New News Philosophy #5

Cartesian Skepticism

Rene Descartes: a person so skeptic he was the “Mac daddy of all skeptics”.

Note: skeptic = a person who questions the certainty of things.

Descartes was concerned he might be holding false beliefs, so he “upended his apple basket of beliefs”, deciding to start from scratch and disbelieved everything.

Descartes’ kinds of doubt:

1.Local Doubts

doubts about a particular sense experience in a certain point in time.

Possible to step out of that moment and check the truthfulness of that experience.

2.Global Doubts

the possibility that everything is an illusion

Isn’t possible to check the experience, like the false illusion of a world in the Matrix

The 5-minute Hypothesis

What if the world was created five minutes ago?

• things were made “pre-worn” by the Creator to seem old

• memories were implanted to correspond to the fake world.

IMPOSSIBLE to know whether the world was just created and the truthfulness of it all. A kind of global doubt.

Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum

Descartes could be certain be was doubting, so he MUST EXIST, at least as a thinking being.

Descartes’ ultimate conclusion:

1.Cogito (he himself exists)

2.God exists (God would not permit a false world)

3.The world isn’t made of illusions (not possible with god watching)