Cartesian Method and Certain Knowledge 

René Descartes was a 17th century French Philosopher. 

Famous for his dictum “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am.”)

Descartes Rationalist thinking is called cartesianism.

Mind Body Dualism 

Humans are characterized as having both a mind (nonphysical) and a body/brain (physical).  This is known as dualism.

Dualism is the view that the mind and body both exist as separate entities. 

Descartes refers to the mind as thinking rather than an extended object in the Sixth Meditation. He characterizes the body as an extended object rather than a thinking thing.

Descartes / Cartesian dualism argues that there is a two-way interaction between mental and physical substances.

Descartes argued that the mind interacts with the body at the pineal gland.

This form of dualism or duality proposes that the mind controls the body, but that the body can also influence the otherwise rational mind, such as when people act out of passion.

Cartesian Method 

Descartes Method is “Method of Doubt” or “Cartesian Doubt”, “Descartes’ Doubt” or “Methodical Doubt”. He showed that his grounds, or reasoning, for any knowledge could just as well be false. Sensory experience, the primary mode of knowledge, is often erroneous and therefore must be doubted.

Descartes Scepticism

It  is a way of seeking certainty by systematically doubting everything. 

Descartes was not a true skeptic or those who doubts everything because he believed that the knowledge was possible. 

 His purpose is to discover an ultimate truth that is a certainty.

Idea of Certainty & Freedom 

For reaching certainty, Descartes has two main assumptions:

First, that there is objective truth that can be known; 

Second, that every human is equally well endowed with reason and is capable of knowing the truth.

Since we have the ability to reason, Descartes urges us to question and withhold external authorities, and only accept the authority of mind.   For him, the physical world was a deterministic machine, but our ideas and thoughts could be free (undetermined) and could change things in the material world. Thus, one must be capable of utilizing one’s freedom. With freedom, one must also keep the process of scepticism or doubt active, so as to reach the idea of certainty of knowledge. 

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• Points we covered

1. About Descartes 
2. Mind Body dualism
3. Descartes/ Cartesian Doubt
4. Descartes Scepticism
5. Descartes idea of Certainty
6. Freedom 
7. How to reach certainty?