Philosophy discussion

I have read in a number of places that Descartes, 'took everything off the table to start again.' Does he actually refer to taking things off a table in one of his texts (I can't find it in Meditations) or is this just other people's interpretation of his doubting approach. I am curious to know.
Thanks very much.
Ali

I think the closest thing he says to that effect is about flattening and reworking wax...there might be something though.

Thanks Mark! Descartes' wax argument - I have come across that before and yeah you are probably right... that might be where all these 'Table' references come from.
Thx again.
Ali

I apologize for the extremely late response but it appears as someone's own interpretation of the text. As Mark already stated that's the closest reference he has to taking things off the table.

He does use a few similar metaphors as I recall; as if he was looking around his chambers during the time of writing and seizing on something common to illustrate his point. Wax and something else ...I can't recollect to mind...

Aha! A man walking down the street outside his window in a suit of clothes. That was one.

thanks Sarr and Feliks for your feedback... I've re-read Meditations on First Philosophy since the post and couldn't find anything specific to him taking things off tables..but came across the wax the argument (mentioned by Mark) and the man outside the window. And you're right Feliks he is good with metaphors... "raze everything to the ground and start again from original foundations", this may be where the table interpretation came from. I don't mind Descartes ...he is a relatively easy read. Thanks again.
Ali

I would say that "taking everything off the table" simply refers to Descartes project of radical doubt. He resolves to doubt absolutely everything until he can establish that it is indubitable and absolutely certain. It's the same as saying he "cleared the board" or "started with a clean slate". He does not use those words himself. Someone is paraphrasing.
The wax argument is one of a number of arguments used to show that the senses can be deceived. What looks firm and smells like flowers turns out to be liquid and to have no smell when set close enough to the fire. Senses deceive so they are not indubitable and certain. Likewise beliefs &c, &c.

Agreed. In fact I was just reading some concise summaries of Descartes this very week. Michael Gelven says that Descartes asserted --via his powerful technique of doubt--the ability of the mind alone to perceive a world of objects, including itself.

Then Kant came along and modified Descartes by taking into account --and finding a place for--the subjectivity and a priori ideas which Descartes set aside. Kant found a bridge between these and Descartes. This, in turn, set the stage for Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger.

I'm paraphrasing, and probably badly. I can return with a specific quote tomorrow.

Feliks wrote: "Agreed. In fact I was just reading some concise summaries of Descartes this very week. Michael Gelven says that Descartes asserted --via his powerful technique of doubt--the ability of the mind alo..."

Feel free if you have time Feliks but I do follow your basic thread and Gelvin sounds pretty spot on from the little that you have quoted. All I would add is that you've left out Hume. I think in reality Kant felt forked by Descartes on side and Hume (who awoke him from his dogmatic slumber) on the other and so he tried to find a synthesis. He had until that point accepted rationalist argument (the dogmatism I take it he is referring to) and he was profoundly impressed by Hume's empiricism but could not accept the consequences - the radical scepticism regarding our access to any proofs about the natural world that flowed from it.
So he tried to find a way of accepting the starting point of the Hume's empirical world but saving it from it's sceptical end point by bringing rationalism back in via the back door, "intuitions without concepts are blind".
On a related note I think Hume is far too often mistaken as saying that the problems he finds with induction "prove" that the world of causation is not justified. That's not at all what Hume was saying and Hume himself makes it clear that he believes in causation, he simply makes the point that you can't prove it i.e. 'you can't get there from here'.

But we are getting off topic.

Hume was indeed mentioned in the text I've been enjoying. I forgot to include him here in this chat :(

Anyway. He was styled by Gelven as being opposed to Descartes, holding that there was no basis to suppose the mind alone was capable of apprehending objects outside of experience. Yes, and Kant tried to reconcile them...partly via a spatial/relationship theory.

Good reminder. Your comment was interesting in several ways at once.

Yes Hume thought Descartes completely wrong but he found the whole Rationalist tradition to be entirely wrong headed. Descartes 'proves' that the mind is not a material by relying on the concept of innate ideas. Hume being empiricist and therefore starting from the position that you get nothing a priori believes your only access to the world is through the senses and that ideas are simply thoughts about sensations so again Gelvin seems to have it in one. I'd go read his book if I hadn't had enough Descartes to last me a lifetime.

Oh, these are only remarks Gelven made in passing. The book I'm reading is his summary of Heidegger. Very rewarding to me. I'm obsessed with phenomenology these days.

I just figured that out in fact. Found the book on Amazon so I assume the discussion on Descartes came up in scene setting for Heidegger's thorough thrashing of his rationalist boogie men.

I have a soft spot for phenomenology too. I've read both Mark Wrathall and Hubert Dreyfus on Heidegger's BT and I'm currently reading A Companion to Phenomenology and Existentialism - Eds. Dreyfus & Wrathall.
I've tried to read BT itself but found the going slow (though not without it's arcane pleasures).
https://www.amazon.com/Companion-Phen...

