of Sweden, a would-be intellectual herself, persuaded Descartes to come to Sweden to instruct her. Descartes accepted but died of pneumonia brought on by the Swedish winner in the Queen's demand to rise at 4.30 am to give her philosophy lessons. Descartes was one of the most… well educated geniuses of his time actually had thought of himself more of a scientist than a philosopher. But that was again the sorry state of philosophy during the time that he lived. And so you can see and Cref makes this point as you dig into his biography even more and read in depth all about his philosophies of life, especially in his discourse on the method that Descartes wanted to have the certainty that is just frankly not possible on some aspects of human nature, of God, of evil, of universal theories. The universe is just too vast and you have to have some humility that perhaps God has not revealed everything that you, as the creature, are asking. It seems, at least from my reading, that Descartes could not understand that humility. He wanted the exactness of mathematical reasoning to prove with certainty that some of these theories were true. That's a long way to go and I'm surprised they spent most of his life trying to solve for it. Now, descartes is famously known for two things his universal methodic doubt that's one important aspect that we're going to cover real quick and the other thing is his famous phrase cadetto ergo sum, not good in my Latin cog itto ergo sum, cog itto ergo sum. I think. Therefore, I am, and this is kind of his Archimedean point. That famous phrase that I think therefore I am, begins his relentless pursuit of trying to overcome doubt. Let's learn about this universal methodic doubt now. Go on the book. Role number one is the most important and radical one. It consists of a universal methodic doubt, and number in part two of that is the clarity and distinctness of an idea as the test of its truth. Descartes, far from embracing doubt about his conclusion, like the skeptics, wants to overcome it more definitively than ever before. He demands not just truth but certainty. But to do that, he begins, as his premise, with more total doubt than ever before. He climbs down the depth of the doubter's pit because he is convinced he has a lot of strong enough to escape into total sunlight. The doubt is only a methodic, not lived. He is not a skeptic. In fact he's the opposite of a skeptic. He doubts, or he demands absolute certainty. But to get there and that's his real problem but to get there, he begins with skepticism, with universal doubt as his method. Now you can read all about Ridney Descartes universal methodic doubt. I will not get into the weeds on what it is, just know that's what he was most famous, for it is literally a rabbit trail that we could spend over an hour on and still not have used our time wisely, at least not for this mojo minute. Now the second point Kagee Kito ergo sum I think, therefore, I am from Descartes is his second famous sentence and it's probably the single most famous sentence in the history of all philosophy. Let's learn about that. Going to the book, I think, therefore, I am as probably the single most famous sentence in the history of philosophy. It is Descartes first and foundational certainty, the first rung on his escape ladder from skepticism. It is his Archimedean point. Archimedes, the Greek scientist who discovered the power of the lever to move heavy objects was proportionate to the length of the lever, reputedly said give me only a lever long enough and a fulcrum to rest on it, and I can move the whole world. A philosopher's Archimedean point is his first premise, his starting point or his foundation for the rest of his philosophy. And here we pick up from the discourse on method, descartes famous work. I resolved to pretend that everything that had ever entered my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately afterward I noticed that during the time I wanted us to think about everything was false. It was necessary that I, who thought thus be something, and noticing that this truth I think therefore I am was so firm and so certain that the most extravagant suppositions of the skeptics were unable to shake it, I judged that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking. And later on, grief makes the wonderful point that Augustine, st Augustine, had used the same argument long ago in his work against the academics, but his version was debito ergo sum. I doubt, therefore. I am, but he had not based his whole subsequent philosophy on it, as Descartes is about to do so. Descartes had studied Augustine and clearly borrowed this argument from him without crediting him with it. For Descartes is claiming to begin his whole philosophy anew. And there is an obvious strength to Descartes' argument against skepticism. Even if a demon is deceiving me, I must exist in order for him to deceive me. So my own existence is the only thing I cannot doubt. But as grief makes the important point at the end of this paragraph, there is also weakness, and weakness is to Descartes Cagito ergo sum on his refutation of skepticism. And the most obvious weakness is that it is a deductive argument and thus presupposes unproved premises. The implied