Descartes And Montaigne example essay topic

Diane IhlenfeldtMarch 4, 2004 Philosophy 110 Montaigne and Descartes Montaigne and Descartes both made use of a philosophical method that focused on the use of doubt to make discoveries about themselves and the world around them. However, they doubted different things. Descartes doubted all his previous knowledge from his senses, while Montaigne doubted that there were any absolute certainties in knowledge. Although they both began their philosophical processes by doubting, Montaigne doubting a constant static self, and Descartes doubted that anything existed at all, Descartes was able to move past that doubt to find one indubitably certainty, "I think, therefore I am". How often do we question what is real or true? Descartes believed that doubting everything that he knew to be truthful knowledge was the only way to find out what was actually true and real.

He turned doubting into a key principle for his methods of philosophy. Descartes would ask what we really knew beyond the shadow of a doubt. To do this he resolves to search within himself (Descartes 9). First though, since he decided to doubt everything, he had to put aside all of the knowledge that he supposedly knew, to search out the truth (Descartes 13). He did this blindly, not knowing whether the truth is the knowledge that he already knew and was forcing himself to put aside, or that the truth is some knowledge he did not know that would replace his previous forms of knowledge. Descartes decided that he did not need to prove that all of his knowledge was false, but only that all of his knowledge was not certain.

He did not, however, spend time examining every one of his bits of knowledge. Instead after setting all of his previous knowledge aside he tried to find one thing outside of his knowledge that was certain. Not only did Descartes set aside all of his previous knowledge, but he also set aside all knowledge he had gained, and that he continued to gain from his five senses. He would not believe what his eyes saw, or what his hand felt, because he could not yet determine his senses as giving him knowledge that could be turned into certainties. He did not have any reason to believe that he could rely on his senses. Descartes doubting of his senses also caused him to reject any knowledge that he had gained through life experience.

Most of the knowledge that we gain is through sensory experience. Since he could not believe that the knowledge that his senses gave him was true knowledge, provable as a certainty, then he could not prove certain the knowledge that he had attained and continued to attain from his five senses. Through his philosophical search Descartes was able to find one indubitable certainty, that we are thinking beings. We always think, even when we have doubts that we are thinking we are still thinking because a doubt is a thought. Although Descartes found this one universal truth, he was still not able to believe in anything but the fact that he was a thinking being.

Therefore he still doubted everything around him. He used this one certainty to try to find a system of knowledge about everything in the world. Descartes idea was to propose a hypothesis about something. For example he might say that a perfect being was in existence. He would go around this thought in a methodical way, doubting it, all the while trying to identify it as a certainty. Doubting everything was at first dangerous because in doubting everything he was also admitting that he doubted the existence of God, and thus opposing the church.

However he made it a point to tell us at the beginning of his Discourse on Methods that what he was writing was only for himself and that he expected no one but himself to follow it (Descartes 14, 15). Descartes eventually managed to prove the existence of a higher being. He said that since he had the idea of a perfect being, then that perfect being must exist. His reasoning was that he, Descartes, was an imperfect being and that an imperfect being could not come up with the concept of a perfect being without that perfect being actually existing and giving Descartes that idea. Descartes still had to deal with many doubts. The doubt of foremost importance was the doubting of his senses, and the doubt of whether or not his body actually existed.

Descartes decided that since this God was a perfect being, it must then also be a compassionate being and would not give Descartes senses and then use those senses to trick him into using those senses to determine knowledge that was not in fact true. Descartes and Montaigne did not agree in the ways in which they doubted. Descartes doubted about the existence of all knowledge, but believed that there were certainties to be found within that group of doubtable knowledge. Descartes focused on the fact that there must be at least one certainty in the world, but began this search for this certainty by methodically doubting everything that he already knew as knowledge. Montaigne decided that nothing was certain, regardless of how many times it was tested, because everything was constantly changing. Montaigne believed that it was important to leave room for doubt in everything.

Montaigne focused on the fact that nothing was certain. He noted that his self was constantly changing, which was important for him since his philosophy was based on the study of his self. Montaigne would have had a problem with Descartes philosophies because Montaigne did not believe that justifying a belief guaranteed that it was true. "You make me hate things probable when you thrust them on me as things infallible (Montaigne 356) ". Montaigne believed that in a sense we are our own truth. This self as truth is not static.

Being a human is a constantly moving, never finished, product. For Montaigne no set of philosophical reasoning can be decisive enough to guarantee a truth. He considered it okay to accept that which you doubt as being doubtable, mainly because human beings were always changing. Montaigne did not agree with Descartes that through much testing, something scientific can be proven absolute and certain. Montaigne believed that human beings make things up, so nothing can be certain.

Everything was doubtable. Even the calendar, the object by which so many of us run our lives, was made up by man and so is in turn fallible. "Years are the only measure we have for time. The world has been using years for many centuries, yet it is a unit which we have never succeeded in standardizing so that we live in daily uncertainty about the incompatible (Montaigne 352) ". Then again, unlike Descartes, Montaigne's reason for writing his essays was not to convince the church to allow the sciences to be studied. However Montaigne is very quietly questioning high authorities such as the church and the crown, because they claim to have absolute truths.

Montaigne believed that it is important to always question your beliefs, because there was no way they could be infallible. Throughout The Essays: A Selection Montaigne has the mood of one we would consider to be carefree. He is comfortable in himself, even having the ability to admit it when he does not know something. In other words he was not afraid to say what he was not afraid to think. Montaigne acknowledges that as human beings we need to leave room for error in our thoughts and our daily lives. There is a definite uncertainty of truth and so a person must reflect on himself and his experiences.

Because no two people have the same exact experiences Montaigne believed that there could be no static truth. For this reason he decided that it was best not to argue or turn to scientific evidence but to, "find, in my own experience to make me wise... I would rather be an expert on me than on Cicero (Montaigne 375) ". It is important to claim that we do not know until we have evidence. Obviously, unlike Descartes, Montaigne felt that it was important to use your senses to understand the world around him. "Some say that the greatest pleasures and pains are those which... belong exclusively to the mind... things are sensed through understanding, understood through senses (Montaigne 414) ".

It is also important to realize that our mind doubts things because it knows its own limits. Thus since we know nothing to be certain it is important to use softening phrases such as "perhaps, somewhat, some, they say, I think, and so on (356) ". Montaigne was constantly amazed at how much knowledge we claimed to be sure of. Throughout Montaigne's and Descartes written work they used doubt as a method to attaining knowledge about the world and about themselves.

Descartes believed that preconceived knowledge gained through learning and the senses must be set aside in order to discover certainties. Montaigne believed that there were no certainties because our knowledge was attained through our senses, and thus everyone's knowledge would be different, because everyone senses things differently. Either way both men turned into themselves to find the knowledge they described in their philosophies. They both left us with one important bit of knowledge to carry with us throughout our lives, accept nothing, and question everything.