The Illusion of Descartes

1/17 century philosopher is famous for questioning everything. The one thing that I cannot doubt is that I'm doubting because if I doubt that I'm doubting it's necessary for me to doubt that I'm doubting so that if I doubt that I'm donning. I have about the doll that I'm doubting, so there's no way I can escape the reality of doubt that you do through his graduate. Those are the thoughts though of remainder court.

He was a French philosopher and mathematician who set out to question every assumption and to build a new philosophical system. Heifers were to release the cause quite a storm and they still trouble us today on Renewing Your Mind. Controversy scroll continues a series on classical apologetics by addressing the thoughts of the daughter and revealing the unshakable foundation of truth in our last session, I outlined the four generic possibilities to explain reality as we encounter borrowing a bit from the ancient approach of St. Augustine to this question. I'm going to repeat those four principles and look at each one in greater detail so that if something exists. This piece of chalk or whatever it is that we can have for possible explanations for the first is that it is an illusion.

The second one is that it is self-created.

The third is that it is self existent, and the fourth is that it is created by something ultimately that is self existent and those were the four possibilities that may seem to many people to be a Herculean waste of time to really spend any time at all eliminating the first alternative that everything that we think exists is but an illusion, but there have been serious philosophers in history who have argued precisely that point that the world and everything in it is simply somebody else's dream, or is basically illusory and doesn't exist at all. So in order to deal with this first principle. I'm going to call as my primary witness René Descartes, the father of modern rationalism. The 17th century thinker who was also a mathematician who was very much concerned in his day about a new form of skepticism that had arrived on the scene of Western Europe following the 16th-century Protestant Reformation because in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. There was a crisis in authority. Previous to the Reformation Christians. For example, in the monolithic church singer from if they had disputes could appeal to the church to render a verdict and when the church gave the verdict that settled the controversy because the authority of the church was deemed to be the least sacrosanct and at best infallible and with the challenge to the authority of the church that came with the Protestant Reformation, then the whole question of how can we know anything for sure became a serious problem for people and not only did you see the breakdown of church authority. But you also saw the breakdown and collapse of scientific authority because in addition to the Reformation that occurred in the 16th century also in the 16th century. The Copernican revolution in astronomy took place, which created the enormous crisis of the tradition of scientific authority that had followed in the wake of the ancient Ptolemaic system of the universe and Copernicus upset that apple cart and raised all kinds of questions about the trustworthiness of science.

This controversy over the Copernican revolution carried over into the 17th century where the Galileo episode became prominent in the life of the church were Galileo with the use of his telescope was confirming the mathematical theories of the 16th-century astronomers by pointing his telescope into the heavens and demonstrating the verification of these theories of the 16th-century. So not only in theology and philosophy but also in science. There was a crisis of authority and what Descartes was trying to do in his philosophical inquiry was to reestablish some foundation for certainty with respect to truth and he was looking for what he called clear and distinct ideas ideas that were indubitable ideas that could not be rejected without rejecting reasoned at the same time which ideas could then form a foundation for the reconstruction of knowledge rather in the scientific sphere or in the theological, philosophical, arena, and so the process that Descartes followed in order to achieve certainty was to follow a plan of uncertainty or skepticism. What he did was he embarked upon a rigorous pursuit of skepticism in which he sought to bring doubt upon everything he could conceivably doubt. In other words he wanted to give this second glance to every assumed truth that people held, and he asked questions epistemological question, do we really know that this is true sometimes I like to go back to first principles, myself, and in fact my whole bent and philosophical inquiry is to keep coming back to foundational principles to the fundamental truths and often make a list say to myself what are 10 things that I know for sure when I'll write them down and then thou subject those 10 things to the most rigorous criticism I can to make sure that I'm not just believing them because somebody I like taught them to me because of my love lines my traditions the subculture in which I come from. I want to know how I know that these things that I think are true really are true and that principle is one the most important principles for breakthroughs in any kind of knowledge. One of the great principles for new discoveries is the principle of challenging assumptions because that's how philosophers breakthrough musicians breakthrough that self scientist breakthrough where they challenge assumptions the previous generations have been made and accepted uncritically and passed on from generation to generation. That's all. The Ptolemaic system survive for over a thousand years is by people accepting series without the theories ever having been proven and so we need to do that ourselves subject their own thinking to a rigorous cross-examination because you've all seen what happens in trials where you hear somebody given their case and you hear one side of it and it makes sense and you sitting there nodding yes yes yes until the cross-examination comes and people began to raise questions about the testimony that you've heard and by the time your done listening to both sides are not sure who's telling the truth and so there's something valuable and that that doesn't mean you have to surrender to skepticism. But this is what Descartes was doing something I doubt everything I can conceivably doubt I'm going to doubt what I see with my eyes and what I hear with my ears because I understand that my senses can be deceived and we've talked about that going back to Augustine's bent toward you know that you look in the water and the order looks like it's been and this is what Descartes did and he said not only that maybe this world is controlled by the great deceiver a great satanic demonic being who is a liar who constantly gives me a false view of reality and that maybe he is the master of illusion and so he keeps bringing these illusions in front of me to deceive me. How can I know that reality is, as I perceive it to be remembered back to the basic foundational principles we started with one of which was the basic reliability.

