Re: KuJomu - the writing

>No he doesn't. When I said that his "discours de la m�thode" is really an
>introduction to the M�ditations M�taphysiques, I meant it really. The method of
>reason he uses in the M�ditations has already been discussed and justified in
>the Discours (successfully I don't know, since I didn't read this one), as at
>least a *valid* way of exploring reality (maybe not the only one, but if done
>correctly, its results are as true as we can get). Anyway, his method is not
>postulated without saying. He spent a full work on justifying it. Now, you may
>disagree with his justifications (I don't know, I didn't read it. I just
>remember the bit about it in the prologue of the Meditations), but you cannot
>say that he just postulated it.
I didn't read it either, but my point is, a human mind, using human ways of
thinking can not proove human ways of thinking are right. if human ways of
thinking are failable, then using a human reasoning to proove that human
reasonig is correct is a none sense. i agree as far as you(or descartes) say it
is "as true as we can get". But i think we can not state it is absolutrly true.



> I disagree. Any result found through reason is
>> reasonable. that's all. Nothing says the world (what ever it is) has to
>> comply to reason. So as long as no one has demonstrated reason(good
>> luck!),
>
>Well, Descartes claims he has in his Discours (it's not for nothing that it's
>called "Discours de la M�thode").
see above

> philosophy can not proove anything (science either, btw), it can
>> only suggest what is reasonalbe to think.
>>
>
>There is only one thing really wrong in your thinking: you take it that
>Descartes tried to prove his own existence, or the existence of the "ego".
>You're wrong. It has nothing to do with a demonstration. The existence of
>the "ego", the "sum", is *not* the result of a reasonable series of thoughts.
>The "sum" *preceeds* any rhetorical justification, and the whole point of
>Descartes's first meditation was not to *prove* the "cogito, sum", but to
>recognise what's unavoidable: the existence of the ego, not as *consequence* of
>something, but as preceeding any consequence.
Yes, and it does it pretty good. Except that i consider that we can not know if a
human mind is "clever" (i think the term is not good, but i don't find a more
apropriate one) enough to think of all the possibilities. Maybe there is
another possibility for doubting without existing, that is not acceptabe for a
human mind. Or maybe the simple concept of existing is a mistake.


>The problem with your discussion
>is that you say as much as you want that you may not exist yourself, or even
>deny your own existence, the very fact that you utter or even think those
>sentences claims your very existence (what sense can you give then to a
>sentence which means something but exists only if it's wrong?). It's not a
>matter of whether reality follows reason or anything like that (that's a
>critique that can be told to Descartes about the rest of his book, but not
>about the first meditation). It's not even a matter of whether you can imagine
>that you don't exist or not (I know I can, so strange as it may seem :))) . But
>I also know that what I imagine then, whether implies the existence of
>something else, if not me, or is plain *wrong*). It's a matter that as soon as
>you're even simply conscious, you're claiming your very existence to yourself,
>whether you want it or not, and there's no honest way to deny it. It's not a
>necessary consequence of your thinking, nor even really a cause of it. It's
>*there*, whether you like it or not. You can deny it as much as you want, the
>simple fact that you deny it wouldn't happen (I don't even say "be possible", I
>just say "happen") if you didn't exist. It's not a matter of whether reality
>follows reason or not, nor whether you can imagine all that there can be (I
>agree with you on that point, but it's an irrelevant one). It's just
>unavoidable. More than a fact, a cause or a consequence, it's a *definition*,
>an undeniable definition. And what's truth besides an unavoidable and
>undeniable definition (undeniable, not in the sense that you cannot deny it,
>but in the sense that denying it is just plain *wrong*. As I said, if you don't
>exist, you're not denying anything, not because of a reason, but by definition).
>
>Of course, I repeat that the rest of Descartes's philosophy is doubtful and is
>full of holes. But the "cogito" is not, not as a consequence of something, not
>as a proven fact, but as an unavoidable definition, something which is as near
>as truth as you can get.
All this seems completly logical to me, and i can not find anything to say this
reasoning is wrong. I am not doubting this reasoning, or my owm existence, i am
doubting reason.