I think, therefore I am!

The only thing that I cannot doubt while doubting, is that I am doubting

The dude who said this was called Descartes, RENÉ Descartes.

Descartes is coined as the father of “Modern Philosophy”. He was a French philosopher, physicist and a mathematician (Woah!! ALL at the same time!!) and his ways of thinking and approaching to things were quite different from his predecessors.

He differed in two major aspects:

1) First, he did not focus on the classification of Corporeal substances (substances that occupy space and can be perceived by one or more senses) into matter and form and

2) Second, he does not believe in any appeal to ends – divine or natural – in explaining the natural phenomena.

His claim to fame was cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. His ideology rests upon the assumption that any entity that can think, exists and any entity can think only and only if it exists.

During the 16^th & 17^th centuries, basics of science were being formed with Renaissance, the human beliefs held as concrete so far – were being compelled to be changed and thwarted. Galileo had discovered moon and it was established that “man”, after all is not the centre of the universe and rather, just a very small part of it.

Descartes, a man of science himself, was an ardent follower and believer in Logical, clear and distinct ideas. With all the changes happening in the world, he himself was in a theological thought process on what truth to accept and what to reject. What reality to embrace and what to let go off.

He figured that the only way to solve this is to deconstruct everything he believes so far. Thus begins his methodical process of doubt. He starts to systematically doubt everything around him – the reliability of the five senses, the existence of physical objects, the foundations of science and even, the existence of God himself. He pulls everything apart and tries to understand the whole process of doubting. He even compares his impressions of physical objects as perceived by him to be the impressions created by the “demon” with the sole purpose of distorting those impressions and preventing him (the mankind) from knowing the real stuff.

He compares his beliefs to apples in a basket and in order to separate the rotten ones from the good ones, the only way is to empty the basket and examine each apple individually and rejecting the bad ones thereafter. In other words, the motive was to keep only those beliefs that were free from being dubitable.

To begin with, our friend doubted his OWN existence! Geez!

He meant to imply that he exists as a set of limbs and body parts by the virtue of his five senses which thus perceive his existence. But is this true? What if his senses were also misleading in their perception? He cast a doubt on the mere reliability of his senses. By doubting his own existence, he wanted to find a reason to establish his existence as an entity. While doubting he realized that there was only one thing that he could not doubt and that was… wait, hang on – the DOUBT itself!!

That was it! His eureka moment! And it was true… well almost true. The guy could not doubt the fact that while doing this whole doubting ‘thing’, he could not doubt the fact that he was doubting!

Since, “doubting” was a thinking process, and whilst doubting it was obvious that he was “thinking”. Now, let’s believe it, you cannot really think unless you exist in the first place! By establishing that he can “think”, Descartes concluded that he exists!

And came the famous Oscar winning line “I think, therefore, I am!”

The problem with the above inference is that somewhere down the line, this gentleman has forgot to “prove” his “taken for granted” presupposition that anything that thinks, exists! He gives no proof that why his premise is true. The inference is indeed syllogistic.

Next, he went on to explain the concept of “Dualism”. He emphasized that mind and body are two different entities. While mind exists in its non-physical form, it is the body which exists in its corporeal form. He identified mind as self aware and conscious and the brain as the seat of this intelligence. In his illustrations, he tried to depict that our perception of the world was nothing but a result of inputs that were passed on by our sensory organs to the pineal gland in the brain, which then passes it to the immaterial spirit. He believed that the connection between the mind and body takes place in the pineal gland and that the two share a causal relationship.

Hey! But last I checked, dualism = being distinct or separate and causal = some connection! Wtf? How can dualism then deal with causality? There are several controversies to this one!

Establishing God’s existence

This one’s easy!

A) If god exists – he is “perfect”

B) But, we are imperfect and finite beings

C) Yet we have impressions of “perfection” and “infinity”

D) But how can “imperfect” and “finite” beings have an impression of a “perfection” or “infinity”?

Hence, it must be God himself who created an impression of the “perfection”. Therefore he exists.

Next, he refutes his idea of “evil deceiver”

A) Evil Demon deceives us from true impressions

B) Deceit and fraud arise from defects

C) But since God exists (from above) and he is “Perfect”, he is a “good” God and no deceiver.

He said:

“…because I cannot conceive God unless as existing, it follows that existence is inseparable from him, and therefore that he really exists: not that this is brought about by my thought, or that it imposes any necessity on things, but, on the contrary, the necessity which lies in the thing itself, that is, the necessity of the existence of God, determines me to think in this way: for it is not in my power to conceive a God without existence, that is, a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid of an absolute perfection, as I am free to imagine a horse with or without wings."

