Instead of assuming what he was told to be true, Descartes questioned it. He encourages us to doubt all things, so that we will be unbiased about how we think and not simply refer back to what we have been taught and what we think we know without even trying. He wipes his brain of everything he knows to be true, "I expound the grounds if all things, and especially of material objects, so long at least, as we have no other foundations for the sciences than those we have hitherto possessed." This doubt can unravel further and further until we wonder if anything actually exists or if it is just in our minds. However, we also doubt our minds.
I think that he is right in implying one should not just assume something is true because it is what we have always believed, but that we should think for ourselves. However, questioning everything causes our world to become virtual chaos and we need something or someone that we can rely on and hold to be true in the midst of it. If we trust God, who is always steady, whether people doubt Him or not, we can stay rooted.
PS- I commented on Chloe Rush
A couple of things I saw when I was reading this. I think that it is impossible to completely throw everything that we know out the window, all the biases and things of that nature have been fixed in our find to where we can't forget some of it. I believe that we should eliminate all biases that are ungrounded and stop believing everything that our parents tell us like you said. I also think that it is physically impossible to doubt your mind due to, "cogito ergo sum" which tells us that thinking is the only way to know that we exist therefore we have to have a mind.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the world would be a virtual chaos if we questioned everything. I think that we can not fully grasp the concept of all of life's questions. I don't believe we can doubt our minds due to using our minds and thinking skills to try and doubt it.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first comment, please point out to me any flaws/incoherence/ basic writing errors that I may have missed.
ReplyDeleteI saw a few things when reading this, but perhaps the best way to explain this is to use the analogy of a house. We talked in class about destroying 'all' preconceived notions, about shaking the very foundation of our thoughts. I began to think about this as soon as it was mentioned. When rebuilding the house of what we currently know to be true, we must first tear it down. Not so hard, at least until you get to the foundation. One must ask him/herself "What is the foundation of what we know to be true? What is that one thing that, when changed, can lead to our viewing of the world being radically different?" Eventually one comes to the conclusion that the foundation is essentially assumed, and cannot be restructured. One cannot build a house on a wet cement foundation that has not been tried, and one cannot completely change the skeleton of how we view the world. If the person is the same, then their mind is the same. If their mind is the same, then they cannot question what they already know.