Now we will focus on one philosopher and talk about his epistemology. Rene Descartes, a French mathematician, scientist and philosopher. He is considered to be the father of modern philosophy, and his work is read by millions nowadays. He formulated the mind-body dualism which says that there is a mind and a body and they are distinct. He made an original system of methodical doubt where he dismisses the apparent knowledge derived from authority, the senses and reason, and erected new epistemic foundations on the basis of intuition. This is all based on the fact that when he is thinking, he exists (I think, therefore I am). His metaphysical dualism distinguishes radically between mind, the essence that is thinking, and the body, the essence that is just an extension of the mind in three dimensions. Descartes metaphysics is rational and it is based on innate ideas of the mind, matter and god; but his physics and physiology are based on sensory experience and he says they are mechanist and empiric.
Descartes always dreamt of creating a universal science that can get the true knowledge. He looked for that method that was used by great personalities of the past which helped them discover wonders of the world without the help of the modern science. This method, believed Descartes, was the key to knowledge, true knowledge. Descartes made him famous because of a confrontation he had with a French skeptic philosopher named chandoux. This personality and the rest of the French people were skeptics because of the many deceptions that religion had when many scientist where proving wrong many facts religion gave. Chandoux believed that there was no truth in nature and everything was based of probabilities. Of course, Descartes attacked this perception telling the people that there is true knowledge and that he will make a method that will certainly achieve what he was proposing; that method to reveal the truth from reality. Descartes made a couple of works about proposing this method and what it could be but he found out that Galileo was condemned by the church for teaching copernicanism. Descartes work was Copernican to the top, so he suppressed his own work for his safety. A Year later he published a work called the principles of philosophy. His most complete work of them all containing his understanding of mature philosophy and the Cartesian system. The Cartesian system is the way of acquiring true knowledge he proposes and the foundation to cartesianism. But what is the Cartesian system. This system proposes that there will be always uncertainty in science, because they believe in God as an omnipotent force that can make whatever he wants, if he wishes, he can make apparent truth and apparent falsehood in reality. That way, we cannot really know what is truth or not, but we can know something for sure; that we exist. If the human can think, it wouldn’t make sense that we don’t exist. Even if god want to make of ourselves an apparent existence, it is impossible because we have the ability to think, therefore we must exist. “I think, therefore I am”. But how do we know what is real and what’s not, if we cannot rely in our senses and reason because god can make what is true seem like false and vice versa. We doubt. Descartes believe that the absolute truth will always need the absolute doubt. This method is called the methodical doubt and it is applied by asking yourself all the questions you can ask until you know there is no more to doubt. All the data you gather will be the knowledge that you acquire. That way we can prove that this knowledge is true and you can gather everything there is to gather. This method came to Descartes when he noticed that in his youth he accepted many false opinions for true and then when he grew up, these opinions were the base of principles that he started doubting. After he noticed, he was convinced to get rid of all those opinions he adopted, and started a new work from the foundation of doubting what is true so he can discover if it is really true or if it is a new false opinion. He did this with all his ideas and beliefs and then he proceed to make his own ideas put them in the same method so he had truth and not apparent truth. The origin of his phrase “I think, therefore I am” comes from doubting his own existence. Therefore, his method based on doubt was the key of true knowledge for him and the base for many philosophers that came after him.
As a conclusion, philosophy seeks many things to explain and understand. One of them is knowledge. Epistemology is the branch that tries to give the true knowledge to humanity; many philosophers have tried to give their own version of true knowledge. One of the most famous philosophers is Rene Descartes, and his work on epistemology is the base of many philosophers after him, even in our days, his work is read and used as reference to many philosophers. His way to acquire knowledge is neither through reason nor senses. He believed that nothing can be a hundred percent true if we just used those means to look for knowledge. He believed very much in God and his power to will everything in nature. He believed that god can make everything he wants and can even play tricks in nature. He believed that if he wanted to, he could turn the truth about reality to seem false and vice versa. The only way he could achieve the truth is by doubting everything. He knew that most of his ideas from youth were based on a wrong perception of reality and that he needed to prove what was wrong and what was correct. He made the method of doubt called “the methodical doubt” or the “Cartesian Method”, which consisted of doubting every little part of the concept he was trying to prove and until every question originated from doubt was answer and he was still convinced it was true, then he concluded that it was indeed true knowledge. This method was the key Descartes used to achieve true knowledge and was accepted by so many people, even after his death. This was indeed a great path to achieve knowledge and a great way to prove this knowledge was the truth about our reality.
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies everything related to knowledge. The study of epistemology focuses on our means or ways of acquiring knowledge and how can we differentiate between truth and falsehood. Epistemology studies the problems having to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in many particular areas. For epistemology, there are various types of knowledge: when you want to know how to do something, when you want to know about someone, and when you want to know a place. Such knowledge mention before is in the epistemological interest as well, but the main focus on knowledge that epistemology has is the knowledge of propositions, these propositions are affirmations about the origin, the characteristics, the reason of many things in our nature, so we can say that false propositions cannot be knowledge. Therefore, knowledge needs truth. And something the same proposition may need is belief in order to exist. Why would someone support a proposition without believing in it? Knowledge needs belief to. And if you believe something is true you must be ready to give a justification of why it’s true. Knowledge in order to be true, it need a justification to support it. Some questions, epistemology is concerned with maybe be: what can we know? How can we know it? Why do we know something, but no others? Can knowledge be certain? what is necessary and which are the conditions for knowledge? What are its sources? What is the structure of knowledge? What are its limits? And many other questions related to knowledge and all about it. Epistemology is important because it is fundamental to how we think. If we didn’t have means of understanding, we have no coherent path for our thinking, how we acquire knowledge, how we rely upon our senses, and how we develop concepts in our mind. Epistemology is the most important thing in order to have a good type of thinking and reasoning. As we know that epistemology studies knowledge, knowledge has different elements. Knowing subject, everything that thinks and can acquire knowledge; known object, the thing that is a part of our reality and we need to get knowledge from; and the Image or Idea, knowledge.
