Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Descartes' Cogito
- 1 The Prolegomena to Any Future Epistemology
- 2 The Problem of Epistemology
- 3 The Solution: Cogito
- 4 A Skeptic against Reason
- 5 The Five Ways
- 6 Cogito: Not an Argument
- 7 The Content of the Cogito
- 8 Memory, Explanation, and Will
- Appendix A Comments on Jeffrey Tlumak's “Certainty and Cartesian Method”
- Appendix B Comments on Robert Nozick's “Fiction”
- Appendix C Cogito and the Port-Royal Logic
- Appendix D Bacon and Descartes
- Appendix E Comments on Anthony Kenny's “Descartes on the Will”
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Appendix D - Bacon and Descartes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Descartes' Cogito
- 1 The Prolegomena to Any Future Epistemology
- 2 The Problem of Epistemology
- 3 The Solution: Cogito
- 4 A Skeptic against Reason
- 5 The Five Ways
- 6 Cogito: Not an Argument
- 7 The Content of the Cogito
- 8 Memory, Explanation, and Will
- Appendix A Comments on Jeffrey Tlumak's “Certainty and Cartesian Method”
- Appendix B Comments on Robert Nozick's “Fiction”
- Appendix C Cogito and the Port-Royal Logic
- Appendix D Bacon and Descartes
- Appendix E Comments on Anthony Kenny's “Descartes on the Will”
- Bibliography
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Descartes is remarkably united with Sir Francis Bacon in his logic of discovery. They both doubted and rejected the ancient systems of knowledge and the unexamined evidence of the senses. The human mind, said Bacon in The New Organon, is beset by idols of four kinds: Idols of the Tribe, Idols of the Cave, Idols of the Marketplace, and Idols of the Theater. The Idols of the Tribe represent general human failings in virtue of humanity's mental make-up; Idols of the Cave represent failure owing to the peculiarities of the individual; Idols of the Marketplace reflect the poor choice of language that obstructs the understanding; and finally, Idols of the Theater represent the various outmoded ancient and modern philosophical systems. The mind had to be purged of these idols in order that true inquiry could begin.
But one also has to cast out the old logic:
As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.
(B, 41)Again:
The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.
(B, 41)So learned disputations had to be replaced by experiments. Experiments must be performed that are of “no use in themselves but simply serve to discover causes and axioms” (B, 96).
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- Descartes' CogitoSaved from the Great Shipwreck, pp. 284 - 286Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003