The Fuzzy Theoretic Turn (original) (raw)

RENÉ DESCARTES' CONCEPTION OF CERTAINTY: From the Infallibity of human mind to its Reliability

This article describes the Cartesian conception of certainty in its epistemological approach. Its main question is:"Can we really know with certainty?" On the one hand, René Descartes says that we can know with certainty if we respectively doubt our former knowledge, the senses, dreams, evil genius and even the mathematical truths. On the other hand, he argues that we can know with certainty if and only if we rely on the followingfour epistemological requirements: "evidence" about reality; "division" that deals with the various parts of the same reality; "order" helps to move from simple ideas to the complex ones; and enumeration dealing withthe relevant and holistic ideas about reality. In his epistemological approach of certainty, Descartes affirms that human reason/mind is both infallible and reliable. However, this article also aims at showing and even proving that human reason is reliable without being infallible. Since we can partially know something about the whole reality, our new epistemological approach deals with "probability" instead ofdealing with certainty.

The Giants of Doubt: A Comparison between Epistemological Aspects of Descartes and Pascal

Open Journal of Philosophy, 2012

The essay is a comparative look at Descartes' and Pascal's epistemology. For such vast a topic, I shall confine myself to comparing three crucial epistemological topics, through which I hope to evince Descartes' and Pascal's differences and points of contact. Firstly, I will concentrate on the philosophers' engagement with skepticism, which, for each, had different functions and motivations. Secondly, the thinkers' relation to Reason shall be examined, since it is the fulcrum of their thought—and the main aspect that separates them. Lastly, I will examine each philosopher's theist epistemology; this section, of course, will focus on how and by what means Descartes and Pascal set out to prove God's existence. The latter aspect shall take us back to each philosopher's relationship to Doubt: the title, " The Giants of Doubt ", in fact, implies a fundamental link between Descartes and Pascal through Doubt. In addition, and most importantly, the contrast between the two thinkers' epistemology inaugurates a decisive scission in modern thought of enormous repercussion: Descartes' sturdy rationalism initiated the great branch of modern scientific inquiry, while Pascal's appeal to the power of intuition and feelings would eventually be the precursor of the reaction to the enlightenment that invested Europe by the second half of the eighteenth century. This departure of thought, which in my view may be traced back to them, has not been the common conceit of the history of philosophy: the reaction to the enlightenment has customarily been regarded as stemming from its internal contradictions or at best from its more radical doctrines. The essay shall show that these strands of thought were both parallel and born out of the antithetical epistemologies of Descartes and Pascal.

Science, Certainty, and Descartes

PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:249 - 262., 1989

During the 1630s Descartes recognized that he could not expect all legitimate claims in natural science to meet the standard of absolute certainty. The realization resulted from a change in his physics, which itself arose not through methodological reflections, but through developments in his substantive metaphysical doctrines. Descartes discovered the metaphysical foundations of his physics in 1629-30; as a consequence, the style of explanation employed in his physical writings changed. His early methodological conceptions, as preserved in the Rules and sketched in Part Two of the Discourse, pertained primarily to his early work in optics. By the early 1630s, Descartes was concerned with new methodological problems pertaining to the postulation of micro-mechanisms. Recognition of the need to employ a method of hypothesis led him to lower the standard of certainty required of particular explanations in his mature physics.

Scholastic Probability as Rational Assertability: The Rise of Theories of Reasonable Disagreement

The scholastics used probabilis as predicate for the legitimate adoption of opinions. In the Middle Ages, an opinion was mainly called probable if it was, according to Aristotle's topical definition, held by " the wise and the many ". On this basis, two logically incompatible opinions could be considered probable at the same time, yet without entailing the rational assertability of both sides in a dispute. This changed in 17 th century scholasticism. After a short flourishing of watered down, but no longer Aristotelian characterizations of scholastic probability, the predicate probabilis was widely defined as explicitly entailing rational assertability. The simultaneous rational assertability of incompatible opinions by epistemic peers (and hence the possibility of reasonable disagreement) was justified by some scholastics with the distinction between commensurable and incommensurable evidence. Moreover, weak and strong forms of rational assertability were distinguished and, at least by one influential author, explained with a lottery paradox. In sum, detailed accounts of the possibility of reasonable disagreement emerged in Baroque scholasticism.