PHL201H1 Lecture 7: Lecture 7
Document Summary
Descartes project is to provide a firm foundation for knowledge. Instability of the foundation can bring down the entire structure. Deductive arguments: go from basic premises to conclusions, which can themselves serve as premises of new arguments and so on. Basic beliefs false => the unsoundness propagates upwards through the system. => better be sure of our starting points. Descartes is usually interpreted as trying to find a secure foundation for knowledge. Believing means that there is still some chances that it is not true (e. g. i know that i got this job v. s. To call a belief knowledge includes a positive assessment - that it is reliable or well supported. Descartes thinks that for our foundational beliefs to count as knowledge, they must meet a very high bar of support -- they must be impossible to doubt! Not only actual cases of error, but even a possibility that our belief could be false enough for descartes to withhold belief.