Descartes, Meditation 10

The above implies a “Circular Reference”. On one hand he says that his perfect impressions are a result of existence of the God, while at the same time he accepts that God exists because of the existence of our impression of the perfection. The premise of former is the conclusion of latter and the conclusion of the latter forms the premise of former. We cannot believe in something that “does not” exist. Thus if we believe God exists, he exists! (funny, eh??? I know!)

Establishing World’s existence

Having established his own as well as God’s existence, he proceeds.

A) I think, therefore I am (or I exist)

B) We form impressions of the outside world through our senses and say that world exists

C) And, these senses could be deceived by evil demon

D) But we just established that God exists and he is a “good” God who does not deceive

E) Therefore, our impressions that world exists are true and hence, the world exists

His ENITRE thing is ONE BIG CIRCLE!

Come on, you cannot base everything on that, now can you???

Allegory of the Cave

Plato was a Greek philosopher who was a devoted follower of Socrates and a mentor to Aristotle. Together they are credited to be the founders of the Western Philosophy.

Although the modern academia and scholarship doubts the authenticity of few of the dialogues and letters written by him, yet, at least 35 dialogues and 13 letters have been known to be ascribed to this guy. However, with a few exceptions (for E.g. Apology), Plato never presents himself as a participant in most of his dialogues. Some of his dialogues are seen as a pure dramatic form (Hindi Movie types), with little or no narration (for E.g. Meno, Creto, Gorgias, Euthyphro, Phaedrus) while most of his works are presented as dialogues narrated by Socrates (for E.g. Republic, Lysis, Charmides). Then there are others where he uses a combination of both and still others where the narrators happen to be Socratic disciples like Apollodorus (for E.g Theaetetus).

Plato was an ardent follower of Socrates and his (Socrates’) trial is a central unifying event in most of the Platonic dialogues – primarily in the Apology. I feel that reading the Apology is quite important as only after this one understands Plato’s obsession for Socratic Ideas.

The speech that Socrates gave was actually quite moving! I liked this one punch line –

“My trial will be like a doctor prosecuted by a cook who asks a jury of children to choose between the doctor's bitter medicine and the cook's tasty treats”

Woah!! Bloody smart. It is as if he knew that those guys have rigged his case already. But what was his crime? First, that he was a busybody, and a curious person who made inquiries into the earth and sky (in plain words, he was called a bigmouth who tried to act too smart for his face and who had a habit of snooping around and putting his nose where it did not belong!) Second, that he was guilty of corrupting the young and of worshipping supernatural things of his own invention instead of the gods recognized by the State. Now that is very naïve and stupid, hey not that he was screwing around and teaching them how to roll-up hash joints, do coke and adopt a frivolous lifestyle!! Damn it! He was only trying to teach all the good stuff that included enlightenment by acceptance of unconscious in-competiveness and unconscious ignorance!! His idea was to argue the meaning of justice, love, etc. His emphasis was on how to lead a good life and how morality is determined. According to him “The unexamined life is not worth living”. He believed that only by questioning can one come to know about something. Ignorance should be the motto of questioning. According to him we come to know that we don’t know in moments of curiosity and perplexity. He argued that knowledge is not empirical, and it comes from divine insight. He even compares seeking knowledge as being erotic. He also investigated the nature of Virtue and maintained that knowledge and virtue are so closely related that no human ever knowingly chooses evil: improper conduct is a product of ignorance rather than weakness of the will.

Another one of his punch lines - “I know that I DON’T know and I accept it guys, seriously!” (Nice!)

Okay enough of Socrates, coming back to Plato.

Now Plato was not much different. He was also kinda snoopy but he was neat in not getting killed by execution. He kinda played it safe and put everything starting with “Socrates said…” This was a smart move. Now nobody could blame him, the “wasn’t me” attitude! Kidding! Nah… he respected Socrates so much that he wanted to keep him alive through his dialogues.

He conceptualizes the activity of philosophizing through his amazing works and dialogues. In his very famous Allegory of the Cave, he tries to explain how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not constitutive of reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

The Allegory of the Cave

Okay now, imagine there is a dark cave. In this cave there are prisoners who are tied whilst facing one of the blank walls of the cave, and, they have been like this all their lives. Chained and held immobile since childhood: not only are their arms and legs held in place, but their heads are also fixed, compelled to gaze at a wall in front of them. Behind them is an enormous fire (like the one we make during the evenings when we go on overnight camping expeditions and drink and dance around it!).