Since perception because if we cannot trust our senses in the basic rudimentary form than we have no way of getting outside the interior of our minds and making contact with an external world and this is what is known as the subject object problem. How do I know that the object of world out there is, as I perceive it from within my own subjective perspective and as I say Descartes was acutely conscious of that. So he came up with some of the most preposterous possibilities and he said no. Maybe if this doesn't make a lot of sense to think of a great deceiver producing this vast illusion out there, but it's possible and so if it's possible that I can't know for sure that reality is, as I perceive it to be so again. What can I know for sure wanting after going through this elaborate doubting process. He came to his famous motto or slogan for which she is so well known. The cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am.

He said no matter how skeptical I become. The one thing that I cannot doubt whenever I'm doubting what it is that I'm doubting is that I'm doubting because if I doubt that I'm doubting it's necessary for me to doubt that I'm doubting so that if I doubt that I'm doubting. I have to doubt the dog that I'm doubting, so there's no way I can escape the reality of doubt, you say well I doubt it.

Well if you say I doubt it. You have proven the very point in dispute is the one thing about which there is no doubt is that I'm doubting because of the doubt that you prove my premise and so he came to conclusion that there is no doubt that I'm doubting and then he raise this question, what is required for there to be doubt only said for there to be doubt. Doubt requires cognition. Doubt requires thought conscious thought, because doubt is an action of thinking without thinking. There can be no doubting. So if I'm doubting I know what that I'm thinking now at least I think that I'm thinking you say you don't think that I'm thinking while in order for you to say you don't think that I'm thinking you must be thinking so I can't escape the reality that I am thinking because the doubt is to think and then he goes to the next premise that justice doubt requires a doubter just as thought requires a thinker. So if I'm doubting I must conclude rationally that I'm thinking and if I'm thinking I must be I must exist because that which does not exist. Cannot think that which cannot think cannot doubt. And since there's no doubt that I'm doubting with me and also that I'm thinking if I'm thinking I am also existing and so I come to the conclusion he says cogito. I'm thinking ergo therefore, some I and now people were not students of philosophy. Look at that elaborate process. The Descartes goes through and say this is why philosophy is so foolish that somebody would spend all this time and all this effort to learn what everybody already knows who's alive and awake and conscious that they are in fact existing nobody really is denying their own existence and not really believing that they are simply a star appearing in somebody else's dream, but again, remember what Descartes was about.

He was a mathematician and he was looking for certainty at the philosophical realm that would equal in force and power and rational compulsion. The certainty that can be arrived at in mathematics and so he goes through this process and he wants to get a primary principle says that I can then crawl onto my Dutch oven and then use the art of deduction were not dependent upon my senses to come to an understanding of truth and so I begin with a knowledge of my own self consciousness. 462 lectures ago when we talked about presupposition apologetics that for classical apologetics.