I have not even gotten to Kant yet, however, when I read Descartes, I thought that he had already created a bridge - or that one was implicit through corroboration of experience via communication (it has been a while since I read Descartes, so perhaps I have mentally inserted this 'implicit' bridge). I think (from what I have read about Kant - which is obviously not the same as reading him, although he is on the to-read-list) that Kant made some logical arguments in order to reconcile rationalism with ___.

Someone please correct me :)!

Boradicus wrote: "I have not even gotten to Kant yet, however, when I read Descartes, I thought that he had already created a bridge - or that one was implicit through corroboration of experience via communication (..."

I'm not sure Boradicus what you feel that Descartes bridged. If you mean that he bridged between Rationalism and Empiricism then I think you are confusing him with Kant. Indeed your comment about "experience via communication" sounds quite Kantian.
Descartes was entirely a Rationalist and it is Descartes Rationalism (we have access to things beyond the physical) along with religious dogmatism generally (both Catholic and Protestant) that Hume was attacking. He felt that both Rationalism and Religious conviction of the strong kind were all metaphysics and because his Empiricist convictions convinced him we could not reach beyond the world of the senses we could not possibly have access to answers of the metaphysical kind.

In the case of Kant he was famously 'woken from his rationalist slumbers' by Hume but deeply disturbed by the implications of Hume's insistence that we could never prove a causal chain (because for Hume to do so would be to look behind the world into metaphysics). Thus he (Kant) attempted to bridge between Rationalism and Empiricism by keeping things like 'a priori' thought (Rationalism) while insisting that we could only access it through our human existence in the natural world (Empiricism).

That's very roughly speaking of course and whether or not he managed to achieve that synthesis is of course very contentious.

Thanks! That is very interesting! I do seem to recall reading something about Kant creating a kind of logical synthesis. As Machiavelli said, we cannot trust what we see, but we can only know through 'touching' (i.e. rational appraisal). I think that Descartes was of a similar sentiment in that regard, yet there is more to rational appraisal than simply analyzing our own internal models of the things that we do perceive.

It sounds like I should first re-read Descartes, and then proceed to Hume before tackling Kant. Would that be your recommendation?

Thanks :D

Then, should I probably move on the Thomas Kuhn?

You could read them in that order certainly and you would be following the historical development. However, there's no real need to do so. It's not like Hume spends a lot of time taking on Descartes directly. In the 'Enquiry' he mentions Descartes by name only two or three times and while there are other parts of his argument that can be seen to refer directly to Descartes you have to know your Descartes pretty well to pick them up. That said if you missed those references it wouldn't make any real difference because Hume is prosecuting his own arguments 95% of the time and sideswiping Descartes and rationalism is just something he does for fun along the way. By which I mean his main argument against Descartes is his own positive argument for his own case.

Similarly Kant acknowledges Hume but then proceeds mainly to build his own case.

Certainly, I would probably read Hume before Kant but if you didn't well no harm done and no real knowledge lost.
Also, I don't think I'd actually read Kant himself. He is notoriously difficult, comprising of turgid prose and confusing and overly complicated arguments.
You can read Hume for the sheer enjoyment of watching him construct his argument and the playful and ironic tone with which he writes, and you can read Descartes for the almost mathematical clarity of his ideas and the brilliance of his analogies and examples but you have to be a little cracked to read Kant for pleasure. Read a good exposition of Kant's ideas.
I'd recommend 'Allen W. Wood - Kant' which is short and to the point and he really knows his stuff or if you want something a little (well a lot) longer and more detailed, 'Paul Guyer - Kant' who specialises as a Kant scholar.

For Hume read his 'An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding' as opposed to his 'Treatise of Human Nature'. The Treatise is a bit muddled compared to the Enquiry and they both cover the same topics.
And of course Descartes 'Meditations' are a joy.
However in both cases (Hume and Descartes) I would recommend reading a good explicatory text alongside or prior.
For Hume you can't go past 'Stephen Buckle - Hume's Enlightenment Tract' (I studied under Stephen B at uni and he's a world renowned Hume scholar). Hellen Bebee is also excellent though she concentrates on Hume's arguments about causation in particular.
For Descartes probably Harry M Bracken - Descartes' or 'Bernard Williams - Descartes: The Project Of Pure Enquiry.

If you go on to Kuhn then it sounds as if you are doing a course in Epistemology. All of the writers you mention from Descartes to Kuhn take the philosophy of knowledge as one of their central concerns. I'd do some reading in general Epistemology as well as this would help you compare and contrast. Perhaps 'Audi - Modern Epistemology'.

Another excellent resource which is free is https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html A massive resource on philosophy written by philosophers each of whom is an expert on the entry for which they write upon.
Similarly http://www.iep.utm.edu/
Reading on each of the philosophers above at these two resources will give you a good start. You can read the entries on epistemology as well.

