The philosophers usually have thought that if a person knows something, that means that the person believes that (1) the thing is true, (2), is in fact true, and (3) that person who presents claims that he or she know that thing is in a position to give a justification for thinking that thing is true. A justification like that can be offered by appealing to intuition, reasoning, or sense experience.
Although intuition is a common concept, in most cases, philosophers have been doubtful to identify it as being a form of knowledge and this is basically for the reason that “there seems to be little way to determine whether it does, in fact, provide knowledge as opposed simply to lucky guesses” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 3).
Therefore, a large number of philosophers instead put much focus on sense experience and reasoning as being the knowledge bases. The beliefs held by Plato and Descartes are going to be compared and contrasted in relation to the theme of “not knowing” in this paper.
Descartes gives out a suggestion that we ask what it would mean to “know about realty” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 7).
He claims that, to hold a belief that realty is basically “water or Indeterminate or whatever seems pointless, unless we know first whether our belief itself is justified” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 7).
According to him, in order to determine whether the beliefs we hold are justified, we are supposed to be in a position to trace these beliefs back to an undoubtable statement, certainty, or proposition.
A proposition like this could offer a solid foundation on which the beliefs that come thereafter could be erected, it would give assurance that all the claims that come thereafter based on this foundation would be true.
In order for us to identify a final standard of truth on which knowledge can be determined, Descartes sets up a technique which suspends our assurance in “what we have been taught, what our senses tell us, what we ‘think’ is obvious, in regard to everything we know” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 9).
He points out that for us to determine whether there is anything we get to know with assurance; we must first of all doubt everything we know. A radical doubt like this may look unreasonable, and Descartes indeed does not imply we actually have to doubt everything.
His suggestion is that, “in order to see if there is some belief that can not be doubted, we should temporarily pretend everything we know is questionable” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 9).
Because sometimes sense experience is misleading, it is clear to Descartes that a “posteriori” can not form a basis for claim of knowledge (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 10). “We do not know that what we experience through our senses is true, at least we are not certain”( “Epistemology and Descartes”, para 11).
Therefore the best thing to undertake is not to believe our senses. In a similar manner, we can not have certainty that we actually have bodies or that our understanding of our world in general be believed; after all, the whole thing might be just but a dream.
In addition, we can’t even be certain that mathematical propositions like 1 + 1= 2 or that rectangles always have four sides are true for the reason that some evil power might be misleading us to think things like these, “when it is possible that even propositions that seem evident to us as true might themselves be really false” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 10).
However, although an evil power misleads us in regard to all other beliefs, there exist a single belief which can not be mistaken about and that is the belief that we are thinking. Even doubting this belief is affirming it. Thinking is a confirmation that we exist.
“The body is not an essential part of the self because we can doubt its existence in a way that we can not doubt the existence of the mind” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 11Descartes therefore draws a conclusion that “I know one thing clearly and distinctly, namely, that I exist because I think” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 11).
Plato, who is also a rationalist like Descartes, believes that sense experience fails to offer us with any assurance that what we experience is actually true. The information obtained by depending on sense experience is changing on a constant basis and is not reliable most of the time.
There can be correction or evaluation of it for dependability “only be appealing to principle that themselves do not change” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 5). These principles that do not change form the bases of “what it means to reason or think in the first place” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 5).
Therefore if a person can prove that a belief or opinion he or she has is on the basis of these principles of thought that are undoubtable, the person has a strong base for the opinion or belief. Such a foundation is what gives us room “to think of a belief as more than simply opinion, it is what allows us to identify the belief as justified and true, and that is what is meant by knowledge” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, Para 5).
Therefore, knowledge for the rationalist is what can be inferred from principles which can not be otherwise, they can not be doubtable. The examples, like those given above of 1 + 1 = 2 and a rectangle has four sides are statements that are known with sureness.
Unlike Descartes who believes that such examples may not be false, according to Plato, such statements are true because “the very meaning of the terms involved requires that we think of them in certain ways (without relying on sense experience” (“Epistemology and Descartes”, para 6). We therefore know about certain things well in advance before any sense experience we could be having.
Works Cited
“Epistemology and Descartes”. philosophy. n.d. Web.