Can I know anything?
Socrates famously declared that he knew nothing. What do you think you know? Anything? In this module, we will examine a very famous skeptical argument—René Descartes’ famous argument that he cannot be certain of anything except the fact that he exists. After all, he argues, “as long as I am thinking I know something exists—the being that is doing the thinking.” The problem he struggles with is that of showing that his knowledge extends to anything beyond his own thoughts, since it seems that we can never rule out the possibility that we’re misrepresenting whatever we are thinking about.
Of course, what philosophical skeptics like Descartes worry about is very esoteric, not obviously related to our experience of everyday life. Descartes himself acknowledges that these are questions that a person without a special interest in philosophy might not be terribly concerned about, which is why he makes an effort to put his meditations on the subject in the form of a dramatic story about being overcome by doubt about his ability to trust his idea of reality. These skeptical doubts represent philosophical problems that have motivated some important developments in our thinking about the nature of mind and the role of abstract reasoning in science. We will then view the classic film, The Matrix, which uses the premises of Cartesian skepticism in its depiction of a disytopic future world.
Module Outline
To complete this module:
Read: Meditations 1 and 2 | Descartes (with Audio Option)
Watch: Movie: The Matrix | Netflix
Watch: Video: Lecture on Meditation 1
Watch: Video: Lecture on Meditation 2
Participate in the discussion (30 points)
https://www.netflix.com/title/20557937