Well, epistemology is certainly an important puzzle piece for all of the authors that you mentioned. I appreciate your recommendations. I prefer to go straight to the original author of any work; however, not having the benefit of an instructor at present, additional resources can be quite helpful!

Is the Audi book a compilation of other modern authors who you have not specifically mentioned, or is it a particular work unto itself? If it is the former, who might some of those unmentioned authors be so that I might look them up?

Also, I do have Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, which I failed to mention as being on my reading list; how would you fit his work in to the reading plan? I actually like Locke quite a lot, so I don't think I would want to miss what he has to contribute.

Thank you!

The Audi is a book by Audi himself not a collection.

Locke is interesting but he really doesn't have a lot to say to us today outside of political theory and that is mostly of relevance to Americans.
His epistemology and his empiricism were completely overhauled by Hume to the point that he is interesting as a precursor but if you had to chose between the two I'd read Hume. Of course if you have time then read both. I'd tend to start with Hume then read Locke to see where he (Hume) was coming from.

Thank you again. That sounds like sound advice.

One can't help but return again and again to Descartes once you're aware of him. Even on a casual basis, he continues to fascinate.

Here's my latest musing on the rogue

If he starts out his premise with, 'I think, therefore I am'--well, how does he first establish that he is thinking? In what way does he prove that point to himself? Has anyone mulled this over?

Its been too long since I had time to read him but I'd like to hear what your off-the-cuff opinions might be.

Feliks wrote: "One can't help but return again and again to Descartes once you're aware of him. Even on a casual basis, he continues to fascinate.

Here's my latest musing on the rogue

If he starts out his premi..."

A better translation would be "I doubt, therefore I am." In the context of his meditation, it makes sense, because the meditation has up to that point focused on all the things that he says that can doubt. People have both focused on whether it's possible to doubt all the things he says he can - in some ways this is part of what Wittgenstein's On Certainty is about - and also on what content, if any, the Cartesian "I" has. Hume has a wonderful argument proving that there is no "I." Hume's capacity for doubt was much deeper than DesCartes.

Good points. Thanks Duff Man

Feliks wrote: "If he starts out his premise with, 'I think, therefore I am'--well, how does he first establish that he is thinking? In what way does he prove that point to himself? i..."

That's pretty spot on Feliks. Ask most epistemologists today and the point they will make is that to be truly rigorous all Descartes can say is "doubt exists" or "there is doubting". If he wishes to call that doubt 'I' then he has to prove it but he doesn't. Doesn't even attempt to.

In the literature it's colloquially known as "sneaking the 'I' in through the back door."

G. wrote: "Gerard wrote: "Feliks wrote: "If he starts out his premise with, 'I think, therefore I am'--well, how does he first establish that he is thinking? In what way does he prove that point to himself? i..."

Dear God you're boring!

You remind me of a person who joins a community choir. The choir may not be brilliant but it is trying and enjoying singing Bach's choral but there's often one guy sitting in the middle who thinks it's funny to sing 'pop goes the weasel!' out of key.

You haven't contributed a thing of any substance at all. You just troll the group with these ill thought out, five word absurd nullities.

If you want to troll people there are places like 4 chan where they will welcome you then tear strips off you. The rest of us here are interested in trying to partake in a discussion about a particular related group of ideas. Please either contribute something along those lines, with some reasoned arguments, or go away and stop spamming us.

Interesting discussion. I think, Ali, as others have mentioned, that Descartes doesn't use the exact phrase, "taking everything off the table", but does use words to that effect. At some point (in the Discourse, perhaps?) he uses the analogy of a barrel of apples, where each "apple" (belief) must be checked individually, in case there is a bad one which infects all the others.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure "I doubt, therefore I am" is a more precise interpretation of Descartes's point. Doesn't doubting imply and require thought? Thinking therefore seems a more primary activity. We are not primarily "doubting things", for our mental activity does not always involve doubting - whereas it does (at least for D) always involve thinking (even though our physical existence would seem not to always involve thinking...).

I agree with the "smuggling in through the back door" comments about the "I", though I don't think Hume proves that the "I" doesn't exist, only that we cannot assume from the evidence ("there are thoughts"), that these thoughts have a centre or cause. The scepticism Hume employs here is the same that he uses in relation to our knowledge of cause and effect in general. However, his conclusion there is not that there are no determinate causes, but merely that our knowledge of them is not due to the identification of a specific idea or principle. Instead, he argues that it is "custom" that fills in the blank: A causes B, because we have experienced that "constant conjunction" borne out over centuries. There would appear to be no certainty here, but Hume seems to suggest that we should trust such evidence over other forms of justification (even if this only gives us probability). Couldn't this then be applied to the existence of "I"? Not sure, for unlike fire and heat, the "I" is not something we experience (arguably). But at least, I would say it's existence is not disproven - it's merely a metaphysical assumption that we perhaps can't prove (in which case it's not greatly different to physical laws).

H'mm? Perplexing remarks in message #26. Who's that message intended for?