Methodological doubt

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Methodical doubt (also Cartesian doubt ) describes a procedure that René Descartes uses in his meditations on the first philosophy ( Meditationes de prima philosophia ). The user of this procedure should doubt the existence of anything that could in any way be subject to error. There is a similarity with skepticism , but rationalism is fundamental .

The methodological doubt in Descartes

The aim of the project is to question all supposed knowledge in order to rehabilitate the stock of knowledge in the best possible way based on a secure foundation to be determined. So there should be a new justification of every knowledge. Descartes uses methodological doubt to search for this safe vanishing point, which he understands as a step-by-step process of questioning all cognitions . Descartes, mind you, only doubts methodically , that is, primarily in the sense of a thought experiment and less of an actual questioning of reality. The company can be divided into three phases:

  1. Doubt about the senses. Since experience has shown that the physical senses prove to be unreliable, i.e. optical illusions are possible, for example , perceptions of this kind cannot function as an unquestionable starting point. Any sensory perception is possibly inaccurate, which is why Descartes temporarily puts it aside.
  2. Doubts about the cognitive state. This step is often referred to as the trauma argument . Descartes states that there is apparently no effective criterion with which one can reliably determine whether one is currently awake or dreaming or whether one has fallen prey to illusions for other reasons. Thus, even rational knowledge proves to be doubtful in principle.
  3. Doubts about cognitive autonomy. The validity of logic and mathematics seems to be guaranteed in every cognitive state and to have a universal character, but it is conceivable that these concepts are incorrect and that they are simulated to us by a genius malignus ( Latin for 'bad spirit') .

After temporarily suspending these cognitions, only the questioning subject remains. The fact of the doubting person's existence evidently emerges from the fact of doubting or thinking . This is summarized in the formulation Cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”). The existence of a subject is identified by Descartes as the first indubitable truth.

Descartes calls for every person to check the basis of their own judgments at least once in their life by means of the methodological doubt. In this regard, he subjects people to a moral responsibility.

Preforms and precursors

Aurelius Augustine (354-430)

"A pre- or archetype" of the Cartesian argument can already be found in the church father Augustine , who already spoke with his Si fallor, sum. ( City of God argues XI. 26) that, even if someone in particular is wrong, he nevertheless a confused one is .

“Because if I'm wrong, then I am. Because who is not, of course, cannot be mistaken; and therefore I am if I am wrong. Because if I am wrong, then how should I be wrong about my being, since it is certain, especially when I am wrong. So even if I was wrong, I would have to be in order to be able to make a mistake, and accordingly I am undoubtedly not wrong knowing that I am. ”(De civitate dei, XI. 26)

Elsewhere:

"If I am wrong or if I am deceived, I am."

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Francis Bacon is sometimes brought into connection with the methodological doubt. Both Descartes' meditations and Bacon's Novum Organum aim to re-legitimize knowledge and recommend a systematic examination of the reliability of human knowledge. For both of them, doubting is the main motive: Bacon's theory of doubt became a “compulsion to doubt” and “compulsory suspicion” a method for Descartes. Bacon's approach is more practical, that is, quasi-psychological in nature, while Descartes argues abstractly and theoretically. Bacon is also traded as an empirical counterpart to the rationalist Descartes.

criticism

Although the methodological doubt had far-reaching consequences for the thinking of the Enlightenment and this largely served as an epistemological foundation, the practice was criticized from many philosophical perspectives. Descartes' critics note that this methodological doubt ultimately leads to results similar to those which dogmatic philosophers - even without doubt - had previously claimed. Performative weak points have also been postulated several times:

Hobbes (1588-1679)

Thomas Hobbes opposes equating the terms "idea" and "image" with regard to Descartes' proof of God. Since, according to Hobbes, God is an idea without imagery, it can in no way be perceived by a subject, which would make the existence of God unproven and thereby render the rehabilitation of logic obsolete.

Gassendi (1592–1655)

Pierre Gassendi accused Descartes of not overcoming prejudice, but only replacing it with another. The assertion that prejudices are fundamentally wrong is, in Gassendi's view, a prejudice that is not discarded, but even instrumentalized, whereby the methodological doubt no longer does justice to its claim.

Hegel (1770-1831)

Hegel warns that the resolve to doubt everything already represents an entity that comes from the sphere in question. In the end, the methodology must also doubt itself, whereby, due to the nature of the doubt itself, a certain reason can never come about; any knowledge would be vague in principle, whereby the methodical doubt would result in an infinite regress .

David Hume (1711–1776)

By David Hume was questioned whether the radical doubt was ever carried out. According to his own position of sensualism , he argues that thinking operations are only possible starting from and on the basis of sensual experiences, which is why thinking without recourse to empirically obtained cognitions leads to a performative contradiction .

Postmodern

The current of philosophical postmodernism is characterized overall by a latent to explicit anti- Cartesianism . Since, according to Michel Foucault, for example, the subject is constituted through discursive processes using power constellations, this cannot be assumed a priori .

Individual evidence

  1. Klaus Müller: At the limits of knowledge. Introduction to philosophy for theologians. Pustet, Regensburg 2004, p. 16
  2. ^ Augustine: De libero arbitrio. II, III, quoted from Klaus Müller: At the limits of knowledge. Introduction to philosophy for theologians. Pustet, Regensburg 2004, p. 16.
  3. Wulff D. Rehfus: Introduction to the Study of Philosophy , 2nd edition (1992), ISBN 3-494-02188-0 , p. 65 f.
  4. Christian Wohlers (Ed.), 2009: Meditations. With all objections and replies . P. 131 ff.
  5. Christian Wohlers (Ed.), 2009: Meditations. With all objections and replies . P. 101 ff.
  6. D. Pätzold, 2007. In: Dietmar H. Heidemann, Christian Krijnen [Hrsg.]: Hegel and the history of philosophy . P. 16.
  7. David Hume: An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding . ed. Tom Beauchamp. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1999, p. 199.