Why is Descartes important?

What we’re seeing here is basically Ibn Al-Haytham. Lel. Descartes is a copier

>it's true
fuck this french faggot

What the fuck did he think proof looked like?
>see, the dog is only behaving exactly as if it were in agony because that is what the machine is programmed to do
>je suis tres intelligente

yo tf this nigga had on his head to draw them eyes like that one on top the other how does that make sense

The Sceptical Argument is actually somewhat hard to argue against unless one is willing to deny closure under known entailment. Here is a formulation I wrote of it once: it is somewhat clunky but should work.

1. If it is possible to have certain knowledge of the external world, we must be able to trust the information given to us through the senses.
2. If we are able to trust the information given to us through the senses then either our senses must always reliably inform us or we must be able to always determine when our senses are reliably informing us, and when our senses are not.
3. There exist certain possible scenarios in which our senses do not reliably inform us.
4. So, (from 2 and 3) if we able to trust the information given to us through our senses, then we must able to always determine when our senses are reliably informing us, and when our senses are not.
5. If we are able to always determine when our senses are reliably informing us, and when our senses are not, then we must know of some indubitable method of determining when our senses are reliable and when our senses are not.
6. If we can have knowledge of some indubitable method of determining when our senses are reliable, and when our senses are not, we must either know of this method through the senses or in a way not reliant on sense experience.
7. But we cannot know of this method through the senses, for, unless the method is known, we cannot trust the information given to us through our senses.
8. We cannot know of this method in a way not reliant on sense experience.
9. So (from 6, 7 and 8) we cannot have knowledge of some indubitable method of determining when our senses are reliable and when our senses are not.
10. So (from 5 and 9) we are not able to always determine when our senses are reliably informing us and when our senses are not.
11. So (from 4 and 10) we are not able to trust the information given to us through the senses.
12. So (from 1 and 11) it is not possible to have certain knowledge of the external world.

I believe that each of the premises are relatively straightforward, but, since the skeptical argument in general is prone to being misunderstood, I shall offer a cursory reasoning for each. I do not see how premise one could be reasonably doubted as because the mind only comes into contact with the external world through the senses, it would seem impossible to gain knowledge of the external world independent of the senses. From this it follows that if the senses were not trustworthy, then it would not be possible to know about the external world.
However, in order to trust the senses, it seems that one of two things must be true: either our senses always reliably inform us, or we are able to determine when our senses are reliably informing us and when they are not.
But, as premise three points out, it is not the case that our senses always reliably inform us: there exist many possible scenarios where our senses could be giving us completely false impressions. For example, Descartes in his first meditation, spotlights the possibility that at any moment our senses may be deceptive, for it is indeed possible that we might currently be not awake but dreaming. And in a dream our senses give us false impressions of the external world (we might feel as if we are wearing shoes, while in fact we are lying on a couch shoeless). It is also possible, if not perhaps very plausible, that we might be currently deceived by a malicious and all-powerful demon, in which case our senses could also fail utterly to map onto the external world. Hence, since it is possible that our senses might give us false impressions of the external world, it cannot be true that our senses always reliably inform us.
That eliminates one of the disjuncts in premise two, so that it seems that, in order to trust the senses we must somehow be able to test when our senses are being reliable and when they are not.
However, such a test is not available to us, for while there is no way that we could somehow deduce a perfect test for accurate sense experience independent of sense experience , it would also seem impossible to deduce such a test based on experience, as I do not believe that it would be possible to confirm or falsify the notion that the test itself was a valid one, or that the test had even been properly applied.
But if there is no such test, then the apodosis of premise four does not hold, and thus, by modus tollens, we can infer that the protasis of that premise is negated. We cannot trust the information given to us through our senses.
But if we cannot trust the information given to us through our senses, then we would know (again by modus tollens) that it is not the case that it is possible to have certain knowledge of the objective world.
So, the argument concludes, it is not possible to have certain knowledge of the objective world.

Cartesian dualism is the bedrock of European philosophy. He was pretty dumb as shit in certain instances but his restraint on what he could and couldn't comment on was and continues to be impressive. While his method of doubt was the philosophical equivalent of scrabbling about in the darkness of a cave, there's a sense he's able to map out the interior architecture through this process. And while his scientific knowledge was certainly lacking, his introspection is almost unparalleled for his time. The only other thinker who might compare is Montaigne

Hey professor, can I skip the writing assignment coming up?

Did Descartes
depart
with the thought
"Therefore I'm not"?

because he is mediterranean ubermensch

>check em

GIVE.
HER.
THE.
DICK.

>dualism is the bedrock of European philosophy
>[citation needed]

I thought it was the Greeks who had the much more accurate monistic idea, of the person being akin to a piece of music, which has a beginning, continues a while, and then ends. Having various features and aspects and mystery, but ontologically whole. Dunno where I got that from.[citaiton needed]

But unless there's a period of southern travel I'm unaware of, he spent his life in the northwest, a good deal away from the Mediterranean. Benelux, France, and Germany. At the end of his life he was on a poor assignment to tutor a queen/princess in Sweden, which wasn't going well, where he took ill and died.

He died precisely because his meditteranean self couldn't endure the cold of Sweden.

Again, Sweden being fucking cold and killing the visitor, whose constitution is not quite used to it, doesn't necessitate that so-and-so is "Mediterranean". I've never heard of Descartes spending any time or having any immediate ethnic connection to the south, and so I think that the connection is unjustified. If this is wrong, by all means explain why.

Well, he died of cold. Who does that ? Only Spics.

Also look at his facial hair.

spics? he wasn't mexican

Checked

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he's NOT

NEXT

I can dismiss you on actual serious/substantive grounds, got it. Thanks for making that clear to me.

a snow nigger in the sahara dessert is still a snow nigger

Because he's quotable and it sell,
otherwise he's not.

>dualism

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