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Descartes and Berkeley on Skepticism About the Senses The philosophers George Berkeley and Renee Descartes both had strong opinions on skepticism about the senses. In this paper, I will explain their philosophies and why they are different and then evaluate them. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes suggests that the senses are like a friend who has lied to you once and whom you therefore cannot trust, at least not until you? ve proven that he or she is not an evil genius.
The possibility of an evil genius making everything a dream keeps Descartes awake all night. He thinks he can? t trust his senses because of this. He also considers a piece of wax. He claims that in the case of the wax, the senses can only see changes.
The senses cannot see things that stay the same. So if he had not melted the wax, he? d never know it was there. It is not the senses, or the mind, but the imagination that does this. He therefore grasps what the wax is in itself after he? s melted it.
Since his senses could not have melted the wax, it follows that the senses do not allow us to know anything about what things essentially are in themselves. Descartes doesn? t think we can trust our senses, but he is not a skeptic. Descartes defines skepticism as the belief that the evil genius makes us believe everything falsely. But Descartes thinks that the evil genius can? t make us believe everything falsely, because some people believe that God exists and some people don?
t believe that God exists, and they can? t both be wrong. In his own case, Descartes thinks he can prove that God exists because God? s essence is in his existence. To be perfect, something must be God, and to be God, the essence of something has to be existing. In the book Three Dialogues Between Philonous and Hylas, Berkeley, who?
s name used to be spelled Barkley, claims that? scepticism? is the last refuge of atheists and philosophers. He is not a sceptic, because only someone with a strange philosophical belief in material substance could be a sceptic.
But scepticism is different then skepticism, and Berkeley is a skeptic, because he does not believe in matter. Sceptics believe in matter, skeptics do not. In the book, Berkeley wears a mouthpiece named Philonous. Philonous has a friend Hylas, and Hylas tries to convince Philonous (Berkeley) that scepticism is true. To do this, he says that matter must exist, because if matter didn? t exist then we could not trust our senses.
But Philonous responds by saying that the only things we can be deceived about are sensible things. Therefore, since scepticism is not true, matter does not exist. Philonous also gives his? Master Argument? against matter by saying that Hylas cannot conceive of anything that exists except for his own mind, and therefore since Hylas doesn?
t believe in his own mind, Hylas must be wrong. Of course, Philonous thinks Hylas is wrong about everything. Especially about scepticism and skepticism. Berkeley goes on to argue that everything I perceive is just an idea in my head. Therefore, nothing is real, and skepticism is true. But Berkeley doesn?
t believe in an evil genius, because he thinks that Descartes is the evil genius, and he doesn? t believe in anything Descartes says. So skepticism and doubt are a major theme in the philosophy of Descartes and Berkeley. Descartes proves that skepticism is wrong by refuting the evil genius. Berkeley proves that scepticism is wrong by proving that Hylas cannot know anything, and therefore that skepticism is true instead. Who do I believe?
I think that both dead philosophers are dead wrong. Descartes tries to prove that the wax is not perceived by the senses, because the wax needs to melt to be perceived, and his senses cannot melt the wax. But superman, with his heat vision, could melt wax with his sight. Of course, Descartes is not superman, but this could be a deception of the evil genius. Maybe Descartes has all sorts of powers he does not know about. Berkeley, however, is even easier to refute.
According to Berkeley, everything I perceive is just an idea in my mind, and therefore, I can get rid of them whenever I want. But Berkeley? s book and all the arguments in them are just ideas in my mind, and therefore if I don? t think about them, they don? t exist. But if an argument is a sound argument, it has to be true all the time.
Therefore, none of his arguments could be sound. As for myself, I think I can trust my senses. Neither scepticism nor skepticism is true. 372
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