The starting point is not God consciousness because we say only God can start their but the epistemological starting point of Christian apologetics has to be self-consciousness for you start in your own mind because that's the only mind you have at your disposal and that all thought begins with an awareness of the conscious awareness of one's thinking, or one's existence so that what Descartes is getting at here is whatever else may be in doubt.

The fact that I am a self-conscious existing person is not in doubt and that I do not have to look at my feet to know that I exist. I'm not dependent on any external perception. I am now learning this to simply from the interior processes of thought in the mind and not dependent on external data so he stays within the realm of rational deduction for his conclusion know the reason this is important is that Descartes is disposing with the first option that reality is an illusion.

There may indeed be illusions in reality but if we say that all reality is illusion that would mean that nothing exists, including myself, and I can never even doubt the existence of myself without proving the reality of myself. That's the point he's trying to get at that that first of the four alternatives as a sufficient reason to account for the universe has to be discarded because his argument proves that something exists, and that something that exists. If nothing else is his own consciousness and other were supported.

Another way is that if I think that this piece of chalk is an illusion may be, I didn't say that this piece of chalk proves the existence of God.

What I'm saying is that if this piece of chalk actually exists, then it would prove the existence of God.

But this piece of chalk might be an illusion.

And so I have to take a little different pack there and say if anything exists then God must exist that way.

I'm not hidebound to this particular bit of reality. The piece of chalk because maybe this piece of chalk is an illusion not only it is but it could be theoretically but what I have to establish if my system is going to work is that something exists in there. I think Descartes for solving that problem for me by proving the existence of himself. Now what are the things that he's assuming in order to arrive at his conclusion, and there are philosophers who don't agree with this premise, cogito ergo sum who still insist that there's no basis in reality for his coming to that conclusion and they point out correctly at least this far, that there are certain assumptions that Descartes is making along the way. In order to come to this conclusion and there are two major assumptions that he's making in order to come to the conclusion that because he's doubting he must be thinking. And because he's thinking he must be existing. The first assumption that he is making clearly is the epistemological principle of the law of non-contradiction. He's assuming logic. He is assuming rationality is me because he saying if I am doubting if I doubt that I'm doubting, then I must be doubting that is a logical conclusion based upon the law of non-contradiction where the existential, irrationalist may say well, so what that it's irrational he can still be living in an illusion where doubters can doubt without doubting. And that's what irrational people say but remember that classical apologetics is only trying to show that reason requires the existence of the self existent eternal being is somebody is an atheist and said I don't believe the existence of God because I don't believe in rationality I give them the microphone and say please tell the whole world that your alternative to theism is absurd.

Save me the problem and the difficulty of having to demonstrate it. I don't have to demonstrate it. If you acknowledge it, but I mean I have taken themselves out of any intelligent discussion as soon as they admit that there premise is one of your rationality what Descartes is trying to say is just as mathematics is rational justice sound science is rational so some philosophy must also be rational and if you are going to be rational and if you are going to be logical, you cannot deny that to doubt you must doubt and then the second premise that he is assuming is the second law that we talked about at the beginning of this course, which is the law of causality when he says that doubting requires a doubter he is saying that doubt is in the fact that requires an antecedent, so some the critics of Descartes would say hello. While this doesn't prove that he exists because he's assuming logic and he's assuming causality and we don't accept those premises and we said okay that's fine if you want to be irrational because remember we saw that the law of causality is simply an extension of the law of non-contradiction, that the law of causality that says that every effect must have an antecedent cause is a formal truth.

Assistance is formally true is to into four because it's true by definition. So if we assume member I said we can.

You dare not negotiate the law of non-contradiction and you dare not negotiate the law causality because if you do, you'll end up in absurdity. But if you use these principles that are necessary for all intelligible discourse in all science. In all philosophy and all theology, then you cannot escape.

I don't think the conclusion that Descartes gives that we can through resistance logic through formal reasoning alone come the conclusion of our own existence, which then satisfies that first premise about illusion and we can illuminate that as one of the possible alternatives for sufficient reason for the existence of instructors use Bolshoi additional 100 is a useful tool in apologetics. Glad you joined us for the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind each week be returned to Dr. Spruill series defending your faith.

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