Here’s the thing, in between the fire and these guys is a raised walkway, along which people walk carrying things on their heads "including figures of men and animals made of wood, stone and other materials". The prisoners can only watch the shadows cast by the men, not knowing they are shadows. There are also echoes off the wall from the noise produced from the walkway. People use this trail on an everyday basis to mind their daily chores. No, they don’t really care much about those prisoner guys, they just use this common conduit to pass through the cave and carry on with their daily dogmatic schedules minding their cattle and business. In short they play ignorant to those prisoners.

It would be quite understandable if the captives take the shadows to be real things and the echoes to be real sounds, and not just reflections of the actual people and reality. Since these shadows are all they have ever seen or heard or even, grown up with, wouldn't they praise as clever whoever could best guess which shadow would come next, as someone who understood the nature of the world? And wouldn't the whole of their society depend on the shadows on the wall?

After all the wall is all they have for a TV!!

A Twist!

Now imagine if one of the inmates is deemed to have been released. Moreover, what if after his release, someone was to show him the actual truth. The reality of the fact that his life is not merely constricted to that of the cave’s, and that it is actually the fire that is playing tricks, casting shadows, which incidentally constituted the “world” and “life” for him and his fellow inmates.

The released prisoner might not believe all that and may even want to run back to his guys. He may not even recognize any real thing for what it is and would not be able to name it. He might still be happy living in the world of those shadows calling for E.g the shadow of a man more real than the actual man himself! He might also be blinded by the fire and may even wish to go back to the world of shdows!

Second Twist!!

Suppose this guy was forcibly dragged OUT of the cave by someone. Wouldn’t he be upset and angry on the one doing this to him? And if dragged all the way out of the cave, wouldn’t he be confused and distressed to learn that all he had learned and lived through his life so far is nothing but just a “shadow”, an “illusion”? Once out of the cave, he would see the Sun – the giver of life itself, the source of seasons, years, everything! He would see the cave itself, where he spent his entire life and considering THAT to be his universe! However, following an initial discomfort, he would get used to all the euphoria. And after becoming acclimatized to the new environment and the sun, would he not feel privileged for him self and pitiful for his fellow inmates who are still imprisoned? After all, now he knows the real “reality” that is not limited to shadows and is much beyond that! Would he not be condescending to all the praises and recognitions given to the “one who guessed which shadow came next?”

Third Twist!!!

What if he was supposed to go back to his guys? Would his guys understand his stories from “outside” of the cave? Moreover, now not being adept at the “guess-which-shadow-next-game” would he be able to play that game at all??? Would the inmates even UNDERSTAND him?? Probably, they would just disregard his stories to be phony and his claims of a NEW and OUTSIDE world to be ridiculous!

Thats the Video of the above Story

Critique

Our life as we see it is nothing but a correlation to Plato’s Theory of Forms. He asserts that non-material abstracts but substantial forms or ideas and not the material world of change known to us through our senses possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. Plato says that these Forms are the only true objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge. The enlightened one is someone who has deciphered the ultimate reality. Such a person, when goes back to his people is often the object of ridicule and scorn.

The enlightened one is someone who has attained the clarification of the TRUE form and does not consider the reflections and shadows as REALITY. To be able to philosophise is to be able to able to recognise the forms. A philosopher is someone who has been freed of the cave and has left the realm of the shadow world and entered into the really REAL world. In The Metaphor of the Sun Plato uses the sun as a symbol for the source of "enlightenment", arguably intellectual enlightenment. The metaphor is about the nature of ultimate reality and how we come to know of it beyond our senses.

Just because something is not “graspable” or cannot be experienced with our senses, deos not make it any less real than what it already is. On the contrary, it is those “so called real” objects that we suppose to be “real” are actually mere shadows and illusions.

His idea of reality being unavailable to those who use their senses to look for it, is something that differentiates him from the common man, rather – the common sense. In his Theory of the Divided Line, he attempts to clarify this. This followed by The Metaphor of the Sun which in turn is succeeded by the Allegory of the Cave form the clarity surrounding Plato’s idea of Knowledge of the Forms.

The stuff above is not my own, although it might have my words, but essentially the info is from a variety of sources all over the world wide web. (for E.g. Wikipedia)