Reference no: EM133995616

Question

1. Descartes is not a skeptic about knowledge, but he is worried that maybe his beliefs are not actually true; after all, there have since ancient times been people who have claimed that we can know nothing. So Descartes takes seriously the possibility that there are reasons (even if weak reasons) to doubt many--maybe even all--of his beliefs. He walks us through his "method of doubt" and realizes that, yes, all of his beliefs look questionable for one reason or another (e.g., he knows his senses frequently deceive him, he realizes that he might be dreaming, and he thinks it is even possible that an evil demon is tricking him). Although this leads to the famous turning point in his thought--that is, he realizes that even if there is an evil demon tricking him, he himself surely must exist in order for this to happen (cogito ergo sum; I think there for I am). Aha! He does know with certainty at least one thing! And from there, Descartes goes on to rebuild his belief system, convincing himself that many of his beliefs are fundamentally sound.

What I want you all to do this week is to think together about the certainty of your beliefs. As Douglas Soccio asks:

"How carefully have you examined your own fundamental beliefs? What--if anything--is wrong with trusting beliefs handed down by others? Why not rely on the testing of others, trusting their conclusions? Also consider the widespread tendency to believe something if it could possibly be correct. What is the relationship between possible and plausible, and what might it have to do with this entire issue? Explain" (p. 258).

You don't need to simply answer each of these questions, but do explore the issue of how you know that your core beliefs are true (or are they?).

2. Pick one of the authors discussed from our first set of chapters (so, for example, Plato) and write a short (less than 1 page, single-spaced) description of something you found particularly interesting about them. This should be about the person's thought or ideas and not about their life.

Although you have a lot of freedom in terms of what person/ideas you want to write about, make sure you provide citations, as is always required in academic writing. You can do this for this assignment by simply putting in parentheses at the end of a sentence the author and page number from where you got the idea. In this case, your author is actually the person who wrote our textbook, not one of the philosophers. Remember to provide this whether you are quoting directly or paraphrasing. To not provide citations is cheating since you would be, when you do not cite, claiming that the idea is yours.