#4
The Great Project
The passage which I will write my essay on is taken from Descartes’ Meditation on First Philosophy No.1, section 9 the ‘Cartesian doubt.’ “Having no answer to these arguments, I am driven back to the position that doubts can properly be raised about any of my former beliefs. I don’t reach this conclusion in a flippant or casual manner, but on the basis of powerful and well thought-out reasons” (AT VII 21.23). It seems that Descartes finally turned himself finally into a nihilist in despair. Later in this meditation, he explains honestly that he has to conquer the habit of lazily assenting to the habitual customs, therefore, “I had better switch right around and pretend (for a while) that these former opinions of mine are utterly false and imaginary.” Although Descartes comes off as a skeptic, he is actually fighting to it until he has something solid like Archimedes’ firm point, showing that we can know some for certain.
Descartes opens the first Meditation with his personal reflection on his life project. He claims that he will rely on the rigorous use of his own faculty of reason, accepting nothing as true that cannot be verified from within his own conscious mind. Then he starts the “quest for certainty,” rebutting the skeptic. He determines to start his grand project as “once in life everything out to be completely overturned, and out to be completely rebuilt from the first foundations.” The upper excerpt acts as “clear the way” preamble to the seeking of a new foundation for the future;
Physics, Astronomy, Medicine, and all other sciences dealing with things that have complex structures are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other studies of the simplest and most general things – whether they really exist in nature or not – contain something certain and indubitable.”
As a Math Genius, Descartes likes to rely on logic and mathematics to construct his complete new philosophical edifice.
In this meditation, all the reasons are given as to why he doubts everything, especially the material things. Although it is not clear that this doubt is useful, still it frees us of all prejudices and paves a rational path leading the mind away from the senses. Finally, it’s impossible to doubt further those things that shall be true. The key step, as is well-known, lies in the role played by the evil genius. Descartes points out that however powerful this evil demon is, while he is being deceived, it is at least true that he exists. “I am, I exist,” whenever he thinks he asserts it. Doubts are calmed, and the philosopher stone is found. With this, he wants “to build anything firm and lasting in the science” - his once-in-a-life project.
Traditional meditation practice, especially the Eastern ways start with detachment. This mirrors Descartes’ philosophical catharsis, using his mind power to doubt and examine, moving from sensation to mind, to science and mathematics, to theology. He begins by rejecting the commonsense epistemological principles on which everything he formerly believed rested. Like a lunatic, he presents himself in despair on the endeavoring path, reflecting for a revolutionary change. He will recognize the reflexive, and corrective power of the will, discover the law of reduction as a principle to validate arguments. Ascending from psychology to ontology, he will reconstruct the substantial world and knowledge within the Self and the God.
I appreciate and agree with his grand work of rebuilding the foundations for the modern philosophy, mathematics, and sciences. For a longtime the Western science (2nd century BC -16th century AD) was stagnant due to the inability of reasoning, to the confused, and messed up knowledge systems. Here I will put Aristotle's naturalist approach and his overly-relying upon common sense as the bellwether, with perhaps some Christian clichés. The world needs to rekindle Plato's rational sense again. Descartes' general approach to knowledge and truth inherited more from Pythagoras, Plato. Newton claimed that “What Descartes did was a good step…If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Descartes' goals are very reasonable, brave, and self-confident. He is the first man of high philosophic capacity whose outlook is profoundly affected by the new physics and astronomy. It is feasible that natural laws and knowledges need to be systematized based on math and logic. As an explorer, he communicates his discoveries in a passionate, amateur way, but of high quality.
However, some may not accept his extreme ways of seasoning. Why do philosophers like to go crazy? This is also showed in another philosopher, David Hume - his later opponent, a pure empiricist. From my scientific background and personal experience, pure math and the theoretic physics are usually extreme. The strong power of the truth and mind push the discoverers not well-balance in the society. However, in abstract thinking, intellectual memory is different from perceptual memory, that pure science and math are independent of common sense. The law of noncontradiction in math and logics, the simple vivid truth and beautiful formula are independent of the context of application. Descartes was taught the geocentric model of the Solar system by Jesuit school; he was keenly aware of the observations Galileo made that conflicted the geo-centric in favor of the helio-centric. If people could be wrong about something as simple as the Sun rising and setting, what else could they be sure about?
The move from sensation, perceptions to the physical world, to physics, to math, then to logic and, finally, to theology is a movement from confusion to precision and clarity. Following a typical Platonic way of abstraction, Descartes’ project is gaining power, stable truths, and knowledge. He set up his mind through a skeptical beginning has been affected by the mind power of a free will, whose operations are beyond understanding. As a pioneer and noble amateur, Descartes has a dualism between contemporary science and traditional scholasticism. This led him into inconsistencies, but more importantly it made him richer in fruitful ideas than any others, embracing both schools of thinking.
Descartes is considered the father of modern philosophy. This is justifiable due to firstly, his break with the Aristotelian tradition prevalent at his time; and secondly, to his works on the new mechanistic sciences. He addressed the first issue via his method of doubt. His insistence on the beauty of pure math, simple model, natural laws harmonized like music continues the effort from Pythagoras, Archimedes, Galileo, and leads to Newton, Gauss, Einstein, and on. As a rationalist thinker, he accomplished his life project. Also, his great invention of the cartesian coordination system with analytic math, his basic scientific research, especially his rational methods and mediations paved the road for the later comings. The great project he built with methods and meditations benefit mankind a lot; even up to now it is widely practiced in all the fields of natural sciences and extended to the model of social sciences.
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