Rebuild Your Beliefs With The Father of Modern Philosophy
Back in my University days I came across an amazing philosopher that forever changed the way I think. Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) is often dubbed the “Father of Modern Philosophy” and is perhaps the most important thinker of the European Enlightenment. He refused to accept the authority of those that came before him and instead set himself the task of rebuilding humanity’s knowledge piece by piece. He did this by using a philosophical method that was revolutionary at the time. Would you be willing to use a similar method to rebuild your beliefs?
Descartes and Doubt
Before considering our own lives, lets look closer at what exactly Descartes did. After years of comprehensive study, Descartes came to the belief that the body of knowledge handed down from the Middle Ages was not necessarily reliable. He was disappointed to learn that what we are often taught are merely prejudices and that what our senses tell us are often incorrect.
Descartes believed that in order to believe anything with certainty, we must first doubt everything we know. With this method, he established a zero point from which to work forward. By doubting everything, there was only one thing that Descartes could actually be sure of: when he doubted, he had to be thinking. This led him to the well known finding: Cogito, ergo sum or “I think, therefore I am”. With this as his foundation, Descartes went about rebuilding our knowledge piece by piece, always being careful to ensure that doubt could not creep in.
Our Belief Systems
As human beings, our lives are largely shaped by our belief systems. A belief system can be described as a series of ideas in our mind that project an image of what is real. These ideas are usually formed by our experiences with authorities in our society - whether they be parental, political, religious, or educational. In this way, many people never actually develop their own belief systems as they blindly accept the ideas that are handed to them.
Descartes and Our Beliefs
So what can Descartes teach us about our belief systems? For me, it is that the beliefs we have today may not be entirely justified. Like Descartes did with his own knowledge, I want to challenge you to peel away the layers of beliefs and opinions that may cloud your view of the truth.
The following are some tough questions that may be difficult to answer and are intended to make you think. I want to make it clear here: I do not in any way intend to pass judgement on your religious beliefs, political views, or sexuality. This is simply an exercise in applying doubt to some beliefs you may never have questioned.
- Religion: if you have religious beliefs, is it possible you only hold these because of the society and/ or household in which you were raised? Do you honestly think your beliefs would be the same if you were born in another country where there is another dominant religion (eg Islam in Iraq)? What is your knowledge of other religions?
- Politics: do you hold the same political beliefs as your parents? If your economic situation were different, is it possible that your political beliefs would be different?
- Sexuality: have you ever considered that you may be gay? Has society’s non-acceptance of gays automatically ruled out this possibility?
An Example of Doubt
This last one may seem strange, but I want to use it as an example of how this exercise of radical doubt works. If I was to ask a heterosexual person why they are of that particular sexual orientation, I can guarantee most answers would be “I just am”. Fine - I would believe them, but I would also guess that they have probably never doubted this stance.
Imagine reflecting on your life, peeling away the beliefs that seem so natural and ignoring the negative opinions that exist in much of society, and asking yourself the question: could I be gay? Now here is the important point: if you were to do this exercise, gather evidence as to why you are heterosexual, and then come to the conclusion “yup, definitely straight” then your knowledge is build upon a stronger foundation than someone who has never questioned their sexuality. You will be secure in the knowledge that you are heterosexual, and if a bigot was to for whatever reason try to label you as a “fag” you could easily ignore them.
I imagine that many gay people have already unconsciously been through this process of doubt. Because of the stigma that is still often associated with being gay, many would initially try to doubt their sexuality. But once someone makes the decision to “come out of the closet” it is normally fairly safe to assume they have given sexuality a lot of thought. Have you ever heard anyone whisper: “I think he/ she could really be straight“?
Final Thoughts
The purpose of applying doubt to your beliefs is not to necessarily change them (although this may occur). Descartes questioned one of his strongest held beliefs - that of the existence of God - but through his method he was able to prove (at least to himself) that God did, in fact, exist. The principle reason, then, for this exercise in applying radical doubt is so that your beliefs are built upon a strong foundation of reason, and not merely inherited from the various authorities that exist in our lives - religious, parental, and educational.
Image by R. Can Ertong
13 Comments
September 28th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
The only problem with Decartes’ method is that it is fundamentally flawed. He said that he can’t trust any of his senses or his sense of logic because they might be given to him by an “evil demon” who would mislead him on purpose. Thus, only a benevolent god would give him senses that he could trust. He went on to “prove” the existence of God, but ultimately failed because he used logic. He can’t initially trust logical rules to be true, yet he uses them anyway. The Cartesian method of doubt is nice as a starting point, but it is flawed in that there are certain things one must accept on faith and that cannot be proven. This is not surprising given the work done by Godel (specifically his incompleteness theorem). It is important to note that Godel’s unprovable statements can be shown to be true or false, but not in the system that they’re asked in. That is to say that there is an absolute truth as to whether or not Logic is correct, or whether or not there is a good god, but you might not be able to prove it using the tools that mankind currently has access to.