premises are whatever thinks exist, and the express premise is I think, and the conclusion is I exist. Now, this argument is totally and logically valid. The conclusion follows with logical necessity from its premises. Both its premises are true and all of its terms are unambiguous and clear. So there is nothing logically wrong with it. But, as grief makes the point, it is a syllogism. An argument with two premises. A total skeptic would doubt each premise and demand proof for them, and that would require two or more arguments with four or more premises. This process would never end. The skeptic would demand premises for the premises of the premises, etc. Etc. At infinitum. As one skeptic said, descartes should have written I think. I think. Therefore, I think I am, I think, and so you can see, descartes had a problem. He was so doubting in his philosophy that he could never get back up that ladder from the doubter's pit that he created himself. Now that's not to say that he's not somebody that we should study. After all, grief included him in his big nine, and you have to remember that Descartes is coming on the heels of the Renaissance, of that new emerging world where for the previous 200 years they had learned all different new fields of study. It was literally a flowering of knowledge. It's also the world of Copernicus and Kepler and Galileo. They were beginning to understand nature at a much deeper level. And Descartes is struggling with that. He's trying to make sense of all that. So we certainly can't fault him for his doubt, because he's actually credited with the basic foundations of physics and the fact that with doubt in physics you can actually begin to prove a lot of other things, and so he's really credited with that. The fact that the philosophical doubt is always there, it pushes physics to have to claim the truths. So we're going to turn just to wrap this up. I know this has been heavy, long, slogging through very dense philosophy that most of the time we don't cover here in mojo minutes. But we're going to turn to the great conversation of book on the historical introduction to philosophy by Norman Meckart. I've shared from this book before. It's a wonderful book, especially if you're a philosophy student. I picked this up a number of years ago and it's helped me to kind of separate the wheat and the chaff, so to speak. But in this we get a good summary of what Descartes had done and why. It's important to understanding. Let's go to that book. It's possible to argue whether Descartes is the last of the medievals, of the first of the moderns. Like most such arguments about transitional figures, there's truth on both sides, but that both philosophy and our general view of the world have been different ever since is indisputable. Descartes develops a philosophy that reflects the newly developing sciences, like we just talked about, and in turn gives them legitimacy they otherwise lacked. A measure of his lasting influence is the fact that a significant part of philosophy since World War I has been devoted to showing that he was crucially wrong about some basic things which would not be worth doing unless his influence was still powerfully felt. So Descartes is our ancestor on that front. And then, finally, that the fact of he essentially creates epistemology, which is all about the study of knowledge, go into the book. In earlier philosophies there are many problems, the one in the many, the nature of reality explaining change, the soul, the existence of God. The problem of knowledge is just one among them. The Descartes' radical skepticism changes that After Descartes and until very recent times, most philosophers have thought that epistemological problems are absolutely foundational. Among these problems of knowledge, the problem about knowing the external world is the sharpest and the most dangerous? And we know anything at all beyond the contents of our minds? Unless this skeptical question can be satisfactorily answered, nothing else can be done. Epistemology is, for worse, the heart of philosophy for the next several hundred years. These are the problems that Descartes' successors will wrestle with, and that is why we should study Descartes. So in today's Mojo Minute, as we wrap up this Philosophy 101 class on Renee Descartes, just know that I think, therefore, am can be taken to an extreme. Thankfully, we can credit Descartes for teaching that athotic doubt, but that we cannot go too far down that rabbit hole, because skepticism is essentially a cul-de-sac. It offers no hope, and once we lose hope, that is against everything we know as a creature. Christian hope is in the fact that we do have a Creator who gives us hope. So, even though Descartes was a practicing Catholic, he missed some of his faith and not influencing his philosophy, but nevertheless important by far as a philosopher. That's why Peter Krief puts him in his Big Nine. We need to understand where that skepticism and that doubt comes from. But just know, I think, therefore, I AM can only go so far. So in today's Mojo Minute, that's one mind field that we can prevent ourselves from going towards or getting involved in, we can avoid those mind fields. So, as always, we can live a flourishing life.