Descartes' Rationalist Epistemology

Abstract

lex newman180 what-questions take precedence. Proper inquiry begins by identifying exemplary cases of particular propositions that we know. What counts as exemplary? According to G. E. Moore, "Here is a hand" is exemplary (while holding up your hand and looking at it). These exemplary cases are then used to help sort out better and worse answers to how-questions -the better answers will have it that the exemplary cases count as knowledge. The methodist camp reverses the order of inquiry. How-questions take precedence. Accordingly, we can only correctly identify a knowledge claim as exemplary if we have already sorted out answers to how-questions. A proper such sorting might indeed reveal that Moore's celebrated knowledge claim is not well founded.Descartes is a methodist par excellence. His methodist orientation is perhaps best explained in historical context. The early seventeenth century is entrenched in dogma. Centuries of Aristotelianism having prevailed, the philosophical world is captivated by ancient authorities and longstanding traditions. If the new mechanist philosophy is to supplant Aristotelianism, a strategy is needed to effectively call into question venerated authorities and traditions, but -importantly -without directly impugning their credibility. In a stroke of genius, Descartes devises a broader methodist strategy to accomplish this. As part of the strategy, we're to carry out a once-in-a-lifetime epistemological audit -a thorough examination of the books, as it were, scrutinizing our beliefs and their basis. The opening lines of the Meditations present a simple and compelling rationale for the audit:descartes ' rationalist epistemology remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. It first explains Descartes' account of innateness. It then develops two rationalist doctrines in Descartes -methodist doctrines concerning the proper foundations of knowledge. It then addresses how Descartes' famed method of doubt figures in his treatment of the two doctrines. Descartes on InnatenessThe how-question most characteristic of the rationalism-empiricism debate concerns the origin of mental content. Rationalism standardly affirms a doctrine of innate mental content. Talk of innateness may be applied to a variety of items, including ideas (both sensations and concepts), truths, and knowledge. Ideas are at the center of much of the early modern debate. 1 A near litmus test of one's camp is a commitment to, or against, innate ideas -specifically, innate concepts. Our focus will be on concepts, by which I mean general ideas -those with general content. (Innate truths also come into play, where truths and concepts amount to distinct ways of regarding eternal essences -more on this below.) Below, I develop three aspects of Descartes' account: the criterion of innateness, the innateness of sensations, and the dispositional element of innateness. The criterion of innatenessWhat, according to Descartes, makes ideas innate rather than non-innate? Descartes introduces a threefold distinction of ideas by way of ...

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