To summarize, it is possible to dig such a hole with Cartesian doubt that one cannot escape it. Be careful.
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September 28th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
samurphy: thanks for your comment. Yes, Descartes “proof” of God’s existence certainly didn’t convince me (hence my comment in final thoughts about this). And I agree with your advice to be careful - Cartesian doubt is not a perfect method. All the same, I believe it can be put to good use to examine our own beliefs.
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I must confess to not knowing much about Godel. You have certainly sparked my curiosity, though, and I will do some reading on him
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September 29th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Every major contributor to humanity obviously has their place. The Enlightenment was fine & dandy, but it’s a misnomer one, and we’re still dealing (to our detriment) with its rational & mechanical model two. The Cartesian paradigm unfortunately still dominates science, medicine, worldview, and its an inherently limited one. Perhaps it was Enlightenment for the West, but it wasn’t inclusive & made the rational mind a demigod.
Still doubt can be a useful tool. In essence, exercising doubt is fine as long as our whole perceptive capability is utilized, i.e., rational & intuitive. Then doubt has enough information to weigh. Even the Buddha said to test his teachings
. Thanks for the discourse…
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September 29th, 2007 at 2:55 am
I think it’s a great idea to question our beliefs and see which still resonate with us and which no longer work. I read a lot of philosophy when I was in high school–starting with Plato’s Republic when I was in 10th grade. It was over my head, of course, but it taught me the limits of logic and reason. Plato was an anti-democrat, that’s why he wrote the Republic. Being raised to believe that democracy was great, I decided I didn’t have enough experience to decide. So I focused on science and history and skipped the idea of minoring in philosophy in college.
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September 29th, 2007 at 4:05 am
Descartes is one of my favourite philosophers too. Did you know that he never got out of bed until noon? In fact when he was commissioned to teach Queen Christina of Sweden philosophy, at her insistence, he had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4:00 in the morning in the brutal Scandinavian winter. Within two weeks he caught a chill which turned into pneumonia and he then died a week later. Very unfortunate!
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September 29th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
This post is money. Great read. Please keep them coming!
This stood out to me the most:
Politics: do you hold the same political beliefs as your parents? If your economic situation were different, is it possible that your political beliefs would be different?
Very true. It’s amazing how a person can really discover who they are when financial bondage is removed.
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September 29th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Thanks for the great comments everyone!
Zhereford: I am a morning person, but even 4am makes me shudder (and in Scandinavia of all places!). Did you manage to read Sophie’s World yet?
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September 30th, 2007 at 1:27 am
It’s an interesting article, and Descartes was an interesting man, but I have to agree, his arguments are interesting, but make no sense in any larger context. Yes you can doubt everything up to the point that you are thinking… and you can even doubt who “you” are, but if you’re taking it that far, there is no way to build up TO anywhere from there. The reason he got to the “I think, therefore I am” part is because there is absolutely nothing else you can prove… and you can’t even prove THAT to someone else.
In fact, one of my favorite quotes of all time I heard from my uncle: “I think you think, therefore you might as well be.”
By the way, an interesting accompaniment to this article would be Steve Pavlina’s The Death Of Skepticism.
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September 30th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. - Ambrose Bierce
And I love Jason’s uncle. Now THERE’S a thinking man!
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October 1st, 2007 at 4:30 am
how do you know it is “I” that is doing the thinking? What if you are the thought itself?
Descartes did have a brilliant mind and was great at questioning, but at the same time, if you doubt everything, you cannot progress… that my friend, is a certainty without doubt
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October 1st, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Excellent entry here, in my opinion. So many fail to question their own paradigms and therefore are never able to strongly believe in what they do believe, nor really understand what they don’t and why.
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October 4th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Nice blog.
I’m afraid I always struggled with Descartes. I did philosophy at University but was glad to be able to drop philosophy for Economics. I was always felt more affinity with Eastern philosophy which believed in direct experience of the truth rather than trying to justify it with the mind.
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November 20th, 2007 at 6:41 am
I really don’t thing it is wise to question your beliefs. That doesn’t mean that you should go through life without changing your beliefs. But if you doubt every belief you have, you will also doubt every move in live you make, because your actions are based on your beliefs. So I thing that it is best to have beliefs that we are not emotionally attached to. This means that we would be able to let go of them easily when we need to, and replace them with such beliefs that represent better who we have become